If you’ve logged into Facebook in the past few weeks, you’ve probably noticed that it looks different. Dramatically different. So how are you supposed to navigate through your favorite social media website with these newly integrated features?

To better understand the new Facebook and continue to connect with friends in social media, here is a quick tutorial that you can use to navigate through the changes:

1. Understand the new Newsfeed. With the major changes made to the Facebook newsfeed recently, users have been complaining that they want their old newsfeed back. Most recently, Facebook has decided to come to a compromise. They’ve made a small change in the newsfeed to let users check out recent stories in reverse chronological order, just like in the old days of Facebook. The good news for Facebook users is that Facebook is listening to your feedback and will take action if enough people are unhappy. Facebook will now have a new drop-down menu for the newsfeed with either Recent Stories or Highlighted Stories first – user’s choice.

2. Get acquainted with the Ticker. At the right side of the page, you will now find a real-time Ticker that tells you exactly what friends are doing, similar to the real-time updates on Twitter. This real-time Ticker is a live feed of all Facebook activity in your group of friends. All you have to do is click on any post in the Ticker to see activity and comment – without ever leaving your home page. If you find this annoying, you are not alone. Many Facebook users feel that the new Ticker makes the page too busy and distracting. But it also provides you with the opportunity to stay connected to all activities that your friends engage in every second of the day.

3. Use the Subscribe Button. If you are like most of the world, you have quite a few Facebook friends that you would rather not hear from on your newsfeed. Maybe they talk too much about themselves, maybe they shamelessly promote their business, or maybe they post a picture after picture of their baby. Whatever the reason, using the new Subscribe button will let you determine how much information you want to see from a specific friend. You can use this Subscribe button to weed out friends you don’t want to hear from as often and keep tabs on close friends in the newsfeed.

4. Change your friend settings. If you are going to send a friend request to a new friend, hover over the Friend Button on their profile first. This will give you options to add someone as a Close Friend or Acquaintance, determining how many of their posts that you will see in your feed.

Guess Author:  Joel Newman is a freelance writer experienced in Internet marketing and social media marketing. For more information on top registry cleaners to speed up your PC, you can visit Joel Newman’s Registry Repair website.

Link building is an important way to raise the page rank of your website. Unfortunately, it is also a tricky process that can leave your website with a lower rank, rather than the higher rank you were going for. This happens when you choose the wrong type of link building and build devalued links instead of valued ones.

Types of Devalued Links

There are different types of links. There are great links from authority websites, links that can help your page rank as long as you don’t abuse them and links that will hurt your website. The last type is the type that we will look at here.

Link Exchanges or Farms

Link farms are websites that host hundreds or thousands of links simply for the sake of providing a link. They have no relevant or useful content and many times the sites they host are not even related in topic.

These sites are no longer useful for gaining page rank and can even hurt your site. They may also pose as link “directories,” so be careful when submitting your website to anything that already has many other links posted on it.

Your site can also be devalued by having many reciprocal links. These are when you agree to link to another site and they agree to link to you. A popular way for webmasters to get a lot of reciprocal links is the use of link exchanges. Search engines have caught on to this practice and now devalue many websites that engage in this type of activity.

Forum or Blog Spamming

You should sign your blog comments with your real name, instead of putting links in the author field. These types of links look like link spam to Google and other search engines and in response they will devalue your website.

Likewise, you should join forums in an effort to help others. It is okay to have your website address in the signature field, but don’t list your website address in every actual post. This will have the same effect as blog spamming.

While we’re at it, don’t promote your website in every comment or post. This is still a form of forum spamming, even if Google can’t “see” it. Readers will see right through you and you may miss a chance at some legitimate traffic.

The Best Links

The best types of links that your website can get are natural links from authority sites with a high page rank that have been around for several years. The best way to get these types of links is to provide useful information that others will naturally want to share.

If you can get a website like this to the first page of Google, you will begin receiving natural links. If you find that you aren’t getting natural links, you can also participate in guest posting on related websites that already have a decent page rank.

Guest Author:  The team at Fatwallet have presented this information. Discover money saving deals, HP coupons, and forums at Fatwallet.com.

In the world of search engine optimization, an organized optimizer rules. By constantly staying on top of your work and new innovations, you can pull together some great results. With the flexibility of the iPad 2, you have a great new tool to do so. The iPad’s unique design, and ability to connect through a 3G network, allows you to successfully perform SEO work on the go. Along with an amazing, user friendly design, the iPad also features a number of applications that are strictly for SEO. The iPad also is an affective way to cross check the effectiveness or your website to an enormously growing population of mobile users. Using the iPad on the go for SEO, is becoming more and more essential.

