Tuesday 13 November 2012

Daily Likes and Tweets: What it Means for Business?

Competition in the market place does not revolve with just Google or Yahoo anymore. As social media turned virtual people to a real community, it also made itself became a vital channel to reaching target markets for products or services.

Likes and tweets become a prominent influencer in the decisions made by consumers. As it becomes the source of trend, new information, recreation, entertainment, community talks and other bits and pieces, it has been used by businesses to draw strategic planning on. Major advantage is that Facebook and Twitter invade homes and presumably almost all ages.

A wider spectrum of influence is seen with these 2 major social media. Proper utilization of pages and twits may drive traffic to your website and will result to following:

A. Strong Brand Image
- marketing taught us to be in the place where your customers will be seen. As of recent days, there is no need to be in the actual place where they are, you just have to be online all the time and you'll see them there. Finding people with same interest as you are is easy through social media sites. You just need to be consistent and joining the conversation. Shout your product many times along with your brand. Most fans and followers value true experiences from social media profiles rather than exaggerated advertising campaigns. If you want to be seen most often be at the place where people can see you more often.

B. Get Recommendations
- the word of mouth must have been the first but the most important advertising strategy. For many years it has been considered a major persuading technique but when the virtual world arises 78% of referrals are now online.
Through connecting your website and social media sites you can generate traffic. Creating interest and messages that will trigger curiosity of products and services will encourage a user to click on your link.

C. Create Long Term Relationship with Customers
- the crucial part of strategic planning is knowing what your market needs, the performance they expect, and the feedback for delivered performance. It was clear that social media is a way to know what your customers like and expectations. However, it is not enough to simply cater but will need to evaluate the result. Through social media profiles, businesses can get direct feedback from existing customers. It will create an impression that you care and value your customers.

D. Being Part of Their Lives
- Through joining conversations and creating events, businesses can be a part of their customers' lives. It is estimated that Facebook members ‘like’ pages 7.6 million times every 20 minutes while 51% of active twitter users follow companies, products, services and other social networks. Having an aggressive online presence through social media, you can remain competitive in the world wide web's marketplace.

E. Competitive Advantage
- there might be no sure way to succeed in business but with strong brand image in the online marketplace you'll create an online competitive advantage. Unlike other ad campaigns, information that spread through the virtual world can't be fully stopped or deleted. It can also be followed and can be repeatedly viewed by other users. It can be a source or a reference. It can spread all throughout through other users.

In general, social media is more than just being an online hang out . It is a business channel where you can succeed up high or left behind. Like a page, become a fan, twit and follow others. You'll be talked about just like what you needed to have.

Wednesday 26 September 2012

6 Must-Have Facebook Applications For Your Business

If you are not using the Facebook marketing to promote your business online then you are letting so many chances of making money gone with the wind. You are making your competitors take potential customers away from you by just sitting in one corner only waiting for customers to come to you and not the one who shows yourself to potential clients.


But if you do have already one, but you do not know how you are going to make the most out of it so that you'll convert the first time visitors into clients immediately then you have to use Facebook application which will sure boost your business' online presence. Surely you are not the one who are not using these apps but do not count yourself in with them rather step out and start using Facebook apps today to help your business gain more profit.

●Your Welcome Page

First thing you'll do is to set up your business welcome page to say "hello" for your new fans. It will also be your way to encourage people to visit your page and like it. This way, you are getting closer to the people who has the potential of being your next business clients.

Example Apps:
iFrame (https://www.facebook.com/iframe.apps)
Welcome by Word of Social (http://apps.facebook.com/woswelcome/)
iwipa (https://www.facebook.com/iwipa)

●Your Business Profile

Your business page will be your professional business card that will be in charge to tell the Facebook community about your skills and experience and publish a short summary about yourself just like in LinkedIn. Potential people of your niche as well as ordinary people can easily check what kind of person is behind the business because of your business profile page.

Example Apps:
My LinkedIn Profile (http://apps.facebook.com/linkedinprofile/)
Professional Profile (http://apps.facebook.com/professional_profile/) ???
Business Profile (http://apps.facebook.com/businessprofileapp/)

●Your Business Contacts

When you set up your Facebook page one of your goals is to build more connections and one way to found more new connection is by your Facebook page. You can have a good information contact form which includes all your contact information like telephone numbers and email address. Some applications allows install in both personal and business pages.

