There was an article on Marketing Pilgrim today that discussed the results of a survey conducted to determine the effect of sales on Social Media Marketing. The survey results are heavily leaning towards an underwhelming conversion rate from this form of marketing. Nevertheless, this isn’t a perfect case study on Social Marketing and you need to read between the lines when taking these results into consideration.
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Is the search engine marketing industry ready for the real-time web? Sadly, not many search engine marketers are ready to embark on the challenge that faces them. They certainly should have taken notice of the changes Google made to promote the real-time web at Searchology. Google unveiled functionality that makes it easier to show the most recent results of your respective search. Although this feature won’t be utilized by most, strategies need to be addressed to take full advantage of this real estate. Twitter has also announced a new algorithm based search that will follow the links posted by users on the popular micro-blogging platform.

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Search Engine Optimization was once a misunderstood and powerful tool to increase the traffic of your website. If you knew what you were doing, SEO could have been your sole method of marketing on the web. Now, SEO is more understood but more costly to actually impact your traffic. Google has even made some recent updates that favor big brands that makes it even more difficult for the smaller players to invest in SEO. Now Social Marketing is the cost effective method of driving traffic to your website but it can be intimidating to know where to begin.
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1) Buying websites

It may be faster to buy an old site with a strong link profile, and link it to your own site, than to try to start building authority links from scratch.

Recommendation: If you find relevant websites to purchase, try to maintain their host and don’t make too many changes to the design and content of the website.

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1) Local and business links

There are always some good links that can be acquired from local and business resources.

a) You can join the Better Business Bureau and get a link from your local Chamber of Commerce.

b) Submit your link to relevant city and state governmental resources.

c) Ask your manufacturers, retailers or other business partners to link to your website.

d) An affiliate program can also be designed to provide link juice as well as drive direct sales to your website.

Recommendation: All links help and you might as well get as many as you can.
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1) Directory Submissions

Submitting your website to directories is something every website should do but shouldn’t be taken too far. Yahoo and DMOZ are the best directories and are good links to have. Beyond those directories there isn’t big list of quality directories but they are helpful links nonetheless.

Recommendation: Submit your website into the most effective directories from trusted sources. They are easy links to acquire and can add value to your link profile. You can also create your own topical directory on a different domain and hosted on a different server then your website. This will give you a good directory link and it may have the potential to attract link juice that your website wouldn’t normally be able to receive.
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1) Article syndication

This is a popular method of building links and driving traffic to a website. How effective syndicating articles can be depends on a couple of factors. The articles need to be interesting and news worthy, no boring press releases and general information about your website. The content needs to be fresh or at least different then the content that is on your website. The best results can be achieved through writing different content to all the article submission services and directories that are available. Don’t expect to receive an anchor text link in the article with all your submissions. Receiving a link with your company name is also helpful to your rankings.

Recommendation: Submit your articles into as many syndication services and directories as you can, as long as the content is different in each. You don’t want to duplicate content. Try to get relevant keyword anchor text links when possible but company links are also great to have.
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1) Becoming an industry resource

Adding content to your website that provides helpful information to your visitors and your industry in general can help build links naturally for your website. Adding content to your website will add more weight to your website and the search engines may consider your website to be an authority in your industry, which will boost your rankings. If the content on your websites achieves good rankings, you will also attract backlinks from visitors who find your content valuable.

Recommendation: Create content such as “101 Lists”, “10 Easy Steps to Help You X”, “Extensive Resource Lists”, “Top 10 Myths for a Specific Category”, “List of Gurus/Experts” in your industry and other variations. These types of content are great for attracting backlinks and traffic.

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9) Reciprocal links

Exchanging links with other websites can still help increase your rankings but it isn’t as effective as it once was. There is good value in exchanging links with prominent websites in your industry. There is also a method of 3-way linking that can be effective but shouldn’t be done in an easily identified pattern.

Recommendation: Try to exchange links with non-competing websites in your industry. 3-way linking can be very effective but you shouldn’t link out to unrelated websites or receive links from unrelated websites, which is a difficult arrangement to be achieved.

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1) Varied anchor text

Acquiring links that contain the keywords you’re targeting in the anchor text of the link is a proven method of increasing your search engine rankings. Nevertheless, only concentrating on building links with the same anchor text can have a negative impact on your rankings. The search engines see all of your inbound links and can analyze them to determine if there is a natural variation in the anchor text.

Recommendation: Roughly 70% of your inbound links should contain your relevant keywords in the anchor text. The remaining 30% should be allocated to variations that contain your relevant keywords, less relevant keywords/phrases and variations of your company name.

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