The search engine algorithms are always changing and one of Google’s most recent targets are the sites that build “unnatural” links. Links that once passed value on to your site are now irrelevant and have been eclipsed by somewhat “new” ranking signals like social signals. You need to be careful when it comes to the next “hot” link building tactic, one of which at this time is guest blogging. It’s very possible that guest blogging could be viewed as a kind of link exchange (frowned upon by the search engines) if you aren’t doing it properly. There’s a right way and a wrong way to approach guest blogging. Contributing the same guest post to many different sites could raise a red flag. The perceived quality of the post also matters. If it’s only a couple hundred words- where is the value in that? It also matters where these articles are getting posted. If they are just going to any content site that has a broad reach and isn’t industry related that may also be cause for concern. If you only have one article/post on lots of different sites it appears that you are just doing it for the link and nothing more. The correct way to approach guest blogging is to contribute content to industry relevant sites regularly over time. This conveys that the posts are there to build brand awareness and that there is an obvious relationship with this website owner that has grown over time.

Approaching guest blog posting with the wrong intentions and just looking for a way to build links often backfires because the quality of the guest blog post usually suffers. The focus is on the link instead of the person that may actually be reading the content. If it’s thrown together in 20 minutes with a few links in the author bio, it’s probably not going to do much in the way of informing target audience members or establishing your business or brand as a trusted expert or source of information. A better approach to guest blogging is going to take much more work.

The best places to submit guest blog posts are on good, quality sites that have a following and are related to your niche. Once you’ve found some spots that you think are good, begin to establish a relationship with that blog owner by commenting on their blog posts, connecting with them in social media, and sharing some of their work within social media. This will get their attention and encourage them to check out your work. If they like what they see they will be more receptive to accepting a guest post from you on their site.

The post Take the Right Approach to Guest Blogging appeared first on AddMe Blog.

The internal linking structure of a site is also noticed by search engine spiders, primarily for the search spiders to determine the usability of the website. The search engines want to rank pages on websites that will provide visitors with a good experience so that the search engines look good for pointing the user in the right direction. Website visitors want to quickly find what they are looking for on a website and the links are what guide them. If the linking structure and navigation isn’t user friendly it makes conversion that much more difficult.

Previously, Google had set a limit on the number of links that should be on a page since too many links appeared spammy and a way to try and gain a search engine advantage. However, this limitation has been lifted because Google realized that in some cases it does make sense to have a lot of links on a page from a usability perspective. Usability should trump SEO every time.

While it’s true that there is no longer a preferred limit on the number of links on a page in the eyes of Google, it’s still advisable from an SEO perspective to avoid having too many unnecessary links on the pages of your website. According to SEO Moz, too many links is roughly defined as more than 100 on a page. SEO Moz states:

When search engine spiders crawl the Internet they are limited by technology resources and are only able to crawl a certain number of links per webpage. In addition, search engine algorithms divide the value of some popularity metrics by the amount of links on a given page. This means that each of the pages being linked to from a given page are also affected by the number of links on the linking page. For these reasons, we recommend you include less than 100 links per page to ensure that they are all crawled, though if your pages have a high page authority, search engines will usually follow more links.

If you have a large, well established website and it’s necessary to include a large number of links for usability purposes, there is no problem in doing so. However, if your site is on the smaller side there is no reason to have an abundance of links, so it’s still best practice to limit the number of links that are on each page of the site. Links on a page can add up quickly, so it’s recommended to use a tool that will provide you with the number of links that are on each page of your site.

If you find that many pages have a lot of links (more than 100), it’s worthwhile to do what you can to trim it down without sacrificing the usability of the site.

The post Is There Such a Thing as Too Many Links on a Page? appeared first on AddMe Blog.

Like Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools, Google Alerts is also a free tool that can provide anyone (not just webmasters) with valuable web related information. All you need is a Google account and you can sign up to receive an email whenever a web page is crawled and indexed that includes any kind of content that is important to you. Google Alerts allows you to select the kind of results you’d like to receive, the frequency of communication (daily, weekly, etc.), and how many results are received (only the best, all, etc.).

Website owners/webmasters should use Google Alerts to monitor the following:

The business/brand name
Since people typically turn to the Internet for information before buying a product or deciding to hire a company for services, it’s very important that your business have a positive online reputation. The difficult thing about managing your reputation online is that in some ways, it can be out of your hands. Others outside of your company have the right to post about your business and that content can rank in the search engines too. Unfortunately, what is said might not always be positive. It’s important to monitor the brand name to be aware of what is being said and to mitigate an issue before it gets out of hand. Monitoring brand mentions can also provide the opportunity to reach out to website owners and get links when the brand name is mentioned. It’s also important to closely monitor the mentions of individuals that are closely related to the company such as the President, CEO, COO, etc.

