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Traffic for beginners: Social Networking

06 2008 Wednesday

By Erik Stafford in Featured

Let’s face it: it’s a big Internet out there, with millions and millions of websites. How are you going to get people to come to yours?

Social Networking

Social Networking websites are basically community websites. These are communities, on the internet, that you join and then search for people within the community with similar interests as you.

Some Social Networking websites are very small and focused, so by definition the people who join such websites are already members of a tightly focused interest group.

Such a group might be brought together by their political or religious beliefs. Or it could be something such as their hobbies, like… they love Ford Mustangs! Or making cheesecake! Sports or basically anything else that mankind has found it possible to be interested in!

So, in such a tightly focused group, almost all members without exception will be interested in the one common thing.

However, there are many other community websites where the only real common interest that most of the members could possibly ever have with one another is that they are all, members of the same site!

This is simply a function of the size and therefore the diversity of the websites in question, with websites like MySpace and FaceBook having literally millions of members all over the globe. (107 and 73 million members respectively).

Such websites generally have a membership that is wide open. Meaning that anyone can become a member, no matter what their hobbies, beliefs, or views are.

Thus, there is no general community wide commonality of beliefs or interests either.

It is therefore only natural that once you are a member, inside this online community, you can begin to create your own network of friends. Those people that have similar interest and/or beliefs to you and the products you are promoting.

This is where it gets interesting for you as an Internet Marketer!

Whatever your interests, given so many millions of members, then there inevitably will be others that have similar interests, people that you could potentially ‘bond’ with immediately. People who become prospects due to the commonality in interests.

For example, a MySpace search using the phrase ‘Crocheting’ returns plenty of results. All of them are people who might be interested in your website from a direct ‘match’ of my search term to the specific subject topic of my website.

However, run a search for a more generic (and broader) term like Internet Marketing, and you get 45,400 results. I know what your thiking… OMG how overwhelming! Take a deep breath and continue listening!

Now, it is a very reasonable assumption that anyone who is interested in Internet Marketing is trying to sell something on the web, and that they therefore need traffic to their website.

So, of course, these people would be legitimate ‘target prospects’ for what I am trying to promote.

Take it one stage further and use single word search ‘marketing’ and it returns 549,000 results.

Again, it is reasonable to assume that all of these people are at least interested in bringing their products or services to the marketplace, so, once again, traffic generation could be of immense interest to them.

So, all I need to do is to tell them about the great resource that I have available, and the deal is done… right?

Err… no! Not really… Unless the “deal” that you are talking about is having your MySpace account closed down immediately!

The thing is that the folks who run MySpace really do not want their ‘community site’ turning into a commercial free-for-all. A sort of online bazaar, and they will go to any lengths to protect their site.

So, you cannot just open your account one day and start bombarding people with your commercial messages the next.

It’s the same with any quality forum site. You have to establish yourself as a valid contributing member before you can start promoting your products. Once you have yourself established, then you can add a signature file with a redirect to a sales site, you must establish yourself on community websites too.

So, the first thing that you must do is to take some time and make an effort to create a proper profile, something that shows that there is a real person behind the newly opened account.

Then, you must start looking for ‘friends’ in the MySpace community, but you must do so gradually, as you are limited to so many friend invitations a day. Even if you weren’t inviting a thousand new friends a day… It hardly looks natural or normal. Does it?

Put it this way - if you saw that someone was inviting 1000 new friends a day, would you perhaps thinks that there was something a little bit strange or artificial about this person?

Yes - of course you would.

So, start out by becoming a real member of the community before you start promoting products. That is the bottom line.

Sure… By all means begin to invite people to be your friends, but do spend a little time getting to know them and building up a relationship before trying to get them interested or sell them in your business.

Now, the great thing about a blog site is that it is pretty natural that, after you have been someone’s ‘friend’ for a while, that you might invite them to take a look at your blog.

That is far less threatening and direct than asking them to look at a ‘full-on’ sales page, for example.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t matter what community site you are a member of, the secret is go gently and slowly, build relationships and try to nurture something at least vaguely like a ‘real’ friendship before trying to get people to visit your business themed blog site.

Use your common sense and the skills listed here and you should have success in making friends and prospects on social networking sites.

Erik Stafford is the creator of The Faster Webmaster, which shows beginners the fast, easy, affordable way to build their own website. You can visit Erik online at http://www.thefasterwebmaster.com

SEO Defense: Why Defending Your Position is Neccesary!

06 2008 Wednesday

By Jeffrey Smith in Featured

What is SEO Defense? SEO defense is just that, defending your position against the competition. How is this done?, by focusing on metrics based on quality and refinement rather than quantity and volume.

All you need is one page and one solid link to potentially create relevance, aside from that, it is the competition for the phrase that determines how difficult or easy it is to attain it.Defending your position in the SERPs (search engine result pages) can be just as fierce as getting the position in the first place.