Example Apps:
Email Signup (https://www.facebook.com/EmailSignup)
Mail Chimp (http://apps.facebook.com/mailchimp/)
Constant Contact (https://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=219441374737099)

●Your Customer Reviews And Testimonials

Reviews are very crucial when it comes to business. Keen people who would like to transact a business with you would always take the effort to search for reviews of your past clients regarding your product and service. To help those people who have experienced dealing business with you, Facebook apps on customers' reviews are essential. This will be a big help to convince future customers to work with you too.

Example Apps:
I Endorse (http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=19116507496&ref=s)
Review Widget (http://apps.facebook.com/reviewwidget/)
Reviews (http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=6261817190)

●Your Blog Promotion

Through this Facebook applications, your can promote your latest blogs in line with your field. This will notify your fans if you post new article on your blog site.

Example Apps:
Networked Blogs (https://www.facebook.com/networkedblogs)
Tumblr (https://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=48119224995)

●Your Other Social Networks

Because Facebook is not the only social media network you have, you can still integrate your other social media accounts into your Facebook page. Useful links from Twitter, YouTube or Viddler and from Flicker are posted to Facebook via its apps. This will save your time and effort posting updates from different social media while you can post an update in a click and all your social media channels are sync.

Example Apps:
Youtube (https://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=87741124305)
Viddler (http://apps.facebook.com/viddler/)
Flicker (https://www.facebook.com/FlickrOnFanPage)
Twitter (http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/)

Facebook does not only design an application where you can grow different crops on a virtual farm or solve crimes by an imaginary identity and answering quizzes suggested by friends to know who is your greek mythology god counterpart or like but many applications are developed for useful applications most especially for businesses - big or small. With an Alexa rank of 2 (August 2012) and with 955+ million active users (June 2012) today, is undoubtedly a tremendous help for brand promotion when use and optimized well.

Majority of applications are free and the perfect opportunity to enhance your business page, brag your portfolio and build new contacts. It is a great place to market your products and services plus connect and find new customers.


About the Author

Al Gomez is the man behind the success of Dlinkers SEO services. As an SEO Consultant, he has handled various sites of different for over 4 years and always passionate for achieving quality results. He gained much knowledge about the complexity and structure of SEO. Consolidated and analyzed information are posted in his blogs.

Friday 21 September 2012

Big Deals about PINTEREST


Dealing with a lot of online platforms to optimize the visibility of a certain business and build dynamic links throughout the web is quite burdensome even for someone who has had relevant experiences in virtual promotions and marketing. But, nevertheless, this case leaves no option for any strategic optimizer to resist from pushing through the bar of hardship especially when the aim of the company is to gain high ranking in the search engine and control the profitability of the target market.

One way of overcoming such matter then is to utilize Pinterest as one effective means in social media campaign and any other activities which are helpful in maximizing the influence or impact of the business to the online users. However, it is not unusual for bloggers and/or optimizers to ask on how the said site help in SEO does. This is not supposed the query to be clarified about because the main issues lies not on the site itself, but on the one who is employing it. Thus, the right structure of the question is this: “How are you going to maximize the site's feature to effectively promote your business?”

Well, since Pinterest is a visual sharing image hosting site, your website needs to have an edge on its visual appearance over others to market it to any visitor or user who might intentionally or incidentally visit the site or optimize the same in the search engine. And how does it, specifically, work? Read the following:

1. When visitors are get hooked by a unique image in your website, then they may likewise "pin" it on their account's board. Yet, you can also manipulate the "name" of, and categorize your board according to the type or category where it falls; for instance, you can have it counted on celebrities, gardening, history etc.

2. You can see the pins of other people if you are following them, or search either by category or by using pins which are oftenly repinned by.

3. You can leave a comment on, like, and repin each image that you see. Meanwhile, if your image has been repinned by several pinners, people can still determine that you are the original pinner when they click the image itself or by looking at the visible URL on the top right area of the image. On the other hand, when a visitor has clicked the image, he could then be redirected to the website's source of it and, thus, driving traffic to the site of origin.

Nevertheless, in repinning, you should note that the websites that sell most or can be an advantage in using Pinterest are those which promote or market home decors, clothes, painting and accessories because, as compared to other sites like the ones that offer financial services, they have good or quality visual content. For instance, if you have created a board, you can have it reserved to convert a photo into a painting website; hence, the homepage could easily be noticed and any visitor may be induced to repin it. And, from that point onwards, you can expect potential clicks which may be turned into potential clients of the website.

