SEO Blog

There is a lot that goes into an effective SEO campaign. There are many components to launching one and SEO best practices covers a lot of territory. But for those who are trying to do a little research on the topic, it is easy to get burned when you start reading various SEO blogs. If you go to the first blog you find and read it you may end up in a world of hurt with tons of misinformation. There can be serious results like getting your site penalized by Panda, or getting banned from a particular site because of black hat methods that are less than ethical. It goes without saying that there is both good and bad content on this information highway we call the web 2.0!

Be Careful

The best advice for those who are looking for solid information about best SEO practices is to be careful. Do not believe everything you read. Just because the author says that they are an SEO specialist, does not mean it’s true. As a good rule of thumb, never believe anything that you read only on one site. It is wiser to read several reputable SEO blogs and sort through the information to make sure you have achieved a good understanding of it.

Another very important aspect is to make sure that the blog is up to date. The internet is always changing and evolving. Check to see when the blog was written. For instance, if it was written before the latest Panda updates you may find yourself in a bind. Always check the date and read multiple blogs on the topic to get a good balance of information. Here are some of the best SEO blogs that I use for my research.

SEOMOZ Blog

The SEOMOZ Blog is one of the most comprehensive ones available. It has a wide variety of topics and it is closely monitored to ensure that the information you read is accurate and correct. The blog gives very useful and updated information on a lot of SEO best practices. You can search it to find informative articles on how to launch and maintain a successful SEO campaign, link building strategies and various aspects of web 2.0 optimization. It contains plenty of good advice on how to make the most of the social media available on the internet. I use this particular blog a lot when doing my own research.

Awebguy.com

The other SEO blog that I use frequently is www.awebguy.com. Actually, I subscribe to this blog and find that there is a lot of useful information for anyone working in any capacity with web marketing. This blog is very professionally done. The writing style is very open and honest.  This blog is written by Mark Murnahan, who is an SEO veteran and one of the leading SEO experts around!  The main thing though, is the content. He usually presents more than one side to the story. He takes time to describe what works and why it works. But he also goes into what works plus tells you why it is not an effective process to use. He has lots of web marketing tips and I find this blog an invaluable resource.

Rule of Thumb

rule of thumb

There are tons of SEO blogs to choose from. Personally, I rely on these two the most. I peruse through various other sites to glean tidbits of information here and there. But these two are the most reliable and I frequent them the most. The rule of thumb is when you find a reliable site – bookmark it and use it frequently, subscribe to their mailings and read them religiously. Other sites – look at them but always balance them against what you know to be the solid and trustworthy sites.

Social Media Marketing 101

Social Media Marketing

The web 2.0 universe is designed to be more than just an information highway. Many younger people who use the internet today do not even remember when it was purely a source to gain information. To the new generation it has always been viewed as a form of social media where everyone can get involved, everyone can add input. This is actually the ideal opportunity for the world of web marketing in New Jersey. Social media simply makes use of this web 2.0 technology that is relying on the interaction and input of internet users. Ideally, prospective and faithful customers are marketing your product or business for you.

Examples of Social Media

In its most basic state social networking or social media is pretty much any online activity where people are talking or interacting with one another in some fashion. Some of the most popular social sites are Twitter and Facebook. These can be vital parts of an SEO campaign or a web marketing campaign. These and many other types of social sites can aid in various link building strategies. However, there are many different types of social sites like Squidoo and Digg. There are many social bookmarking communities as well as blogs; each of which can be very useful in link building campaigns.

Why Do Social Media?

There are several ways social media can be beneficial for an SEO campaign in Essex County. Other than the obvious benefits for website optimization, social sites can also help build an effective way to communicate with your customers and a way to receive valuable feedback. It can be useful when building the awareness of your brand. It can also be a way of getting valuable information into the hands of your customers. The statistics show that 88% of Americans who are 29 and under are online in some capacity while up to 75% of all Americans go online regularly. This makes social media a great platform for a web marketing campaign.

Table of Contents:

What is Social Bookmarking?
Social Bookmarking Best Practices
Social Bookmarking Communities
Social Bookmarking Strategies
Does Social Bookmarking Work?
Link Building Tips

What is Social Bookmarking?

