First, you have to learn how to target keywords that are actually within your reach. If you are an accountant, it would be almost impossible to rank in Google for “accounting”. But, on the other hand, you may be able to rank for “Atlanta accountant” with the right SEO tricks up your sleeve. Ranking for lots of “little” keywords may be a lot better in the long run than obsessing over a huge one.

You have to focus on your onpage SEO efforts. What does this mean? Basically, you need to have the right keywords in the right places on your website. You need to use tags, a certain keyword density, captions, meta descriptions and other things to get your site to rank and keep it there.

Another point to remember is that you must be consistent with your social media efforts. Spend some time each day interacting with your followers and fans. Build rapport and relationships as they will serve you well for years to come.

You have to start focusing on mobile marketing as well. More people are using mobile text messaging as a marketing medium. Done correctly, mobile text messaging can far outshine email marketing.

Start using videos on a regular basis too. Take advantage of this video revolution. People are watching videos all day long, so put some of yours in front of them too!

There are technical things you can do to decrease your page load times on your website. Make sure those things are in place because people simply won’t sit there and wait for your site to load. It makes you look “behind the times”.

Finally, it is critical that you are posting content on a regular basis. Make it good content! Find the questions your prospects and clients have, and answer them. Be their problem solver.

SEO does not need to be an arduous or expensive task for your business. You need to know some simple tips that you should do on a consistent basis. Keep plugging away and you will start to see a snowball effect.

The first thing you have to do is set up accounts on several social media networks. For instance, you may want a Facebook page, Twitter profile, LinkedIn profile and YouTube channel. Of course, there are other networks coming on board all the time, so join as many as needed.

The most important part of using social media is updating your status and information on a regular basis. Don’t just update once a week because “you have to”. Instead, make it a part of your daily routine. You don’t need to spend hours doing it (because you won’t get your other work done)! Instead, allot a certain amount of time everyday and get it done.

Make sure to share your blog posts, articles and other content that you produce through social media sites. This brings even more traffic to your website or blog so that you continue to build your credibility and email list. If you make a new video or write a new report, share that with your followers. They will appreciate the efforts you make to keep them informed and provide them with quality information.

It always makes sense to check out your competition when you are on social media sites. See what they are doing and take some cues from them. No need to copy, but keeping up with the latest trends is important. You will be able to see what your competition is doing right and wrong.

Don’t spend your time on social media advertising things. People get tired of being sold to in their regular lives. They come to social media to hang out and chat with others. You must be stealth in your marketing methods on social media. Focus on relationship building and not sales.

With a little effort and consistency, you can watch social media transform your business for the better. A snowball effect will start to happen as you get more fans and followers who want to hear what you have to say.

I recently made a business contact whom I have a lot of respect for. She’s a marketing maverick who has been in the business 30 years or more. In fact at times our lives have run parallel – right down to the city of Toronto, promotions on Nathan Phillips Square and a bout in teaching.

Although I’m certain she’s brilliant in the local, face to face networking world, online she has no experience. She asked for my assistance with some personal branding and marketing online. Now she didn’t ‘call’ it that – in fact what she did call it was “I need 1,000 Facebook friends to win a challenge with my teenage son.”

“What’s Your Social Capital,” I politely asked.

Not a lot of business people have considered this when it comes to Web 2.0 so I’ll try to provide examples as an explanation.

If you are a celebrity, have written a book, have a secret to share, are selling something uniquely yours, offer a limited service or have any other value to the masses – you have automatic clout. Social Capital.

Without social capital – and the need to get 1,000 Facebook friends in a matter of days – you’ll have to sit at your keyboard, requesting friends from all of your existing friend’s list and hoping that they accept.

Don’t have that kind of time? You’ll have to fake the social capital then. By faking it I don’t mean lying or making yourself out to be something better than you are. But you will need to give people a reason to want to be your friend. This is very hard to pull off when you’re new to Facebook or new to marketing online unless you can find your tribe quickly and easily.

“Find Your Tribe?”

If you can find your tribe, or like minds, on any social networking website, you will quickly make friends and grow a list of contacts. As an example I have a fan page (but it also could have been a group) for a topic that I love and thousands of other North Americans enjoy. Currently just under 1,000 people are fans of that page even though I only wrote about 5 posts and added about 10 personal photos to. These people are my tribe and I didn’t have to hunt for them, they found me. Furthermore, as I am considered an expert on the topic in this tribe I have social capital. Social capital that, if I asked for it, would result in over 70% of that tribe become my personal friends.