Competitors
As part of an SEO strategy, and online marketing campaign overall, it’s important to pay attention to what your competitors are up to in the online space. What is their search presence like? Where do they advertise? What kind of inbound links do they have? By monitoring competitors with Google Alerts you will have a better idea of what their online marketing strategy is like and these alerts could potentially turn you on to new link building opportunities to take advantage of.

Keywords
Set up a Google alert for all of the main keywords that you are targeting on the site. Content that appears is obviously relevant to what you do. It may be a discussion in a forum or social media that you could join. Or local keywords may let you know what’s going on in your community so that you can take advantage of local advertising/sponsorship opportunities to gain exposure.

The post Google Alerts is a Great Online Marketing Tool appeared first on AddMe Blog.

While it seems like it might be an easy feat since Wikipedia content is added by users, unfortunately the opposite is true. Sure, it’s somewhat simple to set up a page for your business and add in some links back to your website but there is no guarantee that the page will remain active. Each page is carefully reviewed by an editorial team. Wikipedia prides itself on being a non biased source of information where people can share helpful information with one another. It’s not meant to be another avenue to market your business with. So, if a page appears to be created by a business and is dedicated to promoting that business and its products or services, it will be taken down. Wikipedia can trace the origin of the page via IP address and if it was set up by a business or its marketing company and is overly promotional it will be removed.

Plenty of businesses have Wikipedia pages though, so what’s the problem? Well, what these businesses have in common are that they are typically large corporations that have a large user base that is willing to create content on their behalf. If an outsider (like a client or customer) is creating the page or adding content to the page, that is acceptable. While a huge, trusted corporation like Apple can easily get unbiased content written on its behalf, it’s doubtful that a small business owner can, which is why those pages often get removed.

While it may be nearly impossible to get a Wikipedia page active on behalf of your small business, that doesn’t mean that you can’t obtain any inbound links to your site from Wikipedia. It just takes a little more effort. The most natural and appropriate way to generate links from Wikipedia is to establish your business as a thought leader and a resource. If you are creating and publishing great content on the web that is non promotional, it will be linked to and shared across the web, on sites that may include Wikipedia.

Despite the fact that it is difficult to get a small business page to stay active on Wikipedia, you can try. Your best bet is to reach out to your community and ask for contributions from them, so that all of the information isn’t coming straight from you. That way, it’s more natural.

The post How Do I Get Wikipedia Links? appeared first on AddMe Blog.

Consider these Twitter best practice tips when developing your Twitter strategy:

Make sure that your page is branded
Business Twitter profiles should look different than Twitter profiles that are owned by individuals. Twitter allows you to customize your profile, so it’s important to take advantage of this and incorporate the company logo and branded color schemes. Make it obvious who is tweeting. Utilize the description space and add a company description that includes keywords and always include a link back to your website.

Incorporate hashtags
Many businesses don’t fully understand what hashtags are or how to use them so they miss out on this opportunity. Hashtags (#) designate an important keyword within the content. It helps people search within Twitter. If you’re still confused, see how others in the industry are using hashtags and search for hashtags within Twitter to see what comes up. Some businesses even create their own hashtag surrounding a product launch or an event in order to generate buzz and awareness.

Follow others
You never want to just start following people at random, but a good way to earn followers in Twitter is to follow others. Do some research and look for influential people in your industry or in related industries. If they have similar interests they will be more likely to follow you back and pay attention to what you have to say.

Re-tweet
The purpose of social media is to be social and share with one another. Think of Twitter as a community. If you want to be a good community member you can’t only focus on yourself. In order to get people to care about you and share your content, you have to be willing to do the same for them. If someone posts something great, re-tweet it to your audience and add your own introduction.

Link to a mobile friendly site
Many people are accessing Twitter today from a mobile device while on the go. A common Twitter strategy is to share links that point back to your website or blog. If you are going to do so, it’s important to make sure that the content being shared is mobile friendly and able to quickly load on a mobile browser. People are looking for information quickly. If they click on a link that isn’t mobile friendly, they may not even read it.

Check analytics
Check your website analytics to see what content is generating visitors to your site from Twitter. Once you see what works and what doesn’t you can make changes to your Twitter content sharing strategy.

The post How to Use Twitter Effectively appeared first on AddMe Blog.