Social Bookmarking

All of us have shared a link with a friend at some time or another. We have come across a website or blog that we found to be very interesting, and since we thought the information was useful or worth sharing we sent the link to others that we thought would also be interested. Social bookmarking is similar in essence, in that it is sharing a site with a friend. However, social bookmarks are saved online– they are saved to the web. This makes them very easy to share with friends and the online community.

Basically, you can create a profile in a social bookmarking community and then “bookmark” pages or content that you find interesting. This makes it easy to find your own bookmarks from any computer, and also to share them with others who may have the same interests. To help others find a bookmarked page, users store them and “tag” them with descriptive words or phrases. This makes them easy to locate for people and search engines.

Social bookmarking can provide many valuable back links to websites. The search engines will see these as relevant links to a site which makes them a vital part of a link building and SEO campaign.

Social Bookmarking Best Practices

Bookmarking Best Practices

Social bookmarks can be a valuable part of a successful SEO campaign in New Jersey. Actively participating in a social bookmarking community can be essential when employing link building strategies for a site. These online bookmarks are actually a very good and legitimate way to begin building valuable links back to your page or site. Search engines see these as relevant and valuable inbound links which makes them a very valuable part of SEO best practices in New Jersey.

Just like all other SEO strategies there are best practices that help make social bookmarks effective. Here are a few best practices:

• Always tag bookmarks – this is how people and search engines find them
• Don’t add all of your bookmarks in a day – spread them out over time
• Add bookmarks yourself as automated software will get you banned from some sites
• Bookmark your top pages, blog posts or topics to generate more incoming traffic from links
• Participate in the social bookmarking community – don’t simply add your own links

These are just a few best practices to help with link building strategies. If done in good taste, social bookmarks can be a very beneficial part of a link building campaign.

Social Bookmarking Communities

Bookmarking Communities

The web 2.0 changed the way the internet was used, and how it affects our lives. It is still a useful resource for information but it now provides a platform for social media. There are many social marketing strategies that can be used; one of them is social bookmarking communities.

We have probably all used a bookmark on our personal computer so that we could return to a site that we found useful or interesting. Social bookmarking sites allow users to basically do this same action, only the link is shared online not just saved to the computer. Sharing these in an online community means that these links are available for those who share this interest. Users browse the site looking for items of interest. When they find a site or a page that they feel is interesting and merits sharing they can tag it and share it on their page in the community.

Once you bookmark a page of interest you will add tags to it. These are words or short phrases that will be used by others who are looking for such information. When they find the tag on the community they can then click the link to go to the page and read the entire article or blog; or just peruse the site themselves. It is basically a social community for sharing like interests through tagging or bookmarking various sites.

What distinguishes social bookmarking communities from other social bookmarking sites is that the community bookmarking sites allow users to make friends and communicate with other members; non community social bookmarking sites are simply a place to post a link to a page.

Social Bookmarking Strategies

Marketing Strategies

Using social bookmarks can be an essential element in an SEO campaign in New Jersey. Online bookmarkscan provide valuable back links which the search engines will deem as relevant. Social bookmarking can be invaluable to a link building campaign if they are used appropriately.

Obviously you will want to be active in social bookmarking communities by adding links to sites, pages or information that is relevant. When you add a bookmark always add tags, this is a strategy that cannot be ignored; it is essential to tag the bookmark so that others can find the link to the information you are sharing with the community. The links provided are seen as relevant by search engines which make social bookmarks an important part of a link building campaign.

When you update your site or blog it should be submitted to your social bookmarking community. This accomplishes two things. For one it keeps your account in the community active and provides links back to your site. This New Jersey web marketing strategy will help keep members of your online community engaged and aware of various changes. The most effective way to do this is to add the social bookmark the same day you make the changes to the content on your site, blog or page.

Does Social Bookmarking Work?

Social Bookmarking Works

If social bookmarks are done correctly they can be very productive for increasing traffic to a site. It can be an essential part of an SEO campaign. It can be especially beneficial and productive for those targeting younger audiences. Using social bookmarks can be one of the fastest ways of getting your site to be indexed by search engines. Since these links are seen as relevant and valuable, when part of a link building strategy they can help increase the site’s ranking in search engine result pages which is the ultimate goal of an SEO campaign.

