The Top 6 SEO Resources for Bloggers

For anyone involved in SEO, staying on top of the game is a difficult task thanks to the unpredictable nature of the business. As a blogger, however, it’s almost impossible—all you want to be doing is writing great content and generating traffic, right? Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, things change in the blink of an eye, so keeping tabs on the latest SEO witchcraft inevitably demands a lot of research off the clock.

Occasionally, we republish blog posts, press releases and other commentaries of interest to our community. This piece was a guest post is by Matt Beswick and appeared on Pro Blogger

The following websites are the best references on the web for anyone who wants to keep up with what’s happening, and make sure that their site isn’t doing anything that risks putting them out of favour with the big G!

SEOmoz

Since 2004, SEOmoz has been one of the most highly respected sites online when it comes to providing top-notch SEO analysis, advice and knowledge.

Their accumulated SEO wisdom is practical and credible, thanks to their renowned staff of expert authors. With plenty of general articles and loads of quick, helpful tidbits, SEOmoz istheultimate SEO destination for many in the industry.

Search Engine Roundtable

Maintaining one’s relevance in an industry that changes as quickly as SEO is a challenge. That’s where Search Engine Roundtable comes in.

Like the Slashdot of SEO forums, it reports on the best writing in the field and compiles it into a running commentary on the state of the industry. Featuring some of the most insightful analysis of the Search Engine Marketing world available, Search Engine Roundtable is a must-read.

Search Engine Land

Covering literally every aspect of SEO and online marketing under the sun, Search Engine Land is a favourite among SEOs in every niche.

Boasting regular full-length articles by some of the most recognised names in the business, it’s practically a necessity for those who wish to stay ahead of the curve on SEO matters.

Whether you’re after how-to tutorials, buyers’ guides, or white papers from the web’s biggest tech companies, Search Engine Land has it all.

State of Search

A relative newcomer to the scene, State of Search is nevertheless one of the most reliable sources for SEO news and views that you can find.

In addition to their in-depth coverage and superb articles, they also boast a newsletter, weekly podcasts on Webmaster Radio, and a whole lot more.

Bolstered by a loyal and growing fan base of SEO professionals, amateurs and freelancers, State of Search is one site that shouldn’t be ignored.

Search Engine Journal

Taking the traditional SEO journal format and spicing it up with some extra goodness, Search Engine Journal delivers the goods on a consistent basis.

The forums are a veritable Algonquin Round Table of SEO discourse and are a terrific resource in and of themselves. On top of stellar articles and opinion pieces, this site also claims some of the best SEO link-building tools out there.

Google Webmaster Central

Google dominates so much of our online lives that it’s no wonder we spend so much time and effort optimising pages for their algorithms. When in doubt, going straight to the source for the best information on optimising for those algorithms is a pretty smart move.

Google Webmaster Central is the official SEO blog for the world’s biggest search engine company. To get the sanctioned party line from Google’s top brass and read helpful, informative posts by the likes of Matt Cutts, head here first.

Over and Out

The moral of the story is that the laws of entropy apply to SEO just as they do to the rest of the universe: without a constant input of effort, it’s easy to fall out of the loop and lose your handle on what’s hot in the ever-exciting world of SEO.

Fortunately, it’s quite easy to stay on top of current developments by checking these sites regularly—they’re quite simply the best of the best when it comes to doing your industry homework. If you can recommend others, though, let us know about them in the comments.

Matt Beswick is a digital consultant based in the UK, specialising in SEO, and also runs Pet365. Find him on Twitter @mattbeswick.

Expert Tips for Optimizing LinkedIn for Lead Generation

Occasionally, we republish blog posts, press releases and other commentaries of interest to our community. This piece By Jason Miller, Published October 5, 2012, appeared on Business 2 Community 

There are certain go-to experts when it comes to LinkedIn strategies for b2b marketing professionals and Neal Schaffer is always at the top of that list. A Forbes Top 30 Social Media Power Influencer and creator of the AdAge Top 100 Global Marketing Blog Windmill Networking, Neal is a popular social media conference speaker who is also known for his award-winning and critically acclaimed social media books: ”Maximizing LinkedIn for Sales and Social Media Marketing” and “Windmill Networking: Maximizing LinkedIn.” Recently I caught up with Neal and he answered some of the top questions facing businesses who are looking to optimize their presence on LinkedIn.

Marketo: What are your top tips for a company to build an engaging and well optimized LinkedIn business page?

Neal Schaffer: I have three tips for building a successful company page. Number one, attract followers and leverage company page status updates. Building company followers adds social proof and lends credibility to your company profile. These followers then see your updates and have the option to engage and amplify your messaging.