Targeting Niche Audiences – AOL’s New Branding Strategy

06 2008 Wednesday

By Scott Buresh in Featured

AOL, once considered a pioneer in internet technology, has fallen on hard times over the years, unable to devise an effective branding strategy. A failed merger with Time-Warner, a non-focus on search while Google built an empire (the AOL search engine eventually began serving up Google results on its portal site), and declining dial-up business are all contributing factors to the ongoing difficulties of AOL and its search engine.

However, AOL seems to have a new branding strategy in mind for the AOL search engine, which would revamp its services and target specific niches. And while many “analysts” claim that it is already a failure before the results are in, it is too soon to tell how this will affect AOL and the search engine that bears its name. Personally, I think it’s a smart play for the company - and something that bears watching. If the branding strategy is successful, another huge company may want to follow AOL’s example.

You see, AOL understands that the AOL search engine and its other services are not a brand beloved by many. The AOL search engine and AOL itself are seen as somewhat ancient, old school, 56k, etc. Nightmare stories about its online services are not in short supply. I haven’t done any specific studies on this, but in my circle of friends and business acquaintances, people consider an AOL subscriber a little behind the times.

The point is (in my opinion) that the “AOL brand” itself has decreasing value and may actually have negative value if the specific sites that it owns or has recently purchased are brought in under an umbrella branding strategy. These sites include those catering toward everything from country music fans to moms sharing photos to guys trying to pick up women. In some cases, the niche sites do not even display their affiliation with AOL or its search engine (or if they do, it is not featured very prominently).

The logic behind this branding strategy is clear. First of all, the AOL search engine and portal weren’t attracting new visitors. Secondly, the AOL search engine and brand itself are not particularly hip or fresh. Third, and probably most importantly, specific portal sites attract specific types of users, which are usually highly targeted, prompting a potential for more ad revenue (in theory).

Basically, the AOL portal has stopped trying to be all things to all people. Google is able to pull off the “all things to all people” approach primarily because it doesn’t have issues with a branding strategy yet - in fact, the new vertical searches that it adds under the Google “branding umbrella” are augmented by implied hipness and coolness. However, as AOL has discovered, hipness usually has a shelf life. If people began to see Google as the huge corporation that it is now, rather than the uber-cool underdog, the company may not be able to keep this record up. There have already been some cracks in its veneer, although by and large, the Google brand is still very positive and powerful.

There is another company much bigger than AOL that suffers from much of the same problems (and in some cases, worse problems) than AOL does but still wants to take on Google head to head. I refer, of course, to Microsoft.

In terms of a brand, Microsoft is almost universally disliked. The monopoly issue may be one thing. The fact that it is seen as ‘old school’ may be another. Gates and Ballmer don’t exactly have reputations as “nice guys,” like Sergei and Larry do (the fact that it seems natural to refer to the former two by their last names and the latter two by the first may help illustrate this point). And the list goes on.

The bottom line is that I have a hard time seeing MSN.com gaining the kind of traction that Google has, simply because the brand is less than sexy. This means, of course, that any additional vertical search options that MSN adds to its site are bound to be appreciated only by the dwindling few who already swear by the portal.

AOL has decided that its branding strategy for the AOL search engine and niche sites is not nearly as important as the amount of traffic and ad revenue that the site commands. This is not uncommon in the publishing industry, where many different publications on many different topics may be owned by one large (but largely silent) entity. Many of these offline publications have moved online and are beginning to monetize their diverse base of websites. AOL seems to have a similar model and branding strategy in mind for the AOL search engine and other niche sites.

If it works for AOL and its search engine, it could be the best possible branding strategy for Microsoft to follow. Lord knows Microsoft has the money. The company has already bought the ad networks that can service sites under its own new branding strategy. But if pride dictates that it keep everything under the MSN name or add a huge “brought to you by Microsoft” banner across the top of any popular online property that it decides to buy, MSN is, in my opinion, shooting itself in the foot.

I never said it was fair, but your brand and branding strategy can either be an asset, neutral, or a detriment. Microsoft has to realize that most people consider its brand to be in the neutral to detrimental range and that most people consider Google to be in the neutral to asset range (and that’s probably being charitable). Microsoft should not try to compete with Google head to head without considering the disparities in the conceptions of their respective brands.

About the Author

Scott Buresh is the founder of Medium Blue, a search engine optimization company. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including MarketingProfs, ZDNet, SiteProNews, WebProNews, DarwinMag, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. He was also a contributor to The Complete Guide to Google Advertising (Atlantic, 2008) and Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004). Medium Blue has local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, DS Waters, and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, and was named the number one organic search engine optimization company in the world in 2006 and 2007 by PromotionWorld. Visit MediumBlue.com to request a custom SEO guarantee based on your goals and your data.