Social bookmarking uses the web 2.0 platform and allows users to search, organize, store and manage various bookmarked pages. These are tagged so that they can be found by people and search engines later. When someone finds your site through a bookmark or other social site they can bookmark it as containing interesting or useful information. This is why it is very important to include social bookmarking buttons on blogs or sites. This can be a very effective part of an SEO strategy in New Jersey. The more people who share your pages the more visible it will be to others and to search engines alike.

Link Building Tips

Website Promotion

Link building strategies are an integral part of an effective SEO campaign, SEO best practices can take many different forms with the outcome being higher rankings in search engine results pages and increased site visitors. Link building strategies are just one part of the campaign, but it is an important part and there are several ways to make it effective.

Make it easy for others to share your site on various web 2.0 social media platforms by putting share buttons right on your site, blog or page. These will create a very quick and relevant link back to your site from another online source. These help to make your site more visible and are also seen as relevant and valuable back links by search engine crawlers. These can easily be included in the web design.

Join various social websites. This can include Facebook, Twitter, Squidoo and various social bookmarking sites. These can all provide platforms from which to share links to your site. Always read the TOS to make sure that you stay within the site’s guidelines for sharing this type of information.

Avoid low quality links. If you get a lot of links but they are not seen as relevant by the search engines your site can actually get penalized by search engines so make sure the links you have coming in are pertinent and related to the site in some way. So if you choose to use social bookmarking as part of your link building strategy make sure that you become active on each social bookmarking site that you use and make sure that you also get other links from sites/blogs, not just from social bookmarks.

Who is ICANN

ICANN

ICANN is a worldwide partnership that maintains a not-for-profit status. It was formed in 1998 and the purpose was to help keep the internet stable and secure. ICANN has no control over the content that is displayed on the internet but it does coordinate the internet’s naming system. And it has a lot to do with how domain names are expanded.

Each computer has its own unique IP address which is a series of numbers. This helps computers be able to find one another and helps to identify and coordinate them across the globe so that there is one internet. There are not two of these IP addresses that are the same; each computer has a unique identifier this way.  ICANN works to make sure these IP addresses are coordinated so that there are no repetitions. ICANN develops the various policies on how these unique identifiers are handled.

What Does ICANN do?

ICANN has no control over some elements of the internet. They in no way manage content, they do not stop spam and they have no say so over access to the World Wide Web. However, they do coordinate the whole naming system used by the internet. This has a significant impact on how the internet expands and how it changes over time.

One of the responsibilities that ICANN does have is to help regulate and maintain domain names. This is a rather large task with the exponential growth of internet users and those wanting to launch web marketing campaigns. To set up any web site you will have to check your desired domain name with sites across the world to ensure that there are no duplicates. To have duplicate domain names could cause terrible problems!

Presently there are over 20 generic domains. This includes the very familiar .com, .net, .gov, .org and .edu. But with the growth of the internet across the globe, and almost half of the users located in Asia, some changes to the available domains may be on the way. ICANN is proposing the release of many more domains in the not too distant future; and this expansion may include non-Roman characters.

Possible Changes in Control

ICANN is moving toward adding even more domain names so that individuals have more power over their own brands. For instance you could purchase a domain name that was .yourcompanyname. You can purchase your personalized domain name for just under $200,000.  This allows different businesses to protect their own domain and brand name.

There are many opponents who say that ICANN is not global enough and that these attempts to help internet users protect their brand fall too short. And quite honestly, many are saying that ICANN is not focused enough on the international demands of the market. This is why some are moving to put the internet under the control of the U.N. They feel that it would help the internet to be governed. Others however, feel that such international input could place more regulations on the internet and put its openness in jeopardy. ICANN wants to ensure that the internet remains free and open.

Plus Your World Update

Last Tuesday, Google announced a change to how it displays search results. This change is called “Search, Plus Your World,” and it’s attempting to further personalize search results for users. Google has been taking user preference into account when displaying search results for a long time now; believing a site a user has visited previously is more useful to that user than a completely unknown site. How Search, Plus Your World differs from Google’s previous algorithm is it displays relevant results from users in your circles on Google+ at the top of the page.

