Search engine expert Danny Sullivan claims that Rohit Bhargava was the originator of the word “social media optimization.” Bhargava claims there are 5 rules for conducting social media optimization:
1. Increase your linkability
2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy
3. Reward inbound links
4. Help your content travel
5. Encourage the mashup

I’ll take a moment to elaborate on two of the rules that I believe are the most important. Increasing your linkability (#1) is extremely important because you’re not only growing the number of outlets people have to finding your website or social media sites, you’re also helping to improve the search engine rankings of your website or social media site. Google, and other search engines, value inbound links. The more inbound links that you have the more popular your website is considered; thus, you rank higher.

You also need to make your content travel (#4). In contrast to SEO, SMO is not just about what goes on within your website. Back in the day (10 years ago) simply keyword stuffing your meta tags could help you achieve high search engine rankings. This worked for many people, and it was a sufficient strategy. Fast forward to 2010, search engines have evolved, and they placing more and more value on non website-related files (video, images, audio, pdfs, etc.). Not only should your business be utilizing these newer forms of media, your business should be “blasting this media out” in order to help their content travel. When I say “blast this media out” I mean submitting your videos to You Tube, Vimeo and more. If you have a portfolio on your website then consider submitting your images to Photobucket, Flickr and more. This is not just limited to new media though. Blog articles should also be submitted to social bookmarking and social networking websites.

Social media optimization has proven to be valuable not only as a marketing and brand building tool, but also as a tool for businesses to learn more about their clients, potential clients and employees, in order to improve customer satisfaction, product/service development and recruiting. That being said, social media optimization, like search engine optimization, is about generating leads and increasing revenue. So far, it has done just that.

If you need help implementing an optimized social media strategy, consider contacting Turbo Social Media today to learn more, or call 877-673-7096 x2.

Related posts:

1. Separating Social Media Optimization and Search Engine Optimization
2. How Important are Social Bookmarking sites in Content Syndication for Social Media Marketing?
3. Social Media Marketing and Its Connection to SEO

Strategy #2: Get High Quality Readers From Search Engines Who Want To Convert

Recall that your blog’s conversion rate will be better if you have a higher quality reader. So the more of an affinity the reader has to you and your content, the greater their propensity to act on a call to action in a blog post.

You want to find a steady stream of new, interested readers who actually crave the content you are writing about.  To do this, we use the basic concept in the internet marketing called keyword research.

So take those Reader Personas you documented, and brain storm some broad and specific search terms that they would be typing into Google learn about your industry/niche, or about your products and services.  Then be sure to sprinkle those keywords throughout your blog posts.

(advanced tip: there’s a WordPress plug in found at www.yoast.com that allows you to see which keywords are driving the most traffic for you if you use Adwords on your blog).

This will maximize the chances of your blog posts getting found on page 1 of Google/Bing/Yahoo/MSN search engine results for those long tail keywords.  Once you get high quality traffic to your blog, you want to get their name and email in your marketing CRM software or database. But you’ve gotta compel them to read your posts. So…

Strategy #3: Use the AIDA Formula to Compel Readership and Conversion

Just about everything in business comes down to copywriting.  That’s hard for some small biz owners to swallow.  But the better you can compel, persuade, and excite with your words, the better your conversion will be on your blog and any media.

As a copywriter, I started out using the AIDA formula as a framework to write good copy.  Apply this formula to your blog posts with some tweaking

A: Attention – use a very attention grabbing headline. Examples:

How To _______________

Who Else Wants To ________________?

I Wish I Knew <fill in blank> 5 Years Ago__________

The Shocking Truth About _______________

Warning: If You Read This Blog Post You Will ___________

I: Interest – write interesting stories with your blog content. Stories about yourself, your marriage, your kids, and your trials and tribulations seem to work well.

D: Desire – offer something valuable to generate their interested to take whatever action you give them (I’m writing about this next post).
A: Action – stipulate the call to action at least one, but preferably twice in your post.

In the next post, I’ll write about a killer strategy to absolutely compel conversion that will help you rapidly grow your list from your blog.

P. S. Go here immediately to answer a few very short, painless questions about a free teleseminar.  I’ll reward you handsomely for doing so with a $47 free gift that teaches you more about social media for small business.

Mike Lorence is the founder of Small Business Blackbelts – he teaches entrepreneurs how to double their cashflow in 9 months or less.  And he guarantees that. Go here right now to learn more about Mike.