One of the most important parts of performing essential SEO tasks, is staying organized. With great organization comes even better communication. This can be between clients, co-workers, or potential customers. You must always stay connected with your contacts, to ensure quality customer service, and to stay ahead on your work. You can easily do this with the iPad 2, and its 3G capabilities. You can even use multiple accounts to organize personal, and business emails to be more efficient. This opens up your business capabilities in a number of different ways. First, you will never be playing catch up. Second you can be sure that you will never miss an opportunity. This is very important when you are in the SEO business.

While you may not have all the useful tools on your iPad that your computer may bring, there are many SEO applications that can help. One of the main problems with using in an iPad is the browser. Browsers are portrayed in a mobile version. This can be highly annoying, especially if you are using the SEO Quake bar frequently. One great way to combat this browser issue is to download the “Atomic Web” browser. This application is only $.99, and is worth every penny. This allows you to “trick” the website into thinking you are using a browser like Firefox, Opera, or Chrome. This can be a very useful tool when you are interacting with various web pages. Another great application for SEO on the iPad is “Website SEO Analyzer.” This app lets you do a number of things that eliminate the need for your SEO Quake bar. You can check page rank, alexa rank, and even Meta data. It will also let you see the page size and the page load time. All of these things are important when checking prospective candidates when you are performing link building services.

The most important part when using the iPad for SEO is cross browser detection. With more and more people using mobile devices, you want to make sure that your website is operating the right way through all browsers. The number of users on tablet, and mobile devices is growing every single day. You do not want to missing out on these potential visitors because of a lack of knowledge. The iPad is the wave of the future. Although many have complained about the lack of Flash on iPads, Flash is 100% non-readable by Google. iPad may force you to use other options that make for more visibility through many browsers, and in turn lets Google index videos that may be lost in flash. This is going to be very important in future years. HTML 5 is going to become the norm due to the ease, and friendly aspects is contains. Although not all browsers use the “video” tag yet for HTML 5, this lets you get a head start in the SEO world. Google, and Apple are both very big fans of HTML 5.  You can use HTML 5 in the browsers that read it, and perform if/else functions and revert to flash for those who do not. This will allow you to be a multi-faceted website, and also allows Google to index your site appropriately.

The iPad allows you to perform essential SEO techniques while you are on the go. Using your iPad for SEO can keep you on task, can help you manage your time better, and is a very important tool considering the future of SEO. With a 3G network, an iPad is a great way to stay ahead on your projects, and beat the competition. If you want to keep your SEO business strong, an iPad can also help you to find the best way to optimize your site for the growing number of mobile users. That is something that you do not want to miss out on. Using your iPad, or any other tablet will soon be essential for all SEO businesses.

Hands-down, Google is the most popular website on earth. Yet they seem to be worried about their stiff competition coming in at a close second – none other than Facebook.

This is precisely why Google has decided to introduce their own social network as Google +. Google has tried to make a number of different social media channels over the years, like Google Buzz and Google Wave. Yet nothing has caught on so far…

But now we can consider Google + for a second. Google + makes no bones about the fact that it is supposed to be just like Facebook with a few enhancements. Maybe we could call it “Facebook with a facelift”? Instead of opening up Google + to the public, Google has decided to create a little bit of buzz, so to speak.

Upon its introduction, you can’t sign up directly for Google + just yet. Initially, you have to be invited by someone else who is a member in the beta stage of this social network. But even with this type of exclusive appeal, Google + has managed to gather 10 million members as of July 2011. This is nowhere near the mega benchmark set by Facebook at 750 million members, but it seems to be off to a strong start.

Google + versus Facebook

At first glance, Google + looks like a copycat of Facebook. You can post your thoughts and updates, just like you can to the Facebook wall. There is also something called a Stream, which is exactly like the Newsfeed on Facebook. And to compete with the “Like” button on Facebook, Google + offers a +1 button so that you can show that you are a fan of a post, picture, video, or what have you.

But the big, shiny difference between the two is that Google + has a little something called Circles.

If you’ve ever had the thought when using Facebook that you’d love to say something a little more inappropriate, a little more private, or a little wackier than what you would share with all of your friends, Circles may be the answer. You can create circles of friends, family, acquaintances, and following, which is similar to Twitter. You can also create your own circles with specific members, like Grandparents or College Friends, where you can share private jokes or special stories to your heart’s content without boring everyone else on your Stream.

