Well, I am happy to report that my main homepage for our Online Marketplace, ESalesGuru.com jumped from a Google PR of 3 to 5 this week! Yes, I know, Page Rank is not everything, but a  2 point jump in a week is a positive step towards Search Engine Supremacy in my market segment!

With the Page Rank jump, I spent some time this week reflecting on the SEO tasks and activites we had performed over the past few months that might have helped the cause here. Now, before I share my "Simple Truth" (and I mean simple), I must make the disclaimer that I am not a Search Engine Optimization Guru in any way, shape or form. Yes, I read a lot of Search Marketing blogs, ebooks, ezines etc…, but am really just trying to keep up with this rapidly evolving industry like every other business.

Now, as I reviewed our many activities, it all came down to this one simple truth: A steady steam of relevant and keyword-targeted content was the cornerstone to our Search Engine Optimization success! You are probably saying to yourself, "Craig, you are a rocket-scientist, this is revolutionary - NOT! Everybody knows that "Content is King". Yes, content is king no doubt, but what separates the successful SEO campaigns from the medeocre ones is the ability to produce the RIGHT content with the RIGHT keywords via the RIGHT distribution channels. This is where certain web companies leave others in the dust! Not to say that we have arrived with our own SEO efforts, but we are certainly starting to reap the benefits of our content creation and distribution strategies.

I would say right now that 70%+ of our content distribution has occurred via a multitude of Social Media channels, such as Scribd, Digg, Squidoo and Delicious. The other 30% has been focussed on Article Syndication using such tools at ArticleMarketer as well as manual submission to industry-specific article directories.  In looking at our recent results, we have big plans in 2008 to escalate our content writing and syndication via powerful new social media outlets such as Hubpages. There is definitely a Big Web 2.0 Wave that each of us can ride for a time that will be instrumental in improving our SE results.

 For those of you that are still trying to ascertain what keywords you need to be optimizing your content for, I would suggest a couple quick strategies:

1. We started regularly using Word Tracker to find those long-tail keywords that saw the best volume but had the fewest competitors. It does take some some time to separate the wheat from the chaff, but well worth it! You can also use other tools like Keyword Discovery and SEOdigger to help the cause as well. Also, I had featured Hittail a couple weeks back - another great tool that idenfies those long-tail keywords (3-4+ keyword phrases) you might consider using in your blog posts, articles and website content.

2.  I would run a PPC campaign via Google (and possibly Yahoo and MSN) and identify those particular keywords that are converting at the highest level over a period of time and start to optimize those in your website content and syndicate articles and such based around those keywords. This can take 2-3+ months to determine, but again, well worth it in order to target the most relevant keywords for your site and user audience.

In my next post, I am going to outline the most effective traditional and Social Media channels for distributing your relevant content. Have a great weekend everyone!

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Over the past few months, I have become a student of Social Media Marketing and reading everything I can get my hands on regarding the growing role Social Media is playing in many companies’ marketing efforts.

I compiled my thoughts into an article I wrote that was published at SiteProNews.com yesterday. Check out this article titled: "Is Social Media Marketing Really Worth Your Time and Effort?"

Enjoy!

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Prior to my to career in the Online Industry, I worked with the Federal Government and was always amazed at the copious amount of acronyms that government people would use for virtually anything. Now, after working in the Online space for a few years, I would have to say Internet Marketers would certainly be able to  easily compete for the greatest amount of acronyms used on a daily basis:)

Just, if you are wondering, what the heck SMO and SMM stands for, let me enlighten you….

(SMO) Social Media Optimization and (SMM) Social Media Marketing and are two Web 2.0 marketing tactics I have been studying and implementing over the last few months in my own businesses.

While, there are some different definitions on these two tactics, this is the easiest way I can think of to explain them…

SMO is all ON-SITE activities employed to make your site more social search friendly. Whereas, SMM are all OFF-SITE activities used to leverage your business reach and exposure through social media channels. Rather then jumping to theoretical mumbo jumbo, let me give you some practical examples of the activities that could be employed for both SMO and SMM:

Social Media Optimization:

• Social Bookmark Tools - I would recommend utilizing a social bookmark tool like Addthis.com so that you can make your pages easily bookmarked and saved in such sites as Delicious, Digg and Stumbleupon.
• RSS Feeds - Implementing RSS Feed capabilities in order to quickly syndicate your dynamic content (Articles, Newsletter etc…)
• Blogs - Building a Business Blog with fresh "keyword targeted" content.
• Wikis and Social Networks - Creating targeted Wikis and Social Networks for your user audience to interact and contribute to your site content.