Is all of this Social Networking starting to make sense yet?

If not, don’t sweat it. You’ll understand social capital and finding your tribe once you have taken your offline marketing skills into the online world. In the meantime, if you need to make a lot of friends fast, fake that social capital! This is newbie online marketing that anyone can do. All the techniques that apply to building an email list can grow that friend’s list exponentially, daily. How’s it done? A bribery of sorts. Create a free report or ebook of proprietary information to give away for the honor of being your friend (or signing up for your list). Hold a contest. Give, to get.

Let me know how it goes,

Laura Childs

“What is social networking and why is it important, then?”

Actually, the question I really want to answer is: “Why Is Social Networking – Across Multiple Platforms – Important to Internet Marketers or Online Business Owners?”

And this is the answer…

For any online business or affiliate marketer the biggest component to your marketing plan since 2006 should be (have been and continue to be) social networking. If you aren’t doing it, and doing it well, you’ve got a tough row to hoe to make it as an online entrepreneur. However, if you have ‘made it’ and survived this far without social marketing, I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts (honestly, I don’t know what’s up with me and the idiotic idioms today), you’ve been missing out on some huge profits.

Let’s fix that. Your marketing, that is.

Smart social networking involves using the Web 2.0 tools that are available to you, to your best advantage. You can’t use only one type of social media or one social networking site and expect to get stellar results.

You don’t have to use each and every one – in fact you can’t anyway – but you do need to choose those that will help you promote your brand and your business to your target market.

That’s the first question – Who Is Your Target Market? (You have to answer that one yourself, after all, it is your business!)

The next variable is who you are, as a marketer or business owner. Each and every successful online entrepreneur has similar, but different approaches to social networking, but each smart one will create a multi-pronged approach that builds their brand and creates a web presence that thrives and grows.

Now if you’re already well engaged in social marketing, at this point you’re likely going crazy. Just like me.

That ‘craziness’ is how the initial conversation started. First problem is that I’ve got my fingers in too many markets and I’ve got to keep my personality focused on every sector I market to. For every target market I’ve got multiple social bookmarking campaigns, video site profiles, network comments, blogs I visit, tweets I make. Even if you’re in just one market this could drive you to distraction and make you consider the classified want ads – when days were simpler and we all came home with a fat paycheck every week.

Last year I found my answer and, believe it or not, it lay nestled in another Web 2.0 property.

FriendFeed.

If you need to pull your marketing together under one roof (instead of 30+ profiles and sites to visit every few days) I suggest taking a good long look at FriendFeed. You still keep all your accounts at bookmarking sites, networking sites, twitter and so on, but you can manage and watch it all so much easier from one starting point per day.

And with all your extra time, you can get back to ‘growing’ your business, not just marketing it.

To read more about my troubles with too many personas and markets and accounts – and discover why I wrote a 30+ page ebook on FriendFeed – click here: “Master Your Social Marketing Campaigns with FriendFeed”

The sites I’ve been working with are not just of various age, but in various niches.

This all started as a challenge when a local business owner told me that I couldn’t get him any more work as a result of online marketing than he could get on his own, down a hick town backroad, through word of mouth.

I’ve never liked it when someone told me I couldn’t do something. This was no different.

This became even more a challenge because his ‘thought-stream’ was backed and confirmed by his young University educated daughter. A 20 year old small town girl who’s never entered more than 2 words into google at a time and whose primary use of the internet is socializing on FaceBook.

“No one uses the internet to find local business, Dad.”

(Ugh, small town mentality.)

If I could find the research I read last month – that states 60% of North Americans would rather search for a company online than pick up a phone book – I’d wrap it up in a big box with a bow and send it to them.

As I mapped out a “I’ll prove it to you” strategy – the latest of which is my newly devised transposting – I decided to see if anyone else was teaching how to do this….

I’ve been a few months away from my machine and I’m happy to buy a course or report on this to stay current as well as learn from others since I don’t know everything.

Scouring the Warrior forum, buying latest releases and reports from other marketers, bouncing from one marketing blog to another – no one is talking about this stuff. Unless of course Howie Swartz (sp?) or Frank Kern are teaching it in their exclusive classes. (Two guys I could listen to all day as they’re as close to Hollywood in internet marketing as you can get.)