And when you decide to share something, you are able to specify which circle that it is sent to. Of course, you can choose to send the information to all of your circles or just one to keep a bit of news private. This minimizes much of the fuss surrounding social media, like teachers getting fired for posting pictures of a drunken party or saying something inappropriate. If you want to post something that you don’t want your boss to see, then don’t post it to a public circle, plain and simple.

Although this may be a subtle difference between Google + and Facebook, only time will tell how the Circles feature attracts users to this new social network.

Guest Author:  Bethany Ramos is an expert in Internet marketing and social media marketing, and she also co-owns her own e-commerce website, The Coffee Bump.

As a customer, you’ve probably experienced the benefits of mobile marketing to give you discounts, specials, and freebies from your favorite brand. Right? Well, as a business owner, you can use this same type of hands-on mobile marketing to reach customers more effectively than ever before.

Even the most popular fast food chains like Subway, Pizza Hut, Burger King, and Wendy’s started marketing to customers with text marketing, iPhone apps, and mobile coupons just a few years ago. Many of these mobile apps will allow a customer to place an order online and pick up their food moments later. Simply brilliant.

Even large retailers like Target, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy stay connected with customers via text for holiday specials and discounts and have introduced iPhone apps to give customers more options. Instead of visiting the official website, customers can read reviews, order products, and create a gift list directly through their mobile phone.

As a business owner, you can take your mobile marketing campaign beyond just the standard text message. You can get creative with the following ideas:

• Mobile Payments: Starbucks recently introduced Starbucks Card Mobile payments available at more than 1000 Safeway locations via the Android App. Customers can load up their Starbucks card on their mobile phone and use their phone to pay for their coffee at their convenience. This means that Starbucks mobile payment is now available on 90% of all smartphones to make it virtually impossible for a customer not to connect with Starbucks through their mobile device.

• Mobile Coupons: Stores like 7-Eleven have tested out scannable mobile coupons from smartphones to give customers bonuses like a free drink on a daily basis. Target introduced the same concept in 2010 by offering scannable mobile coupons sent to customers via text each month. A customer will then scan their mobile device during checkout to receive the discount.

• Smartphone Apps: Sears and J.C. Penney are at the top of the retail category when it comes to iPhone apps, along with other contenders like Amazon and Best Buy. All of these retail apps have convenient store locators, special deals for customers, and a way to create a customizable shopping list to order online or use at a later date.

For business owners, the choice is clear. If you want to connect with your customers even more effectively, it’s time to get creative and move beyond the standard text message. You can reach out to customers using a variety of interactive mobile methods to make it easier than ever before for interested customers to buy from you.

Guest Author:  Bethany Ramos is an expert in Internet marketing and social media marketing, and she also co-owns her own e-commerce website, The Coffee Bump.

Setting up your online shop for search engine optimization is a crucial part of making it a success. There are certain characteristics of web pages that the search engines view favorably, while there are other characteristics that they do not. Knowing what these are and tailoring your online shop presentation to be viewed favorably will land you higher in organic search results than a site or online shop that has not taken these important points into consideration.

If you’re just now beginning to set up your online shop, this is the best time of all to review these points. If your online shop is already open, it’s certainly not too late to make some key updates to your website and its item listings.

A few important points about SEO:

First, the search engines don’t officially publish a rule book on how they evaluate web pages. However much has been researched and published on what they look for and many characteristics are clear. It’s also important to note that the search engines are constantly updating their algorithms and strategies in a quest to deliver the most relevant, high- quality search results. The points covered here are those that are not likely to change in the near future.

It’s also important to remember that you are not just setting up your shop and its listings for the search engines, but equally important is for it to be attractive to online shoppers as well. Setting up your shop with both groups in mind is the ideal.

The following steps are easy to do:

Website Name

Let’s begin with your site’s name. Research suggests that the search engines view long shop names less favorably than shorter ones. It’s also important to place important keywords at the beginning of your shop name. The search engines crawl only the first 66 letters in a title or shop name. So crucial keywords at the end of a long shop name may be missed by the search engines. Naming your shop “Clementine’s Collectibles, Vintage Fashion and Delightful Treasures” will not be viewed as favorably by the search engines as a shorter name.

Website URL

The same is true for your site’s URL, so the URL you choose is also crucial. A long shop URL will not be viewed as favorably by the search engines as one that is shorter. When delivering search results the search engines will favor shops or websites with less than 70 characters over those that are cut off.

