How To Use Social Signals To Dramtically Improve SEO

In order for your website to achieve the level of success you are looking for, you need to engage in some type of online marketing. Currently, search engine optimization and social media marketing are two of the best ways you can promote your website and drive targeted traffic to your business.

While SEO and SMM are two different entities, they are becoming increasingly intertwined thanks to the latest search engine algorithm updates released by Google. Google is now placing a larger emphasis on social signals to determine whether or not a website is providing its users with quality content. The thinking behind Google’s algorithm updates is that if your website does provide value to your readers, those readers will want to share it with their social circles via their social media accounts. If your website has a lot of backlinks coming from these social media websites, then it will be rewarded with a higher ranking in the search results.

Because of these recent Google algorithm changes, it is important for businesses to include social media marketing techniques with their SEO campaigns. This will allow your website to obtain the highest possible rankings within the search results.

How to Improve your Social Signals
There are a variety of ways that you can improve your website’s social signals in order to obtain a higher ranking within the search engine. One of the easiest strategies you can use is to include social media buttons on your website’s content. This will enable any visitor to your website to easily share your content through their social media accounts. If someone has a large following on a social media website, their followers may see your link posted on their account and share it with their followers, greatly improving your website’s credibility in the eye’s of the search engines.

Another way to improve your social signals is to actively market your website on the most popular social media websites. Creating a Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest account for your business will allow you to raise the awareness of your company on those websites while simultaneously connecting with their users.

Once you have created your accounts, you will need to actively engage with people on those social media websites. By interacting with people on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, you will be able to form meaningful relationships with them. This will lead to those people following your account and seeing all of the new content that you produce.

After you start to build a following for your social media accounts, you will want to provide your followers with nothing but high quality content. When you provide your visitors with nothing but great content, you will become an industry leader and viewed as an expert in your field. This will allow your business to gain credibility and the trust of your followers. Once people view your business as an industry expert, they will be more likely to share your content with their social media followers and help build valuable backlinks for your website.

As search engines start to place more of an emphasis on social signals when determining where your website should be ranked, it is important for businesses to add social media marketing to their overall SEO strategy. With an increase of links coming from social media websites, a business’s website will move up the search engine results as Google will view the website as an authority figure.

Guest Post provided by Ben Sawyer.  Ben is well known blogger and Internet Marketing Strategist. Here is his advice about how to implement social signals into SEO to increase online visibility and gain more visitors, which he already implemented into a campaign he done for Vandko Candles, New York based company. 

Understanding Off-Page SEO

Off-Page SEO is about building online authority, digital reputation, and trust for your website. The quantity, quality, and relevance of the links that are attached to the website determine the quality of search result rankings.

When initiating a campaign to improve rankings for a leading brand, the focus was on off-page optimization and building authority for the site.  However, the existing authority was entirely dependent on the links that had already been established.  Enter "off page SEO".  The primary step to improve rankings and traffic was through the development of quality inbound links.

One must realize that off-page is more than link building. The way you diversify authority for your website, is through conversations people are having about brands, references they are making, and diversifying your link portfolio to establish your authority.

Link Building is the practice of building inbound links to create compelling authority around any item that is shared.

Compelling Content is the best way to optimize your website and other digital assets. Without compelling content it's hard to get a link building audience. The best way to earn relevant links from other sites to your site is through the development of compelling visuals, descriptive, and design, that excite others and are worth of being cross-promoted by other sites. As an example, something as simple as a chocolate chip cookie recipe or cupcakes are great items that can be used to promote food ingredients for the likes of Kraft and other major manufacturers. 

Co-Marketing is another opportunity for off-page SEO.  The effort of cross-promoting and marketing is a way of networking, and building relationships to create community.  When you can work with other companies to jointly market each other’s content, products, or services, you expand your reach and website authority. Co-marketing is similar to guest posting. A person has access to the other company’s networks, prospect, leads, or services, which ultimately increase reach. 

Social Media hasn't been on the radar as part of off-page SEO but it is now. The criteria around off page SEO is to build your reputation one step at a time and build community. The reputation created on social media is instant, and the authority established through various credentials can provide significant lift to your website authority in the eyes of Google and other major search engines. 