As soon as I get my small town business man some work and money through online marketing (and put both him and his daughter to shame) I’ll be writing a short step-by-step and screen shot proof on TransPosting.

If you are interested in reviewing the report before release, please contact me now. When I write these types of short reports, I don’t wait around or pre-launch, etc.

Also, if you find anyone else talking about Transposting (not cross posting thanks I already know about that), please give me a head’s up.

Yours in marketing,

Laura Childs

It’s amazing what you can find, new authors you’ll discover, and marketing or traffic generation techniques you’ll learn.

It’s a great place to spend your morning coffee break to see what the rest of the internet marketing community is buzzing about.

My personal tip to save time on Sphinn (or risk clicking and reading and commenting all day) is to choose one topic in the green navigation bar – Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Search Marketing, Social Media, Online Marketing, Searching, Other – and browse the headlines. You can find me skimming through the Social Media tab from 9:30-10:15 am EST, Monday to Thursday.

Some of the faces you’ll find there are well known in the industry. Others you’ll be thrilled to discover.

Social Marketing on Sphinn

Today I landed on a Courtney Tuttle post and found it informative enough to share here. These are the basics of social marketing – build for your market, strategize your efforts, promote others.

Five Reasons I Used to Suck at Social Media (November 7) – “In the last few months, I’ve gone from getting almost no social traffic to regularly having 3,000+ visitor spikes.”

Good read. Especially helpful if you have been hearing all the hype about Web 2.0 traffic, have tried to generate your own Web 2.0 traffic stream, and aren’t seeing the results everyone else is. Courtney also comes clean about the huge waste of effort most internet marketers expend on getting to the top of Digg. Be sure, as well, to skim the comments left on the post.

I’d suggest subscribing to Courtney’s site as well – the traffic to that blog alone has steadily risen since April 2007 (launch) and is now in the top 25,000 visited sites online (according to Alexa).

A Bit on Sphinn’s Backend

Last year I told you about a Web 2.0, Open Source software, called Pligg. It was great then and it’s still great today. Not that open source programs don’t come with their own set of problems, but the programmers and volunteers behind Pligg are dedicated and hard-working.

Sphinn.com is powered by Pligg (as are a number of very busy and profitable Web 2.0 sites). Launched just 4 months ago, Sphinn’s current Alexa places it in the top 25,000 most visited websites.

If you’ve considered jumping on the bandwagon and having your own Web 2.0 site there’s no time like the present and there’s no better free program and support than Pligg offers (in my opinion anyway).

I have Pligg running on a niche site that I started last year – but did not launch – and loved playing around with it. Pligg has been updated since and is now easier and has more features. (see: Web 2.0 OpenSource).

At a gathering last night I became ‘as excited as Scoble*‘ trying to explain what OpenSocial meant to the online landscape. And yes, my personal show was complete with arms flapping, heightened voice tone, and even forgetting where I was in the point I was trying to get across.

My friends and associates (who are not geeks and many don’t even own a website) listened and watched for 5 minutes as though I had 5 heads.

Sigh.

Thankfully two entrepreneurs in the room ‘got it’ and wanted to talk more about it – making me feel not quite so ‘fringe’ and nerdy.

So let’s talk about what OpenSocial and those Scoble videos mean to you — the online entrepreneur with a well defined target market — and let’s do it in a less sensationalist manner than I displayed last night.

Then: Last year the experts stated that everyone was on MySpace. (Everyone except my immediate circle of friends and family apparently. I simply couldn’t stand the interface and all those ugly pages…) Experts said that it would take something truly drastic to draw MySpace users elsewhere.

Now: Everyone is on Facebook. Experts agree it would take something truly drastic to draw them away.

I’m going to step back from the research and disruption conversation (watch the videos* if you don’t know what that means) for the moment because I want to talk ‘concept’ in this post.

Into the Future: Google has opened up the social network API (aptly named: OpenSocial) allowing programmers to create all those fun (and even the useful) applications that we’ve come to love on Facebook but can’t always ‘carry over’ to other sites, including our own. Google has opened it up so wide that those apps will be portable to multiple Web 2.0 enabled sites.