Number two, set up your page for success with SEO. For search engine optimization within LinkedIn, it really comes down to including keyword rich descriptions on your company page, product and services tabs, and representing your company everywhere you have operations. All of these elements are an essential part of the SEO approach.

Number three, break out each one of your products and services and get recommendations for each. Within each of those product and services tabs is another exercise in SEO. Whether you add a link to a landing page or embed a Youtube video, your company page needs to fully develop all of the real estate that LinkedIn provides.

Marketo: In your book you discuss the importance of utilizing LinkedIn groups versus Facebook fan pages, can you touch on this?

Neal Schaffer: I think that a lot of companies still don’t understand the presence and the power of LinkedIn groups. These groups don’t exist on Twitter, Facebook or anywhere else, they are basically communities. If you turn the clock back ten to fifteen years, where were the bigger communities on the internet? They were in forums. I consider every LinkedIn group a public forum for professionals. With over one million groups on LinkedIn, it really is the largest place for public forums of professionals on the internet. Companies can leverage these groups in a number of ways and I think the most critical way is to build up your own community. This ultimately comes down to a content strategy.

The content that your company uses is critical. In my experience with B2B marketing, I’ve noticed that people don’t call for answers; instead, they search the internet for them. This means that you need to make sure your content is showing up in these search results. Your content will define the community and the users that you invite into that community. Then you can establish yourself as a thought leader. It’s a completely different concept than anything else out there in social media. It has far more potential when compared to a Facebook page. LinkedIn groups allow you to connect with new people and generate new leads as a result of the creation and fostering of that group.

Marketo: What are the top tips that you give businesses to get new followers on their company page?

Neal Schaffer: You know it’s funny, I think it’s just like any other social media presence you have. What did you do when you started a Twitter account? What did you do when you created a Facebook page? It all starts with integrating social media into everything you do. Do you also have a “follow us on LinkedIn” button on your website? Are you mentioning your company page in your blog? If you have outward facing staff such as sales and marketing people, are they promoting this through their personal status updates? If you have an e-mail newsletter, you should add that to the context in your next email and make sure you continue to include a link to your LinkedIn page on all of your newsletters going forward. It’s not rocket science, you just need to make sure that you are using all the marketing resources that you have available along with the virality of the network updates from your employees and brand advocates.

Marketo: How can a business best take advantage of using LinkedIn for lead generation?

Neal Schaffer: Well that leads into the general question; is LinkedIn for lead nurturing, lead generation or both? I consider it equally good for both and there are several ways a company can use LinkedIn for demand generation overall. The first thing to do is make sure every outward facing employee is active on LinkedIn. They should have a profile that is optimized because when people are looking at a company’s products and services, employee profiles are going to pop up in searches. Ideally each employee should have status updates about the company.

When it comes down to your prospective buyers and decision makers, it all depends on how they are using LinkedIn. These could be your present customers or brand advocates, and they can be people that forgot about you but are now suddenly searching for your brand because you popped up in their network updates. They’ll go to your page and that leads to conversations, which could generate new leads. I think it’s equally good for nurturing as it is for lead generation. Or it could be companies that you have never done business with before that discover you through search results or from the status updates of others in their networks. LinkedIn groups are great for demand generation as well. From a marketing perspective you can drive brand awareness and lead generation in groups. Moreover, groups are also a great place to have your sales and marketing people look for conversations that they can take offline.

Author:Jason Miller     Jason Miller on the Web Jason Miller on Facebook Jason Miller on Twitter Jason Miller on LinkedIn Jason Miller on Google Plus Jason Miller RSS Feed

Currently rocking the content and managing the social media strategy at Marketo which was recently named fastest growing private company of Silicon Valley. Fascinated by the science of marketing and truly humbled to be working alongside the smartest folks in marketing automation and revenue performance management software. 

In addition to… View full profile

This article originally appeared on Modern B2B Marketing – Marketo Best Practices Blog » B2B Marketing

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/expert-interviews/expert-tips-for-optimizing-linkedin-for-lead-generation-0295819#8Yvy3xmeuStofR74.99 

How Social Media Can Boost Your Page Rank

Occasionally, we republish blog posts, press releases and other commentaries of interest to our community. This piece By Cory Josue, Published October 4, 2012, appeared on Business 2 Community 

EMD or Exact Match Domain is the latest algorithm update that Google unleashed last Friday and honestly, I have a client which I think will be hit dramatically. Although the last time I checked, it was still stable but only days will tell if it will be kicked off on page 1 or not. It got me thinking, will all my previous link building efforts put to waste? What can I do to salvage the site? And what will be the next factor that Google will consider in their algorithm update? Will it still be content? Links from established sites? Or is it going to be social media?