Public Relations or Public Affairs needs to be an integral part of your off-page SEO as well.  By having a well planned PR campaign that is optimized in such a way that it is easily shared can dramatically improve exposure. Positioning your communication as a message that needs to be shared as a fact or announcement is a powerful tool.  For example, if Kraft is expanding within the range of cookies, and adding more healthy cookies, it would really help to create sustainable messages around the sweet, and healthy benefits of the food, cookies.

In the above example, the quality of search result rankings would not be determined by the recipe of the food products that Kraft plans to promote, but by the publicity of social media efforts as others share recipes and tout health benefits. 

Using effective messaging an positioning can help to dramatically improve off-page SEO.  Whether you are creating original content that is easily shared or pushing messages via public relations, the more quality links you are able to generate to your site, the better!


Guest post from Karishma Sinha. An eye on consumers, and passionate about analytics and research tools that can make marketer stay educated about his or her creative instincts. I have worked in PepsiCo, and Quest International, managing product innovation for Snack products. In 2006, transitioned to the marketing services, and consulting world. Am a graduate from St.Xaviers, Mumbai, Master's from Symbiosis Pune, and a Full time MBA from Duke University, The Fuqua School of Business, North Carolina. 

Pinterest Email... This is Cool!

This morning, when I rolled into the office and started trolling through my emails, I saw a letter from the founder of Pinterest.  As a casual user of Pinterest it certainly caught my eye.  The letter is a personal one that takes you inside a recent idea that was just launched, Secret Boards!

The concept is simple but brilliant.  Here's an excerpt from the email...

"I had two thoughts driving home from the hospital with my wife, Divya. The first was, “I can’t believe I’m a Dad.” The second was, “I hope I can get our new baby, Max, out of that new car seat when we get home.” During the first couple weeks, we started to figure out all the little things that are second nature for experienced parents...

"As usual, Divya was a few steps ahead of me. When our doctor suggested we buy a humidifier she said, “Oh, I already have one!” When I was getting Max ready for his first bath, she pulled out a neat homemade bath kit, complete with a tiny towel, comb and toothbrush..."

“How did you figure all this stuff out already?!” She looked at me and and cheerfully replied, “I just follow other parents on Pinterest!”

"Today, we’re excited to continue this tradition with a new feature we hope will make Pinterest even better—secret boards. Secret boards give you a place for things you’re not quite ready to share yet, like a surprise party, special gift ideas, or even planning for a new baby. We’re testing out the feature by giving everyone 3 secret boards. You’ll find them at the bottom of your profile. We can’t wait to hear what you think!"

—Ben & the Pinterest Team

You can see from the email, Ben took inspiration fro ma real life situation and applied it to his business.  Are you doing the same?  Taking inspired action is truly the key to success.  Also, I thought it was really cool that instead of announcing a new "feature", Pinterest made it personal and share the back story about it's creation.

Now that you have the inside scoop... starting Pinning and have a great weekend!

Godrej Aer : Aer it Out

Brand : Aer
Company : Godrej

Brand Analysis Count : # 517

Godrej has entered the Rs 300 crore Air Care market with the new brand Godrej Aer. Godrej was instrumental in developing the category of air-freshners in Indian market through the JV Godrej - Sara Lee. Ambi-Pur was the brand which had created this category in India. But in 2011, Sara Lee sold its personal care division to P&G and the brand Ambi-Pur has moved to P&G.

Not to be left behind in the category which Godrej's JV had created, the company was quick to launch its own brand Aer in the Indian market. Godrej Aer is now running its launch campaigns across the Indian market. 

The brand has started off with some thoughtful branding strategies. To being with, Godrej has chosen a very powerful brand name " Aer ".Aer which is the marketer's way of using the generic word " Air" .

Ambi-pur is the most visible brand in the air-freshner category in India. Air-Wick is another brand which is focusing on the home category . There are also many local and imported brands in this category.Odonil was one of the pioneers in the room-freshner category but some how this brand is restricted to washrooms ( pun intended). This lifestyle product is expected to see better growth in coming years. According to reports, this category is growing at the rate of 20% each year.

