Businesses looking to obtain links from bloggers as part of their search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy must build meaningful relationships with the people they hope will link to their sites, it has been advised.
Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal advised marketers to properly read the blog they want their links to end up on so they have a better chance of understanding the blogger and therefore connecting with them.
They should then choose a few of the posts they think are particularly relevant and comment on them with "an intelligent and heartfelt response", he said.
Comments should be posted with a full name, correct email address and website or blog link, while marketers should refrain from using keywords in the 'name' field as this will turn the comment into spam.
Befriending the blogger in question on other social media and networking sites and then asking whether it would be possible to write a guest post for their blog are ways in which this relationship could be taken further - potentially resulting in a link to the company's website on that blog.
According to experts speaking at the Search Engine Strategies Chicago event, buying links is a valid SEO strategy for getting a site off the ground, but is not a viable long-term initiative.... read full details »
The correct use of social media could lead to benefits in terms of search engine optimisation.
This is according to a new MarketingSherpa case study, which looked at how customisable sticker seller Sticker Giant used a number of different social media channels to boost its search rankings.
Owner John Fischer explained that the website is present on all of the channels that its target customer base is likely to be on.
It also set up a blog that posts customer stories on a daily basis explaining how consumers have used the company's stickers to show their support for various bands, ideas and more.
The company ensured that it interacted with social media communities via a real person, rather than simply posting under its business name.
"Our increase in search rankings is because we are interacting with people more. When you do that, they're going to blog about you, Tweet about you, talk about you in their Facebook profiles," Mr Fischer said.
According to the Inside Facebook blog, Facebook's user base is growing by 600,000 users every day.... read full details »
The recent launch of SearchWiki by Google could change the way in which companies approach search engine optimisation (SEO), according to Marketing Pilgrim's Andy Beal.
He told WebProNews that if Google starts to use results from SearchWiki in its public search listings, businesses may need to move away from viewing SEO as a way of refining their websites purely for search engines.
Instead, marketers are likely to need to come up with ways of attracting consumers from the results page, potentially through their title tags, to encourage them to give the site a positive vote, Mr Beal suggested.
"If a searcher's finger is hovering over the voting buttons, you want to make sure that your listing is enticing and engaging," he stated.
SearchWiki lets users - who must have a Google account - edit and comment results as they please for personal reference.
Marissa Mayer of Google recently said in an interview with TechCrunch that this could influence public Google rankings in the future.... read full details »
The majority of small businesses do not conduct search engine marketing campaigns, according to a new survey.
Microsoft, which polled about 400 small business owners in the US, said that the findings suggested organisations could be missing out on an opportunity to expand their operations further.
About three-quarters of respondents said potential customers were likely to search online for the types of products and services they offered.
One-quarter of firms said they were put off by search marketing because it looked too complicated, with more than a third stating that they would have to employ an agency to look after such marketing campaigns for them.
Brian Boland, director of adCenter at Microsoft Advertising, said: "By investing in paid search marketing, small businesses can track online sales and determine the return on investment for their campaigns, while at the same time boosting traffic and visibility for their websites."
In the UK, the number of small firms with their own website leapt by a quarter between 2006 and 2008, according to the Federation of Small Businesses.... read full details »
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