Of course, I’ve been doing quality content for the Philippine Plastic Surgeon (that’s the site by the way) since I began my career in SEO and I’ve been tapping various websites related to the niche to make a guest posts but honestly, the ratio of a site that answers to my email is 1:5. So, I told myself, I might as well focus on social media because 1. it is one of the fastest ways to be known and 2. just in case it will be Google’s focus in the next changes.

But will social media really be a consideration in the future? And how will it boost your page rank?

Fresh Content

Just like in SEO, your social media account should have fresh content so that your followers and readers will have something to look forward too. And, I’ve noticed too that since I’ve become more active on Twitter, when I type my name on Google, it is now in the top five. Mind you, I wasn’t very active two months ago and my Twitter handle does not even show up in Google! I just make sure though that I only tweet useful information to my followers; but don’t forget to put a link to your SEO site, too! The key hear is sending positive signal to Google.

Engage

Engage with your followers and fans so that they will know you on a more personal level. Getting Likes, +1’s and retweets sends a signal to Google that your content is to be trusted. Also, if you found useful information from others, pay it forward. Engaging with your followers is also the first step in building your online reputation.

Monitor Your Site

There are tools available on the web that can help you monitor how your site is doing. Social signals are already incorporated into Google’s analytics so you can view how many RT’s, or +1’s you are getting. You can derive useful information from this through knowing which topics or strategies are most useful for your followers or readers.

In the case of the Philippine Plastic Surgeon, I set-up a Google+ and Twitter account for Dr. Edwin Magallona and advised him to update it at least once a week because followers like it if it is personal and get first-hand information from an expert. As of the moment, he’s still learning the ropes and who knows, he might get addicted to it in the future.

Author:Cory Josue     Cory Josue on the Web Cory Josue on Facebook Cory Josue on Twitter Cory Josue on Google Plus Cory Josue RSS Feed

Cory Josue graduated from the Philippine Women’s University with a degree in Communication Arts. When she was 17, she wrote for an online company and specialized on art and book reviews. As of the moment, she works as a SEO specialist for DigitalMoz, a SEO company based in the… View full profile

This article is an original contribution by Cory Josue.

Find out how you can become a part of Business 2 Community.

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/social-media/how-social-media-can-boost-your-page-rank-0298672#bZmuPWa1oOOGgmTr.99 

Small Business Marketing: Optimizing for a Local Audience

This article originally appeared on PRWeb

Unless you are reading this post very late at night; take a moment, close your eyes and think about the last search you did on your phone.

Was your stomach rumbling which initiated a search for ‘pizza’ or were you running in-between meetings and needed a quick stop at a coffee shop? In this, and hundreds of other scenarios, you are expecting the technology behind your phone and the search engine to deliver results that are relevant to your current location. And they both deliver, a million times over.

In fact, according to Google, 40% of mobile searches are local in intent. Combine this with the projection that by 2014, mobile internet use should overtake desktop use and it may be time for a mobile marketing awakening.

Any small business with an opportunity to attract and sell to a local audience can benefit from local optimization.

Evaluate Your Audience

As with any marketing initiative, it’s always important to evaluate your target audience. There are a plethora of scenarios where it absolutely makes sense to have local marketing efforts. A few of the quickest examples include restaurants, retail shops and local-intent services such as dog grooming, salons, health and fitness, etc. The list goes on.

If your small business marketing strategy already includes a focus on local optimization, leverage your customer database to mine data and potentially uncover new opportunities. For example, if you can export a list of all customers from the last 12 months and then sort by zip code.

Is there a concentration of customers from an area of the city – outside of your specific location - that surprises you? If so, this can help guide your local optimization efforts to include information relevant to that part of the city and ultimately cultivate new clients.

However, there are also scenarios where Local Optimization may not be the highest priority, if you are looking to prioritize. For example, if you are creating medical device implants and your audience is national and you don’t openly invite drop-in visits there may be other high-impactsmall business marketing tactics to pursue first.

Know the Local Search Landscape

To uncover opportunities for local optimization, start first with checking your current site analytics. Specifically, look for:

• Broad, competitive phrases where you aren’t on Page 1 in Google and therefore likely your site showed up in local results – i.e. pizza
• Broad, Geo-Modified phrases – i.e. Washington DC pizza
• Specific, Geo-Modified phrases – i.e. Dupont Circle pizza

Next, perform test searches to see where your site is ranking for terms which are sending traffic to your website and those which aren’t sending traffic but are relevant. Try variations including different search engines, mobile vs. desktop and even do test searches when you are away from your location for a more realistic experience.

