If you haven’t seen this yet, you must:

How is Twitter becoming more and more relevant to SEO and internet marketing strategies today?

Let’s talk business strategy for a minute…

First off, and most obviously, there has been an overwhelming public interest and participation in online social media networks in the past few years (Twitter, in particular;) microblogging is arguably the newest phenomenon in high tech communication.   Commercial industries must and will cater their marketing strategies accordingly.  Every notable business today has a Twitter account you can follow, right?

Proof’s in the Pudding

Google has altered its indexing algorithms based on real time conversations as a result of Twitter’s growing influence on consumer opinion and product branding.   Since the public has a voice through these social media venues, marketing is becoming more and more tailored according to consumer wants, likes, and dislikes.  Google, too, has noted this gradual shift, and developed its real time and personalized search features as a means of specifying search results.  Services like Yelp, that allow users to give their personal input on a product or service, centrally locate businesses in online search results; public preference plays a key role in how Google optimizes site rank.

Google’s recently released caffeine update will further increase the value of link sharing and traffic building through social media venues like Twitter and Facebook.  Google Caffeine speeds up the search engine indexing process, allowing pages to be indexed more quickly; the caffeine update has essentially made “real time” search results possible.

Real time search results index live Twitter feeds at the top of Google search engine results pages.  Twitter makes “real time” link building possible—this is a quick and easy way to get a site ranked on the first page of Google.

Finally, expert predictions regarding what will be the most effective SEO strategies in the upcoming year all point to the incorporation of social media as a key.  Getting genuine incoming links from quality, relevant sites will get you the most “bang for your buck” in terms of link juice and effective search engine optimization; link building on blogs is becoming less and less worthwhile and effective because so many comment forums now have “nofollow” tags on guest post hyperlinks.

Love it or hate it, it looks like you might want to start embracing Twitter– if only for the sake of your business.

The useful-ness of Twitter has been a much debated, controversial subject.

Twitter is most common criticized for being a waste of time.  I won’t deny it–there’s definitely some legitimacy to this statement.  Without a set agenda, Twitter probably won’t be a very good use of your time. However, the secret to using Twitter as a very useful business tool is to develop and stick to an agenda.  Decide what you want to achieve, and develop a game plan of how to do it.  Stick to your purpose, and Twitter will prove to be a crucial resource for the success of your business.

There are a lot of very that are tweeting about relevant, useful content every day.  This microblogging site allows users with similar interests to connect with one another.

I discovered an flock of interesting, knowledgeable, and yes, even influential, people in the internet marketing industry via Twitter; this microblogging site connects individuals with similar interests and puts them in direct contact with one another. What better news source is there than the real time conversations of industry professionals, especially in a society where business fundamentals increasingly cater to public opinion? Twitter is an amazing resource for staying tuned-in to the most current public dialogue around the world, even pertaining to niche industries.

For me, Twitter became a tool that helped me build links and traffic to our website—key aspects of search engine optimization.  I opened lines of communication, became a guest blogger on other’s sites, and contributed my own interesting and informative tweets.  Making business contacts, earning viral attention, building your brand, receiving consumer feedback, and accessing cutting edge industry information are all inherent values of Twitter, if used correctly.

I just joined Twitter a few weeks ago, and was initially very confused about what was going on.  Thanks to the help of some of my co-workers, though, I figured it out and subsequently realized how useful (and addictive) it can be.  In the spirit of paying it forward, I thought I’d share some really basic information with those of you who are as Twitter-illiterate as I was:

@

If you type this symbol before someone’s name in a tweet, the tweet addresses that person specifically.  Your side navigation has an @(yourname) link which will allow you to view only tweets directed at you.

Direct Messages

Referred to as “DM” by Twitterers, a direct message is a private message you can send or receive to a user.  This means you are the only two people that can view that message.

Retweet

If someone tweets something that you really like or find useful, you can reintroduce it into the live Twitter feed by retweeting it.  This will give people another opportunity to check it out if they missed it before.  When people retweet your stuff it means it was a really good tweet!

#

Typing #(word) will ensure that your tweet will appear in search results for that word.  Searches are the way people find subject matter they are interested in tweeting about and following.  So if i wanted to index my tweet under the subject of tennis, I could use this feature by tweeting the following:  Check out this breaking #tennis news about the U.S. Open this year! Now, if someone searches the term tennis, my tweet will appear.

Follows

Click the “follow” button on a user’s profile if you like the information they’re posting, and their tweets will automatically appear on your live homepage feed.  People that you decide to follow compose your “following” (a number tally of which is listed on your homepage in the right side navigation.) Users who follow you then, are your “followers.”  You will automatically only see tweets by your following on your homepage. Managing your following and followers is is a way of filtering content.  People with more followers are considered to  have more credibility, and also have more social media power because of their large audience of listeners.