I know the videos in the last post seemed more for the corporate level marketers, but stretch to imagine all the marketing magic possible for the solo entrepreneur.

Really think about this because it’s part and parcel of what I taught in Strategic Social Marketing. I’ve been teaching you to maximize your efforts and save time in two steps (1) research and strategize, then (2) repurpose content whenever possible.

But within (and I’m just guessing here) 6 months that strategy is going to change with web capabilities.

Portable, non-platform dependant, proprietary content.

As I taught you to repurpose your website’s RSS feed on relevant websites (dependant on your target market), so shall you be sharing your flickr photos, your videos, your affiliate datafeeds, your invite list, your product slideshows, your contact information, your url list, and more. On multiple sites. With just a click or two. (Now hold onto that thought for just a moment…)

In Search of Your Prospects

Truth: You already know that you need to be where ever your target market is.

Trouble: Your specific potential customer could be spending their time on any number of Web 2.0 properties.

Fact: You don’t have time to create a presence on all those sites. After all, you have a business to run.

(Aren’t your potential customers already all on Facebook? Sure they are, but have you found or attracted them all yet?)

“OpenSocial will facilitate the ability to create and manage – in a time-efficient manner – a consistent and cohesive presence, on multiple Web 2.0 sites. This will enable entrepreneurs and corporate bodies to reach more people with their marketing message.” –Laura Childs (November 5, 2007 – arms flapping, heightened tone implied)

As a solo entrepreneur:

1. You can have a strong presence on a number of social networking sites.
2. You won’t spend more time doing so, have to hire a social media manager, nor drive yourself bonkers doing it.

Now, aren’t you excited about what the future holds for online marketing? Social media? Web 2.0?

Do you have questions? Concerns? Leave a comment below and I’ll do my best to respond within 24 hours.

Laura

p.s. I promise you that there is more to this. More opportunity, more disruption to the social media landscape, more to talk about. This post only addresses the first upcoming concept, and the near-immediate value to small, medium and corporate business.

* Scoble’s first video on the previous post – watch minute 16:00 to 17:05 at the very least – to see the ‘bigger picture’ and to see Scoble’s eyes light up (complete with a very endearing extreme close up).

Secondly because I expect a lightbulb or two to go off mid-video regarding how the social sites are inter-linked and connected and why (and how) you need to capitalize on that to ensure your marketing message is heard, is cohesive, is effective…

This is not ‘their’ starfish! This is ‘your’ starfish. (Click play, watch to the end and see what I mean.)

To save you hunting to find video 2, here it is…

————–

N.B. Also see the TechCrunch reference on this…

Since the start of the year I have been focusing on Web 2.0 properties that (a) have a finely focused niche audience, (b) provide some sort of search engine juice as a result of my efforts, and (c) allow me to partially automate the content creation aspect.

Caring Less and Less About Search Engine Love…(b)

These days I’ve been caring less about the extra search engine ‘points’ by having off-site content. (If you don’t know why I’m caring less, check yesterday’s post.) As a result of reader comments and a few discussions in Facebook I woke up and realized that other marketers, entrepreneurs and website owners are seeing the same anomolies about site traffic as I am.

For example, Allan Cockerill (one of my Facebook friends and fellow bloggers – www.AllanCockerill.com among others) openly shared through a discussion that began: “Will Social Media Become More Important Than SEO…?”

Allan shared: “…1600+ visitors to my blog during September, using nothing but Facebook, Stumbleupon, Twitter and Digg…has me pondering the future.”

Laura said: “…the wake up call came when I noticed clickthroughs from Google down – even though I held #1 spots and even though the # of searches per month, per keyword, was constant…”

It is important to note that we aren’t putting all our eggs into the ‘social media is more important than SEO’ basket, but it is definitely holding a candle to search engine marketing this year!

Partial Automation of Content…(c)

I love finding ways to effectively automate my marketing – to larger and larger audiences – by using a blog’s, website’s, or off site account’s (i.e., del.icio.us, google reader, etc.) feed. But it took a fellow author, marketer, and traffic specialist quite a few attempts to get me really rolling with my Facebook account.

Tinu is one of my Facebook friends but she’s also a woman I have brainstormed with intermittently over the last 3 years. She’s in my top 10 favorite marketers – largely due to her dedication and caring for her customers. With her guide in hand and by watching how she ‘soft-markets’ within Facebook I began the alterations necessary to my own account.