With this information, you can identify:

• Keywords where you are receiving traffic, but could benefit from higher visibility
• Keywords where your site isn’t on page 1, but should be

Apply Local Optimization

Leveraging the keywords identified in test searches, you can apply local optimization to the following.

• Google+ Local (formerly known as Google Places)
  1. Make sure you set up and optimize local listings, which is critical in alerting Google to your location(s)
• Your Website
  1. Identify opportunities to incorporate keywords into the site that represent high-priority phrases. Key pages include; home page, about us, locations and contact us page
• Content (Blog Posts, Press Releases & Social Media)
  1. Blog Posts – consider created a series of localized content, such as a blog post featuring each location and what makes each one unique
  2. Press Releases – from localizing your city, MSA, keyword optimization in the post and boiler plate, press releases offer strong local signals
  3. Social Media – leverage similar efforts as the blog posts and feature your location(s) within social media content, your customers, new offerings etc all to create a larger online footprint of locally-optimized content

Localize & Measure

Go forth and localize! And when you do, it’s important to benchmark current results so you can understand what’s working and what’s not post-optimization.

Here are a few items to measure along the way:

1. Sales
2. Foot Traffic (if appropriate)
3. Changes / Increases in search engine traffic (keyword referrals)
4. Search Visibility
5. Referrals from Social Media / Press Release Channels

With mobile searches increasing, and search engines making a more concerted effort to deliver local results across a wide spectrum of intent-based phrases, there’s no time like the present to start optimizing for local audiences. Do you have a unique approach you have tried when trying to spur local interest? Share with us below and we’ll pick the five we feel are the most creative comments and send a free copy of Marketing in the Round, by Gini Dietrich and Geoff Livingtsonto any US postal address.

Universal Media Consultants Uses Targeted Advertising and High-Tech Social Media Tactics to Distribute Messages Around the Globe

SUMMARY

Universal Media Consultants is a targeted marketing and advertising agency that will employ all manners of media in order to build and enhance a client's brand. From traditional press releases to Hi-tech social media marketing, the aim is simple. To multiply message impact and client exposure in highly targeted markets, quickly, imaginatively, and cost-effectively.

At Universal Media Consultants, we are experts at targeted advertising and high-tech social media marketing that allows the delivery of a company’s message to the masses.

While every business provides a service or sells a product, publicity and public awareness is the lifeblood of all business, as its success or failure depends on its depth of consumer awareness. Whether the goal is to drive in customers to increase sales and revenue, or to bring attention to a cause or message, to be successful, one must gain massive media exposure to capture broader public interest and awareness.

That’s exactly what UMC specializes in doing. UMC stands alone with the ability to effectively communicating messages to a highly targeted audience that has the circulation power to redistribute that message to the masses. The primary goal is to directly affect client’s bottom-line.

UMC stands far above the competition. How?

At the core of UMC’s technology marketing practice is the unmatched ability to combine traditional marketing and advertising with new social media technologies not utilized by other advertising firms.

Like any respectable advertising and marketing firm, UMC is tapped into the most comprehensive database in the industry, filled with detailed information about more than 1.4 million global media contacts and nearly 1 million US journalists, bloggers and radio and TV media outlets. But that’s only the beginning. It’s what UMC does next that sets it apart from the competition. UMC is one of the World’s foremost experts in manipulating social media exposure to increase client’s sales and leverage client’s brand.

UMC is the only targeted marketing and advertising agency that can fully harness the persuasive power of multiple technologies to deliver a message to the largest possible audience and deliver clients the largest return on their investment.

UMC clients have run the gambit. From celebrities, recording artist and politicians, to “mom and pop” local and internet businesses. The scale of UMC services and pricing can easily accommodate any budget.

UMC understands that targeted marketing is part of any successful sales process, and is a tool to make clients more profitable. By targeting the right marketing audience, UMC assures clients the maximum return on investment.

Want to increase sales, drive traffic to a website or promote a message to the masses?

If so, contact UMC today by calling 1-205-588-5588. UMC can also be contacted via the web at Universal Media Consultants, for a free evaluation of advertising needs.

At Universal Media Consultants, the capabilities are unrivaled. The reach is limitless.