Item Titles

For the items you’re offering on your site, it’s important to write your item titles for search engine optimization. This means writing natural titles that are no longer than 70 characters whenever possible. They should contain important keywords at the beginning of the item title.

Here’s an example of an item title that is too long:

Vintage LAGUNA Set White Givre Art Glass Stones AB Austrian Crystals Double Strand Choker Earrings c. 1959 Emerald Green Hat with Chenille Dotted Veil

Here’s an example of how it can be shortened:

Vintage Laguna White Givre Art Glass Choker Earrings Set

And, remember never to keyword spam. Keyword spamming is when keywords are repeatedly used, or when keywords are used that do not related to the item in an attempt to manipulate search results. This also includes listing an item without knowing what the item is. Search engines are keenly honed to detect keyword spamming and it could get your site removed from their search results altogether. Remember, that it is un-appealing to potential buyers as well.

Item Descriptions

Next comes item descriptions. Well-written item descriptions are crucial for proper search engine optimization. They should be composed in a natural style while still including a good number of important, relevant keywords. Studies suggest that the search engines favor longer item descriptions. Item descriptions that are viewed as too short to include enough key information will not be viewed favorably. Again, keyword stuffing or spamming is an absolute no-no.

Here is a list of what points you should be sure to include in your item descriptions:

What is it?

When was it produced?

What company or artist produced it?

What is it made of?

What condition is it in? This includes any imperfections or wear

Are there any distinctive marking?

What are its dimensions?

Website Information

Don’t forget that your website’s background information as well as promotional text are also an opportunity to show the search engines what your site is about. Have you heard the term lately that content is king? That’s because the search engines value it highly when considering what results to suggest in any given search. Having well-written information about yourself and your business, using a range of relevant keywords, will be viewed favorably by the search engines. Choosing natural phrases that contain relevant keywords that describe your site’s items will serve to work in your favor.

Fresh Content

Next, it’s important to add items to your online shop to keep your shop content fresh. Why? Because the search engines less favorably upon sites that are viewed as “stagnant”. In their search results they want to suggest sites with items that are fresh and dynamic, and have something new to offer.

Testimonials

The search engines look favorably upon buyer testimonials so be sure to add some to your site, and update them periodically. The search engines do evaluate whether content such as this is fresh and new.

Links

Search engines will also evaluate whether other quality sites are linking to your site. A link to your site from another quality site is considered to be a form of a “vote”, lending credibility to your site.

Item Photos

While the search engines cannot evaluate the quality of your item photos, research suggests that they do take into consideration how many photos you have of a single item. And remember that multiple item photos aren’t just for the search engines. They’re for buyers who want to see every angle of an item before they decide whether or not to purchase.

Do you find this post helpful?  What other SEO tips have worked for your e-commerce store?  Please share in the comments below.

Guest Author: Karen Frishman is Director of Marketing for Ruby Lane, and online mall specializing in antiques & art, vintage collectibles and jewelry, www.rubylane.com.

What started as a mere trend several years ago has now evolved into its own culture. Social commerce is gaining popularity by leaps and bounds in the virtual world and shows no signs of slowing down. Selling products online was once reserved for major retailers with massive inventories and the selling power to reach the masses. Now, thanks to sites like eBay, web stores, and applications for social media platforms such as Facebook, anyone can market and sell their products online.

Having a successful social commerce campaign hinges on a number of factors. It’s not something you should venture into blindly without having done at least some minimal research. Although once you get your ecommerce campaign up and running, it can run on autopilot to some extent. However, there are certain areas in which you always have to be proactive instead of reactive when it comes to selling your products online.

Let’s take a look at the four most important ingredients in a successful social commerce campaign:

A Multifaceted Approach

Simply using one or two of the array of free social media tools available today won’t get you very far in your social commerce campaign. The key to making these tools work for your brand is not just using them, but using them in tandem with other avenues of marketing to gain maximum exposure. Add Facebook and Twitter widgets to your business website and blog. Add links to your website and blog to your Facebook Fan Page and Storefront and your Twitter account. Tweet about sales, promotions, new products and services. Blog about these events as well and announce the blog updates on your Fan Page. Let everything you do online reciprocate what you’ve already done, allowing the campaign to come full circle.

Get Personal

Customers want to feel like their opinions matter and achieving that strengthens the bond between the buyer and the seller. Try to involve your customers in your business as much as you can. Constantly ask for feedback about their experiences and take their suggestions. Ask them to vote on which products should be introduced next and which services they would like you to offer in the future. Asking for their opinion lets your customers know that you are listening to them, which works to establish brand loyalty. On the flipside of that, don’t forget to interact with your fans on a personal level. Respond to their comments and posts. Let them know you’re reading and listening.