On the other hand, if you desire to have more potential repins, you will find it helpful to allot ample time in editing the following in your Pinterest account: (1) Board Name, (2) Description, (3) Category , and (4) Keywords in your comment box to make pins more visible .

Meanwhile, because Pinterest is somewhat an integration of Facebook and Twitter, you can also use it for social media campaign by incorporating your company’s pages in the said social media sites. Yet, you can also link your personal website in your account; and even you don't actively participate therein, you can still build links through other social media sites. Contrariwise, you should note of the following specific advantages of Pinterest to your business:

  • Visibility - Pinterest is a new way to make people know what you've got. Hence, if you will utilize Google Shopping, you are likely to see results of the brands you are already familiar with, but if you try to search in Pinterest, you will discover several brands which you have not known before; thus, Pinterest is undeniably a site where you can explore new things.

  • Link Building - if someone pins and adds your website into their boards, it can be counted as one backlink for your site. Thus, you may not know it, but try to imagine how many links and how much traffic could your site get when there are a lot of repins. To check how many people have pinned your website, you can try this site: "websitename.com", and link it into "http://pinterest.com/source/websitename.com/".

  • Brand Support - visitors who truly love your product are more likely to create an entire Pinterest board just for you, and that could be a great support and advantage to your brand.

However, you would not be able to enjoy the benefits of having the Pinterest as part of your SEO strategy if your account therein is “impotent” or inactive that could not multiply your site's followers or the clients of your business. Thus, the succeeding tips for the effective Pinterest marketing are provided:

Create a symbiotic relationship.
Build you your network in Pinterest by following people and repinning and liking their boards. It is one efficient way of making them follow you back, and do the same like you did.

Stimulate Staff to Sign Up for Pinterest
Encourage your employees to tell the world how exciting to be in your field. They can also be helpful in repining your site and making it even more popular.

Make Boards not just for your own Products
One sided product is one sign of being over promotional, hence, to counter such negative connotation, you should create relevant boards which could cater other brands, but without going out in your business category or interest. For instance, if you're into a business of women's clothes, you can also have boards for shoes, accessories, or make up that would still make women get interested into.

Download "pin it" button
Let people know that you exist in the Pinterest so your site would likewise get noticed. Nonetheless, even if you don't create an account in the said site, the utlization of Pinterest button would still be helpful in your business as people can still access and pin your website.

You really have countless of reasons to use Pinterest in optimizing your site's traffic and gaining more clients to acquire huge profit for your business. Hence, with this, there is no other big deal about it other than site itself.

Friday 24 August 2012

Secrets of SEO Success in Social Media

Online marketing has already become a primary medium of advertisement, customer relations, and source of income for almost all high-profile businesses around the globe. But, however, this fact alone does not attest to the presumption that it is always effective regardless of the means or strategies employed by the agent because, fact is, it is impotent when there is no special tactics or secrets in optimizing the site's visibility in the social platforms.

When the facebook, for instance, is chosen by a web marketer, the common issue that embraces which is on how could it be utilized effectively to increase the ranking in the search engine and reach the target market. Indeed, this is crucial to construe; and what is happening now is that site optimizers are just going with the easy and ordinary flow of business without thinking and initiating new effective techniques to derive on the ultimate end of their business.

Undeniably, the prime goal in SEO is not just to be on top of and dominate the market, but also to have a stable strategy that could remain unshakable or unchangeable by any possible transformation in the algorithm of the search engine. Indeed, having this one today is not quite tough at all for the existence of social media has aided the optimization venture in the online sphere through its wider coverage, cost-effectiveness, and dynamic features. But, meanwhile, what does SEO really mean in the social media's context? There are some optimizers who are unclarified about it and are, therefore, taking wrong directions whenever they are doing business in twitter, facebook, LinkedIn, and any other social media sites.