Links

To post a link on Twitter, simply copy paste the link.  If it’s too long, use a tool like tinylink.org to shrink it to fit.

So there are you are- the basics of Twitter.  There’s a lot more to learn, but that’ll get you started.

Don’t be scared– it’s a great way to get customer feedback, share knowledge about niche industries, and connect with professionals in your field.  Not to mention it has a lot of potential as a marketing tool, if used correctly.

Good luck, and don’t forget to follow me @Marisol1986. I’ll be there for ya if you need me to answer any more of your Twitter questions.

I’ve been reading a lot of juicy articles over the past couple of weeks pertaining to Google’s futuristic ability to display “real-time” search results AND today I’ve finally seen this mighty-magical process in action.

Let’s start from the beginning… every now and again in an enchanted little place called, “my desk” I like to check to see that my Twitter profile is ranking correctly. Today I typed my Twitter username into the Google search bar and was pleasantly surprised to see “real-time” search results stemming from my Twitter username (review my lovely screen shot below). I was filled with joy… yes, joy over real-time search results!

Then I began to think of all the ways we can harness this power to help increase our clients organic search results. I’m sure over time, more and more Google searches will incorporate this feature into the functional elements of Google’s search. But one questioned really stood out to me. Why do some search results display real-time search and others don’t? It’s really all about social presence or the amount of “social content” related to the keyword iteration you type into Google and how frequently you update that content. If there are a lot of Tweets and other social elements that relate to a particular keyword then the ability to view “real-time” search is probably more likely.

Again, this is completely new to me but I cannot wait to see what direction this takes us in search. It’s a great time to build-up your online social marketing skills, because there definitely seems to be a new direction of search on the horizon.

If you are an online marketer then you have probably heard of hubspot.com. If you haven’t, then jump on over to their website right now and read up about them. Among it’s various online marketing tools, Hubspot has developed a website grader tool (http://grader.com), allowing individuals to examine the strength of their website from a quality score and detailed report.

I am happy to announce that as of today www.freshtilledsoil.com’s current website grader score is 99.7. What does this mean in terms of SEO?… well, a lot. Much of the website grader score is based on the marketing effectiveness of your site. Out of 1,655,774 websites that have been ranked thus far, freshtilledsoil.com ranks in position # 5,795 and scores 99.7 percent higher than the other sites evaluated.

It’s entirely important to focus both on your off-site and on-site marketing and SEO efforts to help increase the web presence and popularity of your site. In turn, you will be able to increase your overall traffic and the amount of potential leads you receive.

Ok, content may not be King per-say, since there are so many other factors that affect your overall SEO effectiveness, but it’s right up there in terms of importance. It’s not only about the content really, but how you use your content to gain SEO strength within the search engines.

I’ve always found article submission websites to be a great way to promote yourself or your company online. From a human element, the trick is to offer your viewers valuable information, which with help increase the popularity of your article. The next element is to be subtle when you mention or link to your site, unless of course your are explaining the purpose of your organization. From a search engine perspective, article submission sites are highly relevant since the content is always being updated. Many of these sites allow you to hyperlink to your website within the article, which essentially helps drive traffic to your site.

We have been working with an online process equipment vendor, Equipment Genius. We have been focusing our off-site SEO efforts on content creation. I’ve submitted one our articles to an online article submission website, docstoc.com. In a little over two weeks the article written for EquipmentGenius.com is already ranking in Google on page 1, position #4 (check out the screenshot below) for the keyword iteration “online process equipment.” Google has quickly indexed and placed a higher relevancy on this article than it has for the EquipmentGenius.com website. So if you ask me, content is definitely something to use within your SEO efforts.

“Come up to the lab… and see what’s on the slab.” – Dr. Frankenfurter

It’s been a big, bile-filled week for new application launches and the evil scientists behind them. Both Squidoo’s Brands in Public (another in a long line of brainchildren from Seth Godin,) and Google’s Sidewiki have bloggers and traditional journalists clamouring to dissect and criticize these potentially game-changing additions to our online world. And the villagers are definitely restless.

What is Google Sidewiki?

The latest offering from the Google Labs has been live for a few days now and opinions, especially within the search engine optimization/marketing industry, have been flying fast and furious. Sidewiki has sparked as much debate as any application to ever come out of their underground lair, and that’s hardly surprising considering the massive impact it may prove to have on brand reputation management and other aspects of user-generated discussions in the social sphere.