Reward That Loyalty

Reward your loyal social media followers with exclusive discounts and specials that are not available to other customers. Not only does this show your appreciation for your loyal followers, it also provides the incentive for them to recommend your brand to others.

Don’t Oversell

Instead of always posting about products you have for sale, ask questions or create polls to get your customers involved. Share relevant industry news or even some candid insights into your personal life. If your company is involved in other events or causes, let your fans know it. Random trivia, current events and human interest stories are always good conversation starters. Yes, the point of social commerce is selling your products and services, but nobody likes high pressure tactics or feeling like they’re being “sold” to all the time.

Guest Author: Helen Fang is the social media expert at Vendio, an ecommerce software company that enables online businesses to sell on Facebook, eBay, Amazon, and Google from one platform.

If you’ve taken the big leap and joined the ranks of the online video marketers, congratulations! The first video is always the most difficult.

But now that you’ve produced your first video, what’s next? How do you not only maximize the marketing from that video, but also create new video marketing opportunities? Unless you want to succumb to the dreaded “one and done” syndrome, you’ll want to create a strategic marketing plan for using video regularly in your business.

As with any plan, you must begin with the end in mind. What are your business objectives for video? Is it to grow your list? Build your brand? Drive more web traffic? Enhance your credibility? Your goals will determine your direction.

If you said “all of the above” to the video goals we just listed, here are some ideas for maintaining your video momentum…

1. Create an “expert tips” series to share your expertise. Short, 1 – 2 minute “how to” videos are a great way to increase your credibility and expand your influence.

2. If you’ve got a blog, add a videoblog post every couple of weeks. The search engines love video, and your readers will be treated to a dynamic change of pace from your traditional blog posts. Extra bonus: Video is much more personal and compelling than print alone!

3. Get some face time. Use a personal video message or video email to go “face to face” with your clients or prospects. Sending a video greeting, birthday wishes or a thank you video have much more impact than yet another regular email. If you want to stand out and be memorable, use video!

4. Make it an event. Whether you’re promoting a webinar or launching a new product, nothing makes a bold statement like video. Adding video to your promotional plans makes your webinar or launch look more like a special event. Again, it’s the best way to break through the online clutter and make sure your message gets noticed.

5. Go Live! You can do a live webcast or offer a “Q & A” video session using free platforms such as Livestream or Ustream.tv. These web resources make it easy to fire up your webcam and go live whenever you want. A live webcast is dynamic, engaging and highly interactive. (You may want to do a test run first, just to get comfortable with the format).

However you decide to use video, it will put your marketing on overdrive and accelerate your results. The secret is consistency and strategy. Make a plan and stick to it. Anyone can make one video. The real winners online will be those who make online video a regular part of their marketing efforts.

Guest Author: Lou Bortone is an Online Branding Specialist and video pro who helps entrepreneurs and service professionals build breakthrough brands on the Internet, so they can have more visibility, credibility and profitability. Lou delivers innovative online branding strategies, including video production and editing, social media marketing and online video consulting.

Lou is a former television executive who worked for E! Entertainment Television and Fox in Los Angeles. He is also an author and ghostwriter of six business books, a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach and a Book Yourself Solid Certified Coach.

Find out more at www.LouBortone.com, and for online video info and resources, visit: www.OnlineVideopolis.com.

What is the one thing I should do to my website that would improve my SEO?  This is a common question I am asked and I always have the same answer.

I tell people all they have to do is make their listing in the search engines the one that more people will want to click on. Simple!

Of course, there is a lot in just that simple statement.  First, for people to be able to click on your listing it needs to be seen and for them to actually click on your listing then it needs to offer the answer they are looking for.  Put simply, it needs to say “Here I am and I have exactly what you are looking for”.  Actually, it needs to shout it at you!

So how do you do this?  Well it’s all down to two very important fields on your webpage.  The Title tag and the Meta description tag.  If you are using a content management system to update your pages then the fields are probably called Page Title and Page Description.

Now before any purist SEO specialists chime in and say that the description field has no place in your SEO strategy let me tell you they are plainly wrong.  What they mean to say is that the search engines place no value on what you include in your description field.  However, it isn’t the search engines that click on your listing.  It’s people that do that and they read your page description.