Wittingly, SEO in social media is neither having a deluge of profiles to acquire backlinks nor submitting to a number of social bookmarking sites; it is precisely more about establishing your self, the blog, and the business as one reliable authority in the industry where you or the company is specialized in. In achieving this, you should induce your followers or clients that you can be trusted and no one else could provide the service or product which they need except you. Yet, you should give them indispensable reason to spread or share your links willingly, and not just because they are forced to do so. But how can you do this, anyway? Well, there can be no efficient means, and your efforts are wasted in social media marketing if you will not gravely observe the following tips which others consider as secrets of their success:

  • Ensure Quality Content – regardless of the type of your business, there is always a tight competition in the market where your rivals are trying to clinch your target audience with their own strategies. It is imperative then that, as a clever optimizer and businessman, you should ensure quality content to make your clients stick with you and follow and share your posts all the time; otherwise, an unworthy content will make them turn their interest off from your site and will seek a more sensible one. Specifically, you can ensure quality by writing and posting informative yet entertaining articles accompanied by illustrations or videos and other catchy features. On the other side, what you should avoid is feeding your clients with marketing materials which are neither good for promotion to nor relationship with your clients. Hence, what is ideal to do is to meet the hunger of your audience with essential and helpful information for it can build your credibility and establish the trust of your clients.
  • Establish and Focus on Consistency – as you tend to be consistent with the quality of your content, you should likewise do the same with your posting schedule to avoid disappointing your client who might be expecting for your post in a definite time. Commonly, the bloggers or optimizers update their accounts once or twice a week which is not good, because the efficient posting should be done three to four times weekly. However, as to the time of posting, it is recommended to have it done from 5 to 8 in the evening because, in these hours, there are already many people who are logging-in or using the web. Yet, another practice to avoid is posting in a daily basis without consistency because such can lead to the loss of followers and failure of business.
  • Have Relevant Networks – building a lot of networks is good, but creating only the most relevant ones is excellent. This is so because even if the quantity is high, but the relevance is low, it can neither help your business. Hence, the best strategy is to aim for full or complete relevance of your networks or people whom you share or link with to ensure that your marketing efforts are being received by the right audience. And in order to easily gain your responsive networks, you should also follow other users' accounts by retweeting or liking their posts.
Certainly, online marketing is made easy in the social media sites; but, nevertheless, you can neither achieve high ranking nor succeed in your business when you are equipped with no “success-proven” tactics!

Thursday 23 August 2012

Push Up Your Search Rank with Social Media

Social media sites are one direct and efficient means of instant communication and entertainment for almost all online users today, and is still becoming more useful as the tight competition among those which are regularly patronized such as facebook, twitter, and LinkedIn never loosens. This is the fortunate side of the innovation in the virtual marketing which has countered the negativity of the recent changes or updates in the search engine, specifically, those which are related to the rules and procedures of optimization.

The reason why, as officially noted in the eMarketer, the social media's impact on leading the SEO business is predicted to override the global optimization next year. Thus, the online marketers should really be wise enough in analyzing how would the said mediums affect the system on ranking or visibility in the engine. This is undeniably a complete opposite of what was the trend then in making the site visible through the compliance on the web structure and meta tags or content, link submissions in directory, and relevant linking in sites or blogs. Hence, it is not new now that, as a result of the transformation thereof, the Facebook was able to takeover with at least 800 million users. 

Nevertheless, as the rule in the previous year favorably changed, the Google bolstered the use of social media in bookmarking, author reputation, commenting, and other factors such as shares and tweets as one indispensable factor in search engine ranking. But then, there is still bewilderment among site optimizers on where they should really focus on: in optimizing or driving more traffic to the social pages or website? And how they should communicate their corporate or personal brand, and where does it live?

Upon one hand, there is a positive side in the advancement of digital tools in effectively managing the contents. For instance, the WordPress has become one great tool for web marketers in sharing videos, illustrations, and other features in the social arena to control their company's consistency and site's visibility. However, the crucial point to clarify then is how can you, as a site optimizer, utilize social media to increase traffic, push up your ranking, and gain more clients? If you're thoughtless about it, then you must take note of the following brief yet comprehensive discussions on how you should treat and what you must do with the social media to save your business:

  • Outline Your Plan - after developing keyword phrases, you then need to outline a clear task plan which would serve as your guide to evaluate the efficiency of your integrated social media and SEO technique. Specifically, your plan should include the types of content and the frequency of links or shares among the sites. It is to be noted, however, that the effectiveness of social media in increasing the ranking or visibility is also dependent on several factors such as the number of followers, relevance of the content, quality of the author, and quantity of comments, tweets, or shares.
  • Define and Stick with Your Brand – you should always bear in mind that a uniform brand message could cause the visibility of your business in different sites, thus, you should ensure to have an explicit brand and focus on it while marketing in the social media. Nonetheless, you can't successfully do it without first having yourself become familiar with social media and search engine optimizations tactics. Hence, you should have a team to research on current trends and formulate new strategies for your efficient utilization of social media sites.
  • Search Your Keyword – this should be your primary duty so you can develop a main strategy which you'll be employing during the entire activity of optimization in the social media sites. You should likewise find time in innovating your keywords to compete with your rivals in the market and acquire excellent ranking. Yet, it would be practicable for you to discuss with your team the goals you need to achieve in a specified time to boost your value and identity in the sites.
  • Employ Effective SEO Techniques – in discerning how would you be able to place a certain rank for your keywords, you still first have to execute the techniques in SEO especially when you desire to change your marketing plan. After which, you can talk with your team regarding the strategies and plans you are going follow. However, you should also note that the optimization in social media also requires authenticity, consistency, and regular management.
Doubtlessly, with proper and effective optimization techniques in social media sites, you can certainly ensure that your business, or the product and service being promoted, would be visible despite the less effort you have exerted in making your followers see how your team was “blinded” just to make your ranking climb on the ladder of success of the search engine.

Wednesday 22 August 2012

Great Tips To Overrule Google Update

When Google publishes a warning update about SEO operation, what follows then is the panic among the webmasters who are clinching every defect or error on their techniques and innovate new strategies to harmonize the regular practice of the business with that of the new rules imposed by the upgraded system of the search engine. This is neither good for the optimization of the traffic nor favorable for the entire operation of the company in gaining more client and profit. Otherwise, it becomes a dreadful threat for every site optimizer who does not want to be penalized for disobedience or observance of the wrongful practice. Thus, it is ostensible today that almost all of those who are involved in the said business are formulating tactics which could outlast and overrule whatever update the engine would have in the succeeding unexpected times.

Naturally, when an update comes out, it has been a habit of the system to provide suggestions for the proper solution to the matter being taken thereof; however, it is also common that there is always bewilderment on how the procedure should be followed properly or how things should be weighed squarely so as to protect both the interest of the company for stable or high ranking and of the search engine for the hassle-free and well-organized data. As such being the case, the problem often stays long before the resolution is perfected, and, notably, only those clever online marketers or optimizers were able to survive with the challenges of time in the virtual business.

There were, specifically, a deluge of changes which have triggered for the gradual transformation of optimization techniques from the then meta data to the social media sites and backlinks today. And not only that is surprising; there were also various updates in Penguin and Panda which have caused SEO industry to take a new business leap to go with the smooth flow of the systematic yet complex operation in the search engine. Nevertheless, notwithstanding with the inevitable changes, there are still efficient strategies such as the following items which have remained unshaken by any algorithm update, and, thus, they are what you should gravely note for; otherwise, you'll have nothing to save your business in times of weariness:

  • Secure Quality Content
Having quality contents which are searchable in the web and are significantly helpful to the readers is indisputably a great strategy which will never leave your ranking below the par. Specifically, if you have a content which is worth linking and sharing to other users, it could boost your site's value and, therefore, gaining popularity and dominance in the market.

  • Build-up Trust and Engage Social Audience with Your Content
Once you have established a stronger or closer relationship with your social community, then you can easily share with your target audience the quality contents which they may likewise share with their peers or friends in Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and any other social media sites. Thus, when your content has spread all over the web, then you can be on top of the exposure and gain more followers. Nevertheless, it is not that easy as what you might think it is; you still have to catch your audience's interest and induce them to be involved in your venture; hence, you must do it by posting intelligible status or questions and sensible or appropriate comments.

  • Don't just Build; Earn Your Links!
You should always bear in mind that your content is intended primarily in serving the needs of the users, and not in building backlinks. It is, thus, favorable to secure first that your content is worthy for the readers because the earning in backlinks will just follow after which. That is ostensibly for the reason that the search engine knows that having backlinks is easy to manipulate, but acquiring something quality from a reliable source or reference is a big deal in the process of optimizing any business.

Indisputably, by integrating the aforementioned great tips in your effective optimization strategies, you'll have an assurance that your business will not be left behind by your rivals in the much competitive market, and yet, your company can confidently look forward to in a brighter future without being threatened of being overruled by any Google update.