In the wake of this update, it’s obvious that Google+ just became a lot more important for SEO. Does this mean that Facebook and Twitter have become obsolete? Are you wasting your time using other social media sites, when relevant conversations on Google+ are being sent to the top of search results by default? The answer is a resounding “NO!”

Search Engines Factor in All Social Signals

Even though Google actively promotes terms and phrases used in Google+ posts, it still uses Facebook Likes, Tweets and other social signals when calculating search rankings. What this means is while spending more time building relationships on Google+ is a good idea, abandoning Facebook and Twitter is not. If anything, you should increase the time spent using Google+, and continue using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social sites as normal. It’s true that Google+ is very likely going to become more important for SEO as time goes on, but its importance won’t eclipse the value of every other social media outlet.

Don’t Forget Your User Base

Forget about the indirect benefit of Facebook Likes, Tweets and other social signals for a second. The real benefit of having a strong social presence is connecting with the people who use these sites. Social sites are enormously popular, and present a perfect opportunity to build new relationships, interact with your users and promote your brand. In addition to providing a popular platform for building valuable professional relationships, all social sites have an impact on search results. Social media is here to stay, and the benefit you gain social interactions with real, human users will outweigh any indirect benefit you gain from having your site show up in search results thanks to Search, Plus Your World.

Search, Plus Your World Isn’t a Sure Thing

There’s already been a huge privacy backlash against Google’s recent search update. In addition, Search, Plus Your World only works if users are have an account, and are logged in. On top of that, these search results are easy enough to deactivate. Google updates and changes its algorithm constantly, and hasn’t been afraid to abandon failed projects in the past. Remember Google Knol, Google Buzz, and Google Wave? If you abandon other social outlets in favor of Google+, where will you be if Google decides to discontinue Search, Plus Your World altogether?

This new update definitely affects SEO, but exactly how far-reaching that affect is has yet to be determined. The simple fact that Search, Plus Your World only affects users who have a Google+ account, are signed in and haven’t disabled it should be enough to convince you to maintain your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Focus a bit more on Google+? Sure. Abandon all social media in favor of the possible extra exposure given by Search, Plus Your World? Absolutely not.

This guest post was written by Tyler Moore

Tyler Moore is an SEO and marketing consultant based in Indianapolis, IN. Tyler currently works for DocRaptor, an HTML to PDF API developed by Expected Behavior, a web development team from Indianapolis. DocRaptor converts code to PDF and Excel format with a simple HTTP POST request, and handles stylesheets better than comparable applications.

Marketing strategy

Marketing Pitfalls

One of the biggest mistakes is the lack of proper use of SEO best practices. There are some things that can be costly to a website and these are common mistakes. One of the biggest mistakes that can cost you lots of traffic is choosing the wrong keyword. An SEO consultant will choose carefully as well as doing a lot of research to help select the most effective keyword or keyword phrases. Keyword stuffing can be just as hazardous to your site as it can get you penalized by Panda and put you at the bottom of the rankings.

Another troublesome area when you are first starting out with a web marketing campaign is not diversifying your website optimization options. You can start small, but you want to use a variety of SEO practices to help get your site up in the search engine results pages. This will take time – don’t get impatient! Now that we’ve talked a little bit about what not to do, let’s talk about what some characteristics of a good web marketing campaign look like.

Branding

Branding strategy

Your brand is what will help customers connect with you. The point of branding is familiarity. You basically want to market your brand so that people will associate your brand with your business. Effective branding will help connect with your target audience and help develop credibility with clientele over time. Your brand is like your guarantee to your customers, it’s a form of communication that every business needs.

Web Site Design

This is a crucial element in any web marketing scheme. You will want to incorporate SEO strategies into the web site design. While an SEO campaign (discussed later) will help visitors find your site by increasing its rank in search engine result pages, the web site must be designed with the user, not the search engine in mind. You want a site that is easy to find and easy to navigate. It must appeal to the user; SEO practices can be employed to ensure that the site will also be appealing to the search engines.