Godrej in the launch campaign is focusing on the car -freshner segment of the category. 

Aer has tried to tackle the market using two differentiating attributes. First factor is the design. Aer has put lot of thought into the design aspect of the container. The design is eye-catching and very contemporary. Second differentiator ( in car freshner) is the ON/OFF switch. The brand is harping on this factor in the television commercial .

Watch the ad here : Aer 

Godrej Aer's focus On/Off switch  as the key differentiator may not be sustainable since any competitor can easily replicate the feature. Launching the brand purely on this easily copy-able feature is a marketing mistake on the part of Godrej. Its also surprising to see that Godrej is downplaying the wonderful design element of the brand. The brand is focusing on functionality + fragrance as the main focusing point. The brand has the tagline  " Aer it Out " and has put its mission as to change the way air smells and spells. The brand has priced the product a little above the Ambi-Pur but I feel that the design will encourage many consumers to switch to this product for a trial.

Related brand

Ambi-pur

5 Important things to remember when planning your social media strategy

A lot of mistakes I see businesses making when joining social media networks is leaping in without a plan – or to put it more precisely – without a strategy. It’s something I think many of us overlook. After all, when we use something on a day-to-day basis for our own personal enjoyment (I mean, who doesn't log into Facebook during their lunch break or on their night-off?) we assume we can treat social media marketing with the same flippancy and casualness.

But social media marketing is just that, it’s marketing. You wouldn't jump head first into a print ad campaign without thinking about the marketing credentials and the strategy behind it first and you shouldn't jump head first into social media marketing either.

The sheer power of social media marketing has already been proven so don't waste your time trying to convince yourself of the potential opportunity. While I'm not claiming every company needs to hire a social media professional to plan out their strategy, what I do recommend is sitting down with your marketing team and answering a few questions, outlining a key points, and jotting down some ideas or key concerns.

1. Think about your demographic
Before you start posting status updates, think about who's going to be reading them and what time of day they're most likely to check their updates and news feeds. Take for example, if your main demographic included teenagers and school children, posting during school hours would be a big waste of time because they would be in class (hopefully) and wouldn't have access to their accounts. Posting during the evening however or during lunch break would be prime time for updates as this is when they'd be online and looking through updates.

2. Brand your pages
Your social profiles are just like your web pages and emails. They should all be branded. Make sure you've got your logo clearly and concisely displayed somewhere on your profile and make sure your colors and design features echo your websites in some way as well. Make sure these choices are consistent throughout your social networking too – because it’ll be confusing for customers and fans if not.

3. Set a budget
A great part of social media marketing is communicating with your customers and fan base, encouraging their interaction. While you don't need a budget for this initially, in order to drive your presence forward on a larger scale, you might want to set up competitions or give-away's. To do this effectively, you need to set aside a budget and a realistic one too. Do you want to give away smaller prizes on a regular basis, or do you want to give away a large prize once or twice a year? All these little details need to be taken into consideration for your promotions.

4. What are using social media for?
While social media is for encouraging brand communication and inevitably increasing traffic and sales, you need to consider what your customers and followers are interacting with you for. Are they following your updates because they're funny, or do you give away bargain discount codes? Do you post interesting and insightful content or are they following you because they get a behind-the-scenes look into your company? All these thing matter and once you've identified this pull, making updates become easier.

5. Set targets
Set yourself realistic targets on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Think about how many updates you want to post daily, and then (on a larger scale) how many likes and interactions you want on a monthly basis. Keeping track of these things is a great way to prove how worthwhile your work has been – but it’s also a good idea as you can see if your technique and strategy is actually working over time. If not – it might be time to try a different social network – or reevaluate the strategies you’d had in place.

By asking yourself these questions and taking the time to answer them honestly, you can dramatically improve your chances of social media success. The benefits of social media can be yours with a little planning and hard work.

This Guest Blog Post was provided by Elle-Rose Williams – who works with WhoIsHostingThis. You can find out more about them, here. 