At its simplest, Sidewiki allows any website visitor to leave a comment about it which is then displayed for any other visitor to read, should they have the capability turned on. Anonymity is not an option, however, so this should greatly reduce the number of participating trolls, rivals and doodie jokes. Reactions from around the web:

Goggle’s new Sidewiki web annotation feature doesn’t allow anonymous commenting, and that is an excellent thing. The Web has been held hostage by anonymous comments for far too long. But, Google is also treating other peoples’ content as its own, and that’s bad. – David Coursey

Somebody should have asked the “is it evil?” question. That’s why it’s there. I sense no one did. – Jeff Jarvis

 

Several of us here at FTS have installed the new toolbar and are getting under Sidewiki’s hood. First impressions seem to all come back to one thing – will the lack of anonymity be enough to keep the new tool useful or will it degenerate into a chorus of moans. As the old adage goes, if someone has a good experience they might share it with one person. If they have a bad experience they will scream it from the rooftops. The jury is understandably out – but the potential for a great addition to the Google toolbox is definitely there.

What is Brands in Public?

Seth Godin, usually heralded as nothing short of a marketing genius, has kicked up a lot of dust with his latest Squidoo-centric baby. Similar to that network’s user-created “lenses”, Brands in Public will allow companies to create and manage the same sort of entity centered around their brand.

You can’t control what people are saying about you. What you can do is organize that speech. You can organize it by highlighting the good stuff and rationally responding to the not-so-good stuff. You can organize it by embracing the people who love your brand and challenging them to speak up and share the good word. And you can respond to it in a thoughtful way, leaving a trail that stands up over time. – Seth Godin

 

As with a lens, BIP will pull in and syndicate any brand mentions it locates via RSS feeds – news, blog posts, tweets, videos, images, etc. Where the problem for the new service’s detractors lies is its $400 a month price tag. While the hefty cost is a good thing when it comes to making sure the brand-specific real estate is actually owned by its associated company and not an affiliate marketer or competitor, it has also created the impression of extortion among many:

Give Squidoo $400 a month. Or your brand gets it. – Meghan Keane

Wow. I’d personally like to welcome Seth Godin to the world of brand-jacking and hostage taking. I didn’t know you had it in you. – Lisa Barone

 

If you’re a highly visible company Godin and his team intend to create your brand’s dashboard for you. In fact, they probably already have. If you want to have some degree of control over this entity, which will surely end up ranking very well in the search engines for your brand-specific searches, you have to cough up the dough. Monthly membership includes:

• The ability to highlight positive blog/news mentions.
• The ability to respond to negative comments left on the “lens”.
• Being able to interact with your audience via contest and poll modules.

It would also appear that you can make money for charity (or contribute to Squidoo’s bottom line depending on your payment choices) via the Amazon, CafePress, etc. affiliate revenue modules which the network has offered since its inception. It’s Squidoo for brands. At a hefty cost. I don’t like its chances and I think big-business participation will be done begrudgingly as part of an existing online reputation management strategy which will now require an additional $400 a month. I could be wrong, though. There’s always the Stockholm Syndrome to consider.

There are a few golden rules to creating a successful social network around your business, product or movement. Using a collection of best practice ideas and success stories, including the Obama Presidential and Zappo’s campaign strategies, I have created a list of activities and ideas that will drive the creation and ongoing growth of your social network. Here are the key elements.

1. If you are trying to reach a consumer audience then building big databases of customers is essential. Big doesn’t always mean better and it’s easy to get distracted by the numbers. Quality of the group is essential too.
2. Know everything about your audience. Ask them to share their ideas, feelings, doubts, suggestions and comments on the things that you do. Sites like QuickSprout, Signal vs Noise and Mint.com are great at starting conversations that leave a trail of new ideas and insights for the blog or network owners.
3. Connect online and offline events as if they belonged to the same network. Having only an online presence is not enough. You need to link the virtual networks with the real networks and bring those worlds together in any way you can.
4. Build channels to capture data everywhere. Twitter is a great example of a ‘listening tool’ that helps you gather information on your audiences activities. Facebook and FriendFeed are other good ways to listen in on your audience and even start new discussions.
5. Within every network, virtual and real, are activists, evangelists and mavens. Identify them, communicate with them if possible and figure out how to inspire and excite them.
6. Connect the members together in as many ways as possible. In smaller networks create opportunities for the members to communicate and meet face-to-face. In larger networks give them ways to organize themselves and find like-minded members. Organize events or small parties that help customers meet each other and strengthen bonds with your brand or movement.
7. It’s important to remember that there are already lots of membership groups. Find them and give them the tools to connect. Empower them in the places and spaces where they are already connected and spending time. In many cases you won’t need to create your own networks or groups.
8. Give them something to do by organizing activities and purpose for the groups. Don’t leave things to chance or they might become orientated around ideas and activities that don’t align with your positioning.

This is a great selection of graphics from the Information id Beautiful blog. It shows that Twitter posts are mostly crap but that like anything there is some value buried in there. The question is how do you access those good posts and avoid the insane ego trip garbage?