SEO Basics

When you speak of web marketing for your business, you automatically incorporate SEO best practices into the mix. An SEO campaign will include many different strategies. This includes the proper use of keywords and quality content geared toward meeting the expectations of both customers and the search engines. But you will also want to use a wide variety of strategies provided by the web 2.0 platforms. Social bookmarking and the use of other social sites are very important in a successful SEO campaign. The social media platform is vast, but with appropriate planning and useful strategies you can learn which ones are the best avenues for your web marketing campaign. Link building strategies and many off site tools can be incorporated into the SEO campaign as well. Look at everything. Consider it and see how it can help you launch a successful marketing plan.

NJ kitchen designs

Aurora Kitchens & Interiors offer their clientele professional kitchen remodeling services in New Jersey. There are many reasons why homeowners choose Aurora Kitchens & Interiors for their kitchen remodeling projects and one of them is the level of professionalism that they use in dealing with their customers as well as in the way they handle business transactions. This meticulous care can also be seen in the way that they use SEO best practices in their web site design.

How Does Website Design Affect Customers?

How a website is designed says a lot to potential customers. If the information that they are looking for is too difficult to find, you can be sure that the “back” button will be their next choice. AuroraDesignsNJ.com has employed best practices in website marketing and design. All of the information that a customer needs is easy to find and the site is easy to navigate. A first time visitor and a returning customer can easily discover the types of professional kitchen remodeling services in New Jersey that are available. Above this, it is easy to find out more about the company. Establishing a rapport with a new client is essential and can be difficult over the internet. But a professionally designed site can give a potential customer the peace of mind they need to make that initial contact.

Aurora Kitchens & Interiors has all of the important elements for customers looking for kitchen remodeling services in New Jersey. It has all the features that an effective SEO campaign should have. Customers will see contact information on every single page which also serves as local SEO strategies. There is a portfolio of work that has been completed by the professionals and a list of the variety of services that they can provide.

How Does Website Design Affect Search Engines?

AuroraDesignsNJ.com is a great example of the perfectly balanced website optimization campaign. For customers and search engines both content is key. For customers this means being able to find out what you want to know about the company and their services; this should be included in the site’s content. A search engine is not looking for the same information that a homeowner is looking for, but the content is still important.

Conclusion

Search engines are looking for quality, keyword rich content. This means that the content has to be relevant to the site and the services provided and not just stuffed full of meaningless keywords to get the click.  Aurora Kitchens & Interiors has designed their site to create a rapport with both the customers who visit the site and the search engine crawlers who will determine the site’s ranking in results.

Marketing

Many marketing companies have slacked off and do not take SEO strategies serious enough. If we are not careful we will reduce our strategies to simply updating a facebook status and sending out a tweet. This is not what successful marketing is about. Successful website 2.0 optimization will make use of every legitimately available tool, but building a successful SEO campaign will take more than just a tweet or two.

The right marketer will be upright and honest with customers about how to build a successful website optimization campaign. Good marketing professionals can be difficult to find. The best ones are those who are successful with their own campaigns as well as with that of others. Think about what happens when you search for your own marketing company. Is your business hitting the rankings like what you advertise you can do for others? If you cannot get your SEO company to land high in the SERPs, why should someone else trust you with their business or website development? One of your best advertising techniques will be to optimize your own site first, so that it can easily be found by customers.

There are some concepts that are difficult to grasp and even more difficult to explain. For instance, in SEO strategies, more is not always better. It is important to build strategies to reach a target audience, not the entire web. Sometimes marketing professionals forget this key concept. It can be difficult to explain at best. Another concept that is difficult to explain is how marketing is not simply something that costs your company money; it is actually an investment. Misunderstanding these key SEO concepts can cost marketing professionals a successful campaign. On the other hand, understanding and employing them can ensure a successful campaign as well as increased traffic and revenue.

Get Found Online

The purpose of a New Jersey SEO campaign is to optimize a site or a page and ensure that it ranks high in search engine result pages. The benefit of this ranking is that the site gets more traffic. All of the keyword research, website design and web marketing campaigns in New Jersey are geared toward getting a site, or a particular page on a site, to rank in those coveted one to three spots. A successful SEO web marketing campaign does need to drive traffic to a site, but it serves no purpose if all it ever does is get traffic to an online location. The point of better rankings in search engine results is to increase sales.