Related posts:

1. 7 Ways To Double The Conversion On Your WordPress Blog – Part 1 of 4
2. 7 Ways To Double The Conversion On Your WordPress Blog – Part 4 of 4
3. 7 Ways To Double The Conversion On Your WordPress Blog – Part 3 of 4

It is important to note that even the term “SEO” has evolved over the past decade. SEO once referred to the things you do internally to optimize a website (meta tags, content, etc) to rank highly on search engines. Now SEO has broadened to include social media, so that it is no longer just about driving traffic through high search engine rankings. It’s about driving traffic through a variety of mediums, including social media.

Here are some SEO factors of the past that no longer carry as much weight:

• Meta keywords- Keyword stuffing was the old school way to rank your website. Simply by stuffing high traffic keywords in the meta description you could potentially rank highly. Google has come out and said that meta keywords carry no weight.
• Meta description- It can be argued that Google also places little to no value on the meta description. They are still important because this description is what appears in a search engine when your website ranks. Also, other search engines, like Yahoo in particular, likely still value the meta description; however, they’re not nearly as important as they once were.
• Generic backlinks- Paid link building was all the craze in the past decade. Paying for links from generic websites and posting on forums, blogs and other directories is not nearly as effective as it once was. While very selective paid link building with highly ranking sites can still be somewhat effective, Google prefers naturally building backlinks through unique content creation. This is where a blog comes in to play.
• Keyword Density- Don’t get me wrong, having well-written, keyword-rich content s great, especially for long tail keyword phrases. However, keyword density does not have the impact it once did in search engine rankings. Quality backlinks (see below) and anchor text links tend to have more of an impact.

Here are some new SEO factors that will carry more weight in the future:

• Social Media- Being active in social networks is crucial for increasing the visibility of the content you put out.
• Unique content- It’s been known for a while now that duplicate content is frowned upon by search engines. More than ever unique content is crucial for search engines. Blogging platforms are an easy way to set yourself up to produce a lot of unique content.
• Quality backlinks- Highly ranking sites that point to your site can definitely benefit you. Just as search engines value the link these popular sites are giving you, more people are likely to click on the link and view your website.
• Video- More than ever videos are showing up in search engine rankings. Videos can be optimized, just like articles. They are a crucial component to going “viral” with a message.

It is impossible to ignore the value that Google places on social media. This is evident in the real time results with Twitter, Facebook indexing, search Wiki (Google’s own social bookmarking site), Google Buzz, Google Wave, and much more. Many people refer to this as is your “social group”. Your “social group” might consist of Facebook fans, Twitter followers, Linked In groups, RSS feed subscribers, and much more. In the past there was an emphasis on “link groups” to improve your search engine rankings. These are things like backlinks and anchor text links. While these “links groups” are still important, it is arguable that your “social group” is becoming as important as your “link group”.

One thing is for sure, the future of search engine results will be not be dominated by websites alone, but rather a mix of websites and social media websites. The blend of social media and search engine optimization has already formed the term “social media optimization.” According to Wikipedia, social media optimization is “the methodization of social media activity with the intent of attracting unique visitors to website content. SMO in one of two online methods of website optimization; the other method is search engine optimization.”

Contact Turbo Social Media today to learn more about how we can help your business improve its social media optimization. Or call us at 877-673-7096.

Related posts:

1. What is Social Media Optimization?
2. Does The Web Design of Your Site Affect SEO?
3. What’s better, a blog within your website or a standalone blogsite?

WordPress was designed as a platform for blogging, but you don’t have to use it as a blogging tool. With the right expertise, it can be used to run your website, with or without a “blog.” The fact that WordPress was designed as a blogging platform gives it compelling advantages over any other option, especially for small to mid-sized businesses.