About Universal Media Consultants

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UMC provides strategic and very targeted media relations and marketing services to assist clients with a wide range of advertising that includes: campaign launches, brand positioning, business-to-business marketing, business to consumer marketing, cause marketing initiatives, special events, product launches, sponsorship activity, strategic alliances and tradeshow support; to name just a few. Additionally, the company provides specialized services to investor relations and investor awareness industries.

5 Ways to Improve Your Google Ranking Using Social Media

Social Media Zone...By Vicki Flaugher, aka @Smartwoman, a digital marketing consultant

I’m a Google freak. I love it! I know what life was like before Google and I can tell you it was no life at all. Even with the doom and gloom prophecies about Google taking over the world and stealing everyone’s data (see the Google Domination graphic to the right), I still love Google. It makes my life easier. It provides me with info and fun. Yes, I am a total Google fan girl.


Too often, I see social media dropping the ball on interfacing like they could and not using solid SEO principles to move their message forward. Today, we are going to tackle some of those issues with 5 ways to to improve your Google ranking using social media(for a primer on SEO and what that means for Google search, click here).

#1 – Pump out more blog content and include it in your social stream

The best way to get noticed by the spider bots and to get more result listings in Google is to have more content. Extra points when the content is so compelling that people love to share it. Focus on using your keywords, include your name,  an active hyperlink to your social media, social media icon sharing buttons, and a great keyword rich title and description to your post. Install an SEO plugin so that it’s easy to add SEO meta-data to your posts and add the keywords related to the post rather than just general keywords related to your business.
Remember that, generally speaking, people linking in to you is better than you linking to them so use your social to get people talking about you and provide them with links that go to a relevant page that is properly tagged with keywords that Google can appreciate.

#2 – Get more links

Reach out for guest blog opportunities and mentions in other people’s material. Include a one sentence blurb about re-publishing your posts with a resource box (which will include your bio and an active link back to your site), at the end of your posts, so people can share your content on their site. Share the post freely via social media and that will pay off.
Be openly and expressly giving with your resources, mentions, thank you’s, and social media sharing. One of the best ways I’ve found to do this is to feature other people in your social stream. Many people will mention me back and if I’ve been generous enough, they will write a blog post about me and link to my site, or ask me to write for them, or ask me if they can use one of my articles, or interview me, etc.

#3 – Give more interviews

If you present yourself via social media as someone who is easy to reach, people will reach out. If your About Me page on your site doesn’t include a way to reach you easily, fix that. Answer your private messages and direct messages on social (or at least have your VA alert you when those things come in). Be responsive. Demonstrate that on social and pretty soon it will be synonymous with your brand.
When you get the interviews, provide them with your profile bio that includes an active link to your site. Add meta-tags to your bio picture and have relevant anchor text on the hyperlink. Giving this to a host so they don’t have to do it is always appreciated and I’ve never had anyone go back and strip out the do-follow hyperlink. Promote the interview when it’s posted to encourage a virtuous cycle of sharing.

#4 – Make more comments

Google terms that are used by your target audience, go visit the top ranking blogs, and make a keyword rich and value added comment to a blog post there. Instead of linking back to your site (which we’ve talked about before), put in your Facebook fan page or your Twitter URL. Connecting via social is an intermediate loyalty step to subscribing to your blog and is generally easier to get a conversion for. Make it easy for people to continue to develop a friendship with you. (I use CommentKahuna to do this)
This is a more roundabout way to get Google mentions – it’s not that someone linking to your Facebook page is going to directly rank you higher or will automatically be caught in the listing, but rather that Google is now taking your mentions and your social media influence into account when serving up results. You want other people mentioning you – it all adds up to being a more yummy treat for Google.

#5 – Be more sharable

Give your visitors an easy way to share what you do. Keep your tweets under 120 characters so it’s easy to retweet. Write a great hook on a Facebook link share, adding your own commentary. Compel!! Make your content worth sharing. Ask people to share without being a pest. Make  your content make them look good. I know I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating.
As often as we talk about being social, for me, it’s actually all about content marketing. I confess that I might be a hammer looking for a nail all the time, but here’s the short of it – most people are lurkers. They want to find stuff worth sharing because they are not content creators. If you are, you can fairly easily become a thought leader in your space if you find your voice, create compelling content, and share it via social. Google finds you when you are putting out great content. Do that, like yesterday, OK?

Go Google Yourself Right Now

I dare ya. Do it. You might be upset by what you find (or don’t find) there. The good news is it can be improved by just paying a bit more attention, with understanding SEO just a bit more. Not all of these techniques are a straight shot to success but they do work. Start today and within 90 days or so, you will see a difference if you do the above items. Seriously, it works. Try it!
[grapic by jurvetson]