Tinu says: “If there’s nothing else you understand about Facebook, it’s this – a web platform with a user base of 30 million active, repeat visitors is offering you a free invitation to interact with its users. Not only doesn’t it care if you lead them elsewhere, it will help facilitate the connection.” (Facebook Un-Hyped Networking for Traffic, Tinu Abayomi-Paul)

If you’re not on my mailing list, and you missed the affiliate-free link to a discounted copy of Tinu’s Facebook marketing ebook, leave me a comment below and I’ll see if I can get her to open the page back up for loyal blog readers. (I’m not making any promises here, but I will ask on your behalf – or you can visit her directly at Increase Website Traffic with Free Traffic Tip).

Using RSS feeds, sage advice, and tips on ‘working the room’ (through groups) are just a few more topics Tinu shares about her success with Facebook.

Niche Market Focus…(a)

Does Facebook fit my niche market specialty from (the a of a, b, c) above?

Absolutely not, at least not on the surface. But with 30 million users and the potential to self-organize through groups or regions you can bet you’ll find your target market already represented. And, if you don’t, all the better. Start your own group and call in some new ‘friends’.

That’s all I’m sharing about Facebook today! If you’re new to Facebook and need a friend (even if you’re established and ready to branch out) you’ll see my badge in the sidebar – click it, send a friend request to me personally with a short message and I’ll see you in the “#7th for traffic” web site today!

Laura Childs

p.s. re: Social replacing Search: “To be clear, the social graph will not replace search, in the same way that search did not replace browsing.” (TechCrunch)

This is one way a very smart internet marketing trainer is teaching others to domninate the search engine listings for their select keywords.

It’s a great idea, but is it a viable long-term solution to increasing brand awareness and building business value? Or is it a short term solution to (hopefully) some fast cash?

Surfers Spending More Hours on Web 2.0 – Less on Search

Before you run off creating multiple accounts on multiple Web 2.0 properties and posting your proprietary content there in an attempt to dominate the top 10 results in google, consider the research – excerpted from Strategic Social Marketing, (2007) below.

Question: Is your target market, in fact, still using the search engines?

The Online Publishers Association Internet Activity Index (2007), classifies and documents web surfer activity. At the time of writing, here is the average time surfers gave to each of these four activities:

1. Searching for information 5%

2. Commerce (shopping) 16.1%

3. Content (news, information, and entertainment) 45.5%

4. Communications (engaging in communication) 33.7%

Don’t miss the way OPAI describes these activities or you’ll find yourself thinking that your one way content delivery is still a viable way to attract and hold eyeballs on your website…

Content – Sites that provide news, information and entertainment (given the entertainment qualification of this category and based on comScore’s research above, most of this percentage could in fact be Web 2.0).

Communications – Sites that facilitate the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information directly between individuals or groups of individuals. (definitely web 2.0)

Commerce – Sites that are designed for shopping online. (some of both)

Search – Sites that provide prioritized results based on user-generated requests.

Stability of Web 2.0 Properties

Question: How much time do you have to lose? How much money do you have to spend on outsourcing the work?

Social networking websites are still a relatively new business model. As such many start-ups haven’t quite figured out their income source and how to pay the bandwidth bills.

Consider one hot web property (bolt.com) that went offline just this month. Bolt had it made with a member base of 4,000,000 and over 14,000,000 unique visitors/month. Yet on August 14 an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors was filed and Bolt is no longer accessible for users, search engines, or the 14 million unique visitors. If you were posting to Bolt previous, your work would be for naught today.

Social networking websites don’t need to shut down for your efforts to be wasted. Changes in a site’s Terms of Service as well as over zealous ‘reporting’ on your content could get your user account taken away from you. If this happens all your content and time invested is lost.

Conclusion

I am not stating that what others are teaching is wrong, or bad. I just want you to be sure it is right for you and your business model.

There may be better ways to spend your time than attempting to captivate the search engine listings (especially when ‘search’ is such a small part of how your target market uses the web). There may be better ways to post content to a social networking site (i.e. automated RSS feed integration) than risking the loss of content due to site closures and account suspensions.

I know initial research can be drab, but in the end it serves you well. Take your time to devise a smart strategy for your online marketing and stay informed of both surfing trends and the viability of each business practice you partake in.

Laura Childs