Here are some tips to help get more value from your social media marketing efforts:

Strategize
Social media marketing is not something that can be done in one afternoon. It also isn’t a “set and forget” method of communication. Highly effective social networking is the result of a strong and organized social media marketing strategy. Plan your social media marketing like you would your traditional marketing efforts. Define the goals you want to achieve through social media (i.e. increased traffic to your website, an improved conversion rate, etc.) and develop a strategy to accomplish said goals.

Create Calls to Action
Some businesses manage to attract a sizable amount of followers who become passive social media subscribers. While having 1,000 Facebook Fans is great, what’s their real value if they don’t interact with your brand? When you post content on your social profiles, you want to include a call to action to get your followers engaged. Instead of just posting your latest blog article or sharing a YouTube video, go one step further and ask them to leave comments or questions to keep the conversation going. What are their opinions, insights or feelings? Just be prepared to handle any and all feedback you may get! If you want to keep your social fans involved you can’t ask them to act and then ignore them.

Make Social Sharing Easy
Social sharing buttons allow your followers to easily share your content without having to leave your website. The more times a piece of content is shared the more valuable it becomes and, the more attention it is likely to get. You want to create numerous opportunities for sharing with the least amount of effort on the part of the reader. Make it easy! A social sharing button lets your followers share your content on their social media networks with a click of their mouse. More shares also allow you to attract more followers as you content is introduced to a wider network.

Share from Others
They call it “social” media for a reason! If you are using social media solely to promote your own content, you are limiting the long term potential of your profile. Don’t be afraid to share content from other reputable sources. Not only does sharing content from others help diversify what you are promoting on your own social channels, it helps build a rapport with other industry leaders. Everyone loves a little social love and you never know what kind of thanks you’ll get in return for sharing someone else’s content. If you are prepared to handle it, you can even ask your followers to submit their own content. Some of the most successful social media campaigns have been the result of user generated content.

Measure Results
How do you know if your social media marketing is paying off? Check your analytics. See how your social efforts on Facebook, Twitter, and other sites are driving visitors to your website. Look at what types of content are getting the most amounts of “likes” and shares (although don’t get so pigeonholed by the numbers you miss the big picture). Keep in mind that content can go “viral” without hitting millions of shares. If your content normally gets a dozen re-tweets and your latest post got 100 consider that a big success! Measuring your social analytics lets you gauge which networks are the most effective by their levels of engagement. Use this information to better tailor your social media strategy going forward.

The post Getting More Out of Your Social Media Marketing Campaign appeared first on AddMe Blog.

What search engine optimization cannot control is the amount of search volume in a specific niche, which influences both site visitors and conversion rates. However, seasonal SEO can better position your website to reap the benefits of an influx in business due to changes in the seasons. Here are a few tips to help your business use SEO to boost peak sales cycles.

Plan Your SEO before the Season Starts
Take a dance studio for example. Registration for classes usually starts in late August or early September with classes starting shortly thereafter. If the studio wants seasonal SEO to help drive visitors to the website, they can’t start their SEO in August hoping it will have a profound effect on their end of summer registration period. Instead the studio should focus on building their SEO strategy and creating and promoting content in May or June (right after the dance season is over) so that their company is well positioned in the SERP’s and so that the search engines have a plethora of content to pull from. That way when parents start doing their research in August the studio will have a strong online presence.

Work on SEO Continually Through the Off-Season
The off-season doesn’t mean that SEO gets to take a vacation. The company that that sells snow blowers will be competing heavily for business during the winter months, but will see a lot less search volume and competition over the summer. The lull in traffic and sales is the perfect time to work on link building and planning your SEO for the upcoming busy season. Use the time off to build links, optimize pages, and schedule content out months in advance to avoid scrambling to build SEO at the last minute.

Hold on to Content for the Following Year
Search engine optimization, much like wine, improves with age. A page builds more trust the longer it has been online. Plus, search engines rank individual pages and not the website as a whole. This means the more optimized pages of content you have, the more trust you build with the search engines. Even if the pages you optimized for this year’s busy season didn’t perform as well as you hoped, leave them up and let them age over the course of the next year. That way when the next busy season arrives, your site’s SEO will have had time to build and improve.

The post As The Seasons Change, So Should Your SEO appeared first on AddMe Blog.

Focus on Quality not Quantity

Many businesses get consumed with increasing the number of followers or Facebook page “Likes.” Yet solely focusing your energy on getting new subscribers can sometimes get the wrong type of follower. You could end up with a lot of “Likes” but only a core group of people who are actively engaged on your Facebook page or Twitter profile. Instead, focus more on creating and sharing great content with your followers. It shows your current followers that you are invested by providing quality content, but good content also has a better chance of getting shared with non-followers.