Attract More Visitors To Your Blog - 9 Strategies...

Attracting more people to your blog is essential for improving your individual brand and monetizing your blog. In today's guest post, Korah Morrison shares her helpful traffic generation tips. Attract more visitors to your blog with these simple steps: 

1. The first method you may wish to think about is simple advertising. Advertising works and there are many methods you can use to advertise your blog--both online and offline. It will cost you a little bit of money, but its expense all depends upon how badly you want people to see your blog. 

2. You can try a guest post on someone else’s blog. This is where you add quality content onto someone else’s blog in return for their blog linking to yours. This will bring you direct traffic from the readers of the article who follow the link, and will help you to appear higher up in the search engine results pages. If you do wish to appear even higher in the search engine results pages you should consider the aspects of SEO. This is the act of making your blog post easier to read by the search engines, so that they list you higher up in their search results. Submit a sitemap to Google so that they list you in their search engine results. 

3. Do not be afraid to talk about it on social media. If you have followers or friends on social media platforms, then talk about your blog and encourage people to go and look at it. Talk about its topics and the angle you took on certain issues. 

4. Add a link from your email to your blog. Have one embedded at the bottom of your emails so that every single email you send out has a link to your blog from it. You may also add a link from your website if you have one. 

5. Allow people to link from your comment section, if you want them to comment and to keep coming back. Links are handy for rising higher in the search engine results pages, so people will happily keep coming back and commenting every week if you allow them to post links. 

6. Have an exciting or interesting title for your blog posts. A dull or boring one will not attract many visitors. Make sure that you write about the title you choose. Don’t add a title that is exciting and interesting if it has nothing to do with what your blog is actually about. Do not make your title misleading, but do make it exciting or interesting enough to grab people’s attention. Sometimes it is only the title of a blog that encourages people to even bother reading your blog.  

7. The use of social bookmarking. Put the plug social bookmarking. It is quite possible to get targeted traffic from these services. 

8. Compile lists. People love to read lists of any rules, tips, techniques, relating to important questions. Very convenient when all useful tips collected in one place. 

9. Commenting on other people's blogs. It is desirable to leave comments on popular blogs. And not just comment, but clever and useful comments. It could allow you become noticeable and get attention. Traffic from popular blogs is very useful. 

If you're struggling to generate traffic to your blog, consider these helpful hints.  Over time, by taking small actions in the direction of your goal, traffic will start to build.  Stick with it!

About the Author: Today's guest post is by Korah Morrison, writer on essay writing service and she likes to write about seo, blogging, social media and internet marketing.

Marketing New and Different!

What is it that makes someone stand up and take notice?  In marketing, it's what's new and different that catches the eye.  I recently had to address this issue with the SCOOP Internet Marketing Forum.  I started the forum a couple of years ago and have been blessed with a growing number of members. However, now I'd like to expand the platform to help as many marketers as possible find the answers they're looking for.  To do so, I have to begin asking some questions.

Where to Begin?
I thought long and hard about my forum and other forums I've joined in the past and asked that one difficult question.  "What's so great about the SCOOP forum?"  It's not an easy questions to ask yourself.  In fact, I'd like you to try the question out on your product, service, or business.  What is it that's truly unique about you?  How do customers benefit by purchasing your service above other service providers?

The question is difficult because it requires us to think of something new, different. After asking the question to myself I realized that:

--What I had to offer wasn't different
--Consumers could find similar information elsewhere
--I was making excuses for why I had a me-too solution

From Thought to Action
Once I realized that I wasn't offering anything of greater value than my competitors, other marketing forums, I had to begin asking a different question, "How CAN I make my forum different and better?"  Asking that questions really got me thinking.  It also made me realize that I should be working with others to share ideas and evaluate possibilities.

After just a short while we started to find a variety of things that we could do to enhance the forum (expanded profiles, design changes, exclusive content, etc.) to set us apart from the competition.  It was clear to me that once you start asking the right questions, you can do something to set you apart and rise above the crowd.  Keep this in mind the next time you're just getting by and need a change for your company, products, or services!