Top Five Reasons to Use WordPress for Your Website

1. You get a blog and a website all in one.  Although WordPress is a blogging platform, it can function as your website due to one of the core elements called a theme.  This is essentially the design template being used on all of the pages of your site.  With proper customization, these themes make your site look like a website, instead of just a blog.  (One side note:  the type of customization I’m referring to requires the open source code available on WordPress.org.  WordPress.com will limit your customization, control of the site, and your ability to modify the code.  All you need is a good developer!)
2. You are your own webmaster.  It’s easy to update content on your website without knowing HTML.  You don’t have to ask your webmaster every time you want to make a small change to your site.  With WordPress, you can easily create new pages or edit existing pages using a simple rich text editor.
3. Better SEO.  WordPress provides great search engine optimization (SEO) right from the start.  It is optimized for easily publishing and changing content.   And getting good search engine rankings requires fresh, unique content. You need a system that does not get in your way when you want to update your website with a new article or new content.
4. Functionality – There are hundreds of additional plug-ins that allow you to add powerful functionality to your web site.  Visually, you can add contact forms, polls, social bookmarking, rotating images, and tons more.  Behind the scenes, there are some impressive SEO plug-ins to make sure your content gets noticed (and highly ranked) on the Web.
5. WordPress.org software has become one of the best ways for small businesses and entrepreneurs to easily build feature rich, simple to edit, search engine friendly websites.

Check out our latest WordPress blogsite created for Kelly O’Neil International.  Tell me, does it look like a blog?

To find out how to create YOUR custom WordPress website, call Tom Sullivan at 877-673-7096 x708, or email Tom@TurboSocialMedia.com.

Related posts:

1. WordPress vs. HTML For a New Website
2. Blog Platform or Website: What Do I actually need?
3. WordPress.com Passes 200 Million Posts

JetSpinner is a free web platform that allows you to upload an article and have it spun to create multiple articles that are similar yet unique. This allows you to submit the same content on the web without having Google mark it as duplicate content (which we all know by now, is not a good thing).

Most article spinners out there just use a thesaurus to mix in various words, and the final product often comes out so poor, you cannot submit it and be taken seriously. JetSpinner takes the most white hat approach that can be found out there. With JetSpinner you actually break your article into little pieces (from single words up to small sentences and paragraphs. You then provide JetSpinner with alternatives for your little snippets and this allows them to create hundreds of articles at the push of a button.

JetSpinner is a great way to submit your content out over multiple bookmarking and syndication sites without creating any duplicate content. As we know, the goal of Social Media Marketing is to get your content out to as many sites as possible, without submitting the same thing. JetSpinner allows this to happen, helping you get your content out to more people, without having to worry.

To learn more about Social Media Marketing and the importance of Article Submission, click the red button at the top of the page to watch our free video series or give us a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Zack Zucker, Director of Operations, Turbo Social Media

Related posts:

1. 7 Ways To Double The Conversion On Your WordPress Blog – Part 2 of 4
2. Why Purchasing Links Hurts You Over Time
3. DoFollow vs. NoFollow: What Does It All Mean

The best way to acquire proper SEO is to build a blog of your own, and use your own links as well as working with others, who in turn help you out and link back to your site. However there is another way to get your links on to another site: You purchase them. Unbeknownst to most people there is a practice out there of purchasing links on other sites. How it works is, you purchase your ‘spots’ through a text link brokerage and a site will put your link in an anchor tag on your site. For example you could get another site to put the anchor tag: best social media marketing firm… And now, other sites are linking back to your which used to increase your Google Rankings. Notice though, I said “USED” to help. Unfortunately this idea is only great in theory, and for two reasons.

The first reason this is only a great idea in theory, is that Google has been able to track those who are purchasing their links rather than earning them. Google is a smart little cookie and figured out who is basically trying to cheat the system and in turn they lower your rankings.

The second reason this is great in theory rather than practice, is you lose sustainability. At first this works out great for you as you gain a lot of traction with the back link. However over time, in order to keep the same level of traffic you have to increase your number of back links and that includes purchasing more (packages range from $500 – $50,000 a month… so it is not cheap). Also, when purchasing these tags, you are usually renting on a month to month basis, so once you stop paying, you lose the back link and in turn your rank goes back down.

Everyday people are coming out with the next big thing in internet marketing, that next big idea that will help you drive a lot of traffic and create a lot of revenue. Unfortunately, most of these things fail in the long run… and isn’t that what business is all about, making more and more money in the long run? Anyone can create a lot of traffic in a single day or make a good amount in any given week, but the main idea and concept is to make a consistently larger amount of money as time goes on

To learn more about Social Media Marketing and SEO, fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give us a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Zack Zucker, Director of Operations, Turbo Social Media

Related posts:

1. DoFollow vs. NoFollow: What Does It All Mean
2. Being Popular Removes Your NoFollow Tag on Digg
3. Social Media Marketing and Its Connection to SEO

If you go back through some of our blog posts you will notice we have often times used videos to help get our point across. We do this for a couple reasons:

1. It’s fun to make the videos
2. It grabs people’s attention
3. Proper Intro and Outro/Call to Action can help drive a lot of traffic
4. As my favorite comedian always says “Why Read when you Can Watch it” (See video below)

What this technology means for us is, is that a video done right can really enhance what you are trying to sell. If a video is done properly the video can show up in the search results just as a webpage would. And if you edit the video properly, you can really capture your viewers attention and get them interested in learning more from your site.