Just driving traffic to a site is essential, but part of web optimization is to so design the site that it appeals to visitors and invites them to stay. If they only click the link to get to the site and then hit the back button to leave the campaign is still unsuccessful, there is no ROI.

Web Design

Web design is an essential part of an SEO campaign. You want a visitor to feel like they found the product, service or information that they were searching for to begin with. When they find the services they desired they are more likely to purchase these products or services. It is important to hire a reputable SEO specialist in NJ to properly design your business site. Site navigation is essential to ROI.

How Better Rankings Increase Sales

There have been many studies which indicate the top 3 positions in search engine results pages get the majority of the clicks. If you think about it, how many times do you even go to the bottom of the page when perusing results from a query you entered? And how many fewer times have you ever ventured onto the second page of the results? Rarely, if ever; as a general rule the site in the first position gets about half of the clicks; the second two positions get approximately 20 percent combined. The other 30 percent is dispersed among the rest of the first page. Of these clicks only a small percentage will actually follow through and purchase the product. This percentage is somewhere between 1 and 2 percent. However, on the high end of things it is possible to get as much as 8%.  It is the logical conclusion then that 1 or 2 percent of 10,000 visitors is greater than 1 or 2 percent of 100 visitors. The more visitors a site has the larger the sales, profit and ROI becomes.

Online Branding

Web site optimization will ensure that all online transactions are associated with your particular brand. SEO specialists in New Jersey will make sure that branding is included in the strategic planning of a site. Using proper back linking, social bookmarking or other types of social media can ensure that your brand is mentioned on various platforms such as content on other websites or blogs. A productive and profitable SEO campaign will include brands in anchor text links to the site. This will in turn increase the main site’s ranking in SERPs by making it visible to search engine web crawlers.

Branding and Keywords

When planning SEO strategies you want to make sure to include various aspects of the company and brand in the keyword usage. Keywords can identify your brand, company and the services you provide. These can be used to develop crucial lists of keywords that can be used in Meta tags and other descriptions. Brands can be used in bios on various social media sites. Using such sites can make full use of the web 2.0 world in a web marketing campaign.

Clarity

Branding helps customers become familiar with you, your company and your product. A successful SEO in NJ will incorporate brand names into all the aspects of the campaign strategies. This will include the use of branding for off site as well as on site SEO strategies. It is important to be clear with the brand and to develop keywords that are consistent throughout for branding to be effective.

Branding and SEO

A successful SEO web marketing campaign will ensure that search queries for your brand will end up with your site at the top of the results pages when your brand is entered into a query. As part of the campaign websites will be designed in such a way as to implant the brand in the mind of the customers.

Social Bookmarking Sites

Currently the dominant social bookmarking communities are: Digg, Blog Engage and The Social Bookmarking Community (powered by NetLZ), there are many others, but they tend to fall into the same categories so they will not be discussed here.

The Social Bookmarking Community (powered by NetLZ)

Social Bookmarking Communities

 Digg

Digg is one of the older social bookmarking sites that helped to create this industry, this is a great site for bookmarks, but is less community oriented than some others, although you are able to make friends and build a network.  Once a bookmark is posted you can share it with your Digg community and promote it in other ways, the goal being to get enough votes for the link to get it to the first page of Digg.  Links that achieve first page status in Digg are able to get thousands of hits and notoriety.  As far as the benefit to SEO, Digg links are Do Follow, although they are not given too much weight by search engines as they take little effort to post; the best way to make your Digg links count is to develop a strong following within the Digg website.

Blog Engage

Blog Engage is centered on blogs, as the name suggests.  Blog Engage is one of the more community oriented social bookmarking sites and tries to maintain a strong sense of community by encouraging commenting… The site is developed to give bloggers a platform from which to network with other bloggers. It is a great place to get some exposure for your blogs. Think of this site as a community of bloggers who are sharing their niches and interests through their blogs.  Links posted on Blog Engage are given a bit more weight by search engines and blog engage works to affiliate themselves with other similar sites in order to give the links yet more weight.  But if you want to make your blog engage links really count the best recommendation is to focus on the community.