Engage With Your Followers

Social media is not a one way communication channel. In order for your social media marketing to be effective, you need to have a conversation with your followers. Instead of just logging into your accounts to post your blog articles and then leaving, try engaging with your followers. Pay attention to what your followers are saying. Social media is a great tool for compliments and customer feedback. By actively engaging with any comments you receive, it shows you are a business that cares about what your audience has to say.

Create Opportunities for Conversion

In order to convert your social media fans, you need to provide additional opportunities for engagement. Your Facebook page should have links to your blog as well as your email newsletter. Turning your social media followers into email subscribers moves them one more step closer to becoming customers. Keep in mind that these call to actions need to be clear and to the point. Conversion points need to be no more than two clicks away from your social media site.

Keep a Social Media Mix

Are you only using your Twitter account to promote your latest blog post? You might get lost in the crowd. Social media is very noisy and because new content is shared every minute, you need to create content that will break through the clutter. Did you know that posts with images or videos are more likely to be shared, and tend to be at the top of the Facebook newsfeed? Better yet, create a poll or an interactive post that will encourage a response from your followers. Only sharing one type of content with your followers can be boring and reduces your chances of converting your followers.

The post How to Convert Your Social Media Followers appeared first on AddMe Blog.

1) Strategize

Before you begin any social media marketing, you first need to make a plan. Not all social networks are created equally, and you need to do your research first. If your business requires a lot of visuals, Pinterest may be worth looking into. If you offer educational or informational services, video tutorials on YouTube would be a worthwhile investment too. Weigh your options and look at what networks work best with your business.

2) Post Content That Is Share-worthy

The most powerful aspect of social media is its ability to share information across multiple channels in a short amount of time. You want to make sure that the content you post is shareable. Think about all of the videos that have “gone viral” and have been viewed millions of times, across the world. Well crafted, informational content will be shared by your followers which helps boost your influence on the web.

3) Keep It Going

Social profiles have prominence in branded search. When people look for more information about your brand, they’ll check out your social profiles to see what other people are saying. If your last update was a few months back, it not only looks unprofessional but it reflects poorly on your current followers as you aren’t engaging with them.

4) Be An Active Member of Your Community

Social media is a great platform for social networking. Use your branded social profiles to share content from other industry leaders. They may in turn share your content down the road to their set of followers which expands your reach. You can also use social media to connect with prospects that can lead to new business opportunities.

5) Engage

Social media is another way to communicate with your audience. Your audience also uses social media to communicate with you. Instead of writing an email or filling out a form on your customer service page, many people will post or Tweet comments, questions, or even concerns on your social media page. Take the time to respond to these inquiries. Others will see your response which demonstrates that you are actively engaged with your customers.

The post 5 Steps for Social Media Success appeared first on AddMe Blog.

LinkedIn provides a lot of value to businesses and individuals that are willing to put the time and effort in to use it correctly. The first step is to set up a complete business profile and encourage all employees to have up to date profiles too. Unfortunately many businesses never move past this first step. Like any other social network, the key to success on LinkedIn is to be active and share with connections and other LinkedIn users. If you aren’t an active member of the community, there is a smaller chance that your business or services will be found by potential prospects and you will lose out on opportunities. Perhaps one of the best ways to get found on LinkedIn is to join groups and become an active member.

There are thousands of groups on LinkedIn, and you are allowed to join up to 50. Unless you have a large social media staff that can keep you active and involved in all 50, it’s probably not realistic to join that many. The best groups to join are the ones that are most related to your business or niche and don’t have too many members. It’s OK to join a few groups with thousands of members, but it’s just a lot harder to get noticed in these groups. By joining smaller communities (a few hundred members), it’s easier to gain visibility. It’s also important to join groups that have an active community. If nobody is posting or sharing with one another and the group has become inactive, look for other opportunities.

Once you’ve joined some groups, be sure to visit them at least a few times a week to look for an opportunity to share your knowledge and get noticed. Browse through the discussions within the group and see if there is anything that you can add. Take the same approach that you would take with blog commenting. Don’t simply write something like, “I agree.” Instead, take the time to write a thoughtful comment that takes a stance on a subject and proves that you have expertise in the area. Feel free to start your own discussion if there is a current topic that isn’t being discussed yet.

Remember, LinkedIn isn’t just for the HR department to post job openings. It’s a great strategy to get all of your team members active on LinkedIn. Because it’s a place for business to be conducted, some great networking opportunities can arise as long as LinkedIn is being used correctly.

About the Author:

Brick Marketing is a Boston SEO company that offers social media management services to SEO clients. For more information please call 781-999-1222 or visit http://www.brickmarketing.com.

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