To learn more about Social Media Marketing and Video Marketing, fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give us a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Zack Zucker, Director of Operations, Turbo Social Media

Related posts:

1. Viral Videos and Social Media
2. The Turbo Team Helps Teach Marketing to the Affluent
3. DoFollow vs. NoFollow: What Does It All Mean

In my opinion: No. Web design  and SEO are two separate categories that  do not really help one another. However one without the other is lost. What this means is, is SEO is not helped in any way by the design of the site, until the very end. SEO refers to process of optimizing your site to get as much traffic to the site, once they are there, it is up to the design to take over.

If your site is not eye catching or is a bit confusing you may have a hard time keeping people on the site, which renders all the work done by the SEO as useless. Meaning that they do not help each other but in the end one without the other is lost. Here are a few tips and ideas that will help out with your web design:

• Having an attractive website. Nobody wants to be looking at dull boring colors and no pictures or videos. Make it eye catching so users want to check out more.
• Have a clear Call-to-Action. Without a call-to-action, there is nowhere for anyone to go on your site; give them a purpose
• Do not get too complicated. Many times you find a site that is too busy and has way too much going on. This makes it very difficult to find what you are looking for.

So in the end, the actual design of your site may not do anything for SEO, but it will help the entire process for what you are trying to accomplish. Think of SEO and a good web design as a package deal: without the other one, there is not much of a point.

To learn more about Social Media Marketing and SEO, fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give us a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Zack Zucker, Director of Operations, Turbo Social Media

Related posts:

1. The New and Improved Turbo Site
2. Building a Personal Site to Find a Job
3. Why you need to build your website on WordPress

Digg has become the new site to join the ranks of the NoFollow tag…. sort of. Digg has started adding the NoFollow link to posts that are not popular. Digg has implemented NoFollow links to all its posts aside from those that make it to the home page. Everything else, when you click on the link, rather than take you to that page, it creates what looks like a portal to the site, where you can view the site in its entirety, but with a Digg toolbar and frames.

I am not sure the reason they are implementing this feature to their site, whether it was due to spamming reasons, Google forced them into it or they are just trying to force people to start adding in more relevant data with better content. Whatever the reasons are, I do know that I will be much more focused on getting my information to a main page, so that we do not lose any traffic to our site.

To learn more about Anchor tags, DoFollow and NoFollow Links and SEO Marketing, fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give us a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Zack Zucker, Director of Operations, Turbo Social Media

Related posts:

1. DoFollow vs. NoFollow: What Does It All Mean
2. How Important are Social Bookmarking sites in Content Syndication for Social Media Marketing?
3. Why Purchasing Links Hurts You Over Time

DoFollow links and NoFollow links are code structures embedded into the link that tell Search Spiders (these “spiders’ crawl the internet when you type in a search and look for things such as this to pull up as related information) whether or not to count it or not in the search results. DoFollow links are counted and NoFollow links are not.

You might be wondering what the points of this are, I mean, who in their right mind would not want to take advantage of the SEO that comes with the DoFollow links. well there are three main reasons for this:

1. Paid Links. Google recommends you do this as it interferes with page rankings. You essentially pay for a higher rank, and they do not like this
2. When linking to major and popular sites. When linking to large sites such as Google, Yahoo or CNN, it does not make or break any power to your site, and just adds, cluster
3. NoFollow in comment sections. People often times take advantage of comments sections and put in a whole bunch of links. They get page ranking powers from this, which may overcome your site, it’s your own preference but again it is recommended.

If you are not too worried about any of the above information, then the DoFollow link is just right for you (technically there is no DoFollow tag, you just do not use the NoFollow HTML tag when editing and it works like a DoFollow

To learn more about Anchor tags, DoFollow and NoFollow Links and SEO Marketing, fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give us a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Zack Zucker, Director of Operations, Turbo Social Media

Related posts:

1. Being Popular Removes Your NoFollow Tag on Digg
2. Why Purchasing Links Hurts You Over Time
3. Social Media Marketing and Its Connection to SEO