Social Media Marketing:

Imp note: I can’t emphasize enough that incorporating a "Hard Sell" approach with your SMM strategies could potentially back fire and cause negative brand exposure for your business. SMM is  simply about engaging your targeted audience in a natural (non-salesy) way, dialoguing with your community at large and providing a relevant and appropriate contribution. Through those activities, you will find natural ways to talk about your business or service in a way that doesn’t bring a "hard sell" tactic.

• Interacting with targeted blogs and forums - One of the best way to see targeted traffic to your site is to regularly dialogue and provide comments on blogs and forums in your specific industry. It is important to build relationship, provide relevant insights and look for natural ways to talk about your own business. While this approach is not a "quick fix", it can definitely provide a nice targeted stream of traffic over the long term and ultimately improve your link popularity. Quite often, I will provide a comment for a blog I regularly read and just insert my URL under my name. Other times, I will actually reference my business if I feel it is appropriate and fits with the conversation. You might check out Google/Blog Search and Board Reader to help you identify the types of blogs and forums you would like to dialogue with.

• Wiki Contributor - You might consider perusing some relevant topics in Wikipedia (and other industry specific wikis) and contribute some content and look for ways to submit a link for your business.
• Blog Syndication - Recently, I have been using a great new tool, Web2submitter, to quickly syndicate my blog posts to top Social News sites (ie. Digg, Reddit), which has resulted in a nice new stream of traffic.
• Other Social Media - There are cool user generated sites like Squidoo, where you can build a "Lens" on a particular topic you are well versed in. This topic will likely relate to your business, providing yet another targeted stream of traffic.
• Podcast and Viral Video Syndication - This will require a bit more work, but to creating a relevant and interesting podcast and syndicating it through itunes or such networks as podfeed can be a great SMM tactic. Viral VIdeos certainly take some thought and discretion in order to make sure that your video gets passed around for the right reasons:) That is the slippery slope of SMM - the potential for bad publicity.

So, Just a few ideas on how you might use SMO or SMM in your own business endeavors… Until next time!!

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2007 is the year of the Social Community! The growth of existing social communities such as StumbleUpon.com and the emergence of all sorts of new and targeted social networks will certainly have an impact on how we market on the web moving forward!

I have recently invested more time leveraging popular social communities to drive traffic and have been pleased with the results. I am still learning and testing out ideas, but with the right set of stratgies, a business can certainly find effective ways to drive high volumes of "FREE" traffic to their sites.

I came across this very helpful guide for leveraging the potential of the Stumble Upon network for your ebusiness. For those that have not used Stumble Upon, this social network provides a cool little tool bar where you can tag sites while surfing the net that meet your particular interests. Other SU users searching for similar things will be able to view your tagged or recommended sites. It is important to note the certain types of sites do better than others on SU (Ie. Video, Humour,  Web 2.0 etc…)

It is evident that Social Media movement holds great promise as an effective, low-cost viral marketing strategies for many businesses that invest the time to learn some of the success strategies out there. Check out the Stumble Upon Guide here - a good read!

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One of the things I love about the Internet Marketing Industry is the rapidly evolving lingo we use like wikis, swickis, vlogs, podcasts and our topic at hand, SMO (Social Media Optimization). I know if I try throw around these terms in my social circles, they might think I am really smart, or just kind of wierd!

As you know from my last few posts, I have been closely watching the new trends that are set to take off in 2007 and we have touched on social media topics in the past couple months such as The power of social bookmarking in your Internet Marketing endeavors.

Well, I would like to delve further in the social media movement and discuss the rapidly growing area of Social Media Optimization. In a nutshell, Social Media Optimization (SMO) has been defined as a “way to optimize websites so they can be more easily connected or interlaced with online communities and community web-sites. For example; allowing RSS Feeds, easier linking and incorporation of 3rd party functionalities like Flickr photo slides or You Tube Videos.

Rohit Bhargava, who operates one of the largest global PR agencies in the world, actually coined the term Social Media Optimization and is definitely an expert on this new movement in the Internet Marketing Space.  A couple posts from Rohit’s Blog really helped me understand the power of Social Media Optimization and the where it will be headed in 2007 and beyond. Take a read of these two informative posts:

5 Rules of Social Media Optimization

3 Reason SMO is Taking Off 

SMO is definitely one strategy that you should considering incorporating (if you have not already) into your Internet Marketing strategies for 2007.

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