You see as far as I am concerned SEO is not just about getting a high rank in the search engines.  Its real purpose is to get you traffic and for that you need people to click on your listing.  So for that reason alone I maintain that the description tag is a very important field.

So, first of all we need to get your page seen and that means it needs to be placed high in the search results.  This is where the page title comes in.  It is the most important place to include your keyword terms.  Google places a lot of importance on this tag and it expects the words you want to rank for to be in that field.

Don’t make the mistake of many websites and feel you have to put your company name into the page title.  It’s far more important to get your keywords in there and to also make sure the title reads like a proper sentence.  If you can, make it compelling to entice the click.  A good trick sometimes can be to turn your page titles into questions.  If it matches the question in the searchers head then your chances of a click are very good.

Now it’s time to look at the page description field.  As I’ve already said it doesn’t directly impact what the search engines think about your page so you don’t need to worry too much about getting keywords into the description.  What you want to do is make the description very compelling and include a call-to-action.

A powerful tool can be to use the page title to ask a keyword rich question and use the page description to clearly state that the answer to the question will be found if you click on the listing.

Here’s an example.

Let’s say you have a guitar shop in Birmingham that specializes in left handed guitars. So your keywords could be “left handed guitars birmingham”.  In this case your page title could be “Looking for Left Handed Guitars in Birmingham?” and your page description could be “You’ve come to the right place.  Take a look at our massive selection of left handers.  Many are on sale and they are sure to sell out today”.

Did you notice how the description field had a call-to-action and a sense or urgency also?  Click today or you might find all the guitars have gone.  This is a great tactic.

So if you only do one thing to your website I would suggest taking a good look at your page titles and page descriptions.  You’ll be amazed what difference polishing those up can make.

Want to know more about SEO? Why not try Mike’s Free SEO Training Course?

One of the reasons I like ecommerce SEO is that there is a tremendous amount of opportunities to increase the optimization quality of an online store. Unlike service businesses or online brochure websites which typically only have a few pages, a catalog of products creates a great opportunity to increase the amount of content and provide relevance for the search engines.

Here at Best Rank, we spend a lot of time educating clients about optimization and how they can use it to gain a competitive advantage in their marketplace.  Having a specialty in ecommerce, my conversations are often about tips and advice on what online store owners can do to improve their rankings and increase traffic. There are plenty of resources for learning SEO online, but not a lot specific to ecommerce.

For those interested in getting their hands dirty, I have created a list of 62 Ecommerce Search Engine Optimization Tips & Ideas. Of course there are tips here that apply to non-ecommerce sites as well, but ecommerce SEO does deserve its own list.

The list is in no particular order. If you have some tips or feedback you want to add, please feel free to comment .

1. Do a search in Google using site:www.yourdomain.com. This allows you to see what pages of your website are being indexed and how they look. The results should be keyword rich and have call to action for users to click.

2. Do a site: search in Google for your competitors. While you are looking at your own indexing, look at your competition. Are their search engine results better optimized or better written? Don’t let them win.

3. Use Google’s Keyword Tool to find keywords. If you have an Adwords account you are probably familiar with Google’s Keyword Tool. If not, you can use Google’s External Keyword Tool Be sure set the match type on [exact] so you are looking at the number of searches for that specific keyword.

4. Don’t forget text on your homepage. Graphics are attractive and are great for users. Be sure that there is some html text on the homepage as well. If you have to put it near the footer, fine. Just make sure it is somewhere.

5. Be sure your homepage title uses your 3 most important keywords. I prefer to limit any given page to focus on 3 keywords. Some people like 4 and some people 2. Your homepage optimization is really important to tell the engines what your site is going to focus on.

6. Choose 3 keyword phrases to focus on per category page. I use the similar 3 keyword rule for category pages as well.  I will sometimes use only 2 if it is focused. Of course you are then going to make sure these keywords are used in the title, content, etc. but we will get to that later.

7. Be sure the top keyword for the page is first in your Title tag for all category pages. The first word in your title tag is the most important.

8. Be sure to customize the product pages Title.
If your ecommerce software allows dynamic insertion, use it. For example, if you can tell the system to use specific elements of the product in the title, use it. You can use product names, manufacturer, and SKU. They are all valuable.  If you don’t have a lot of products and your software allows for custom title writing, be sure to write custom titles.

9. Format the Title For Relevance & Clicks.
This can apply to categories and products. The formatting of a Title I like to use is “Keyword Phrase 1 | Call To Action or Benefit Using Keyword Phrase 2 and 3 if possible”. For example: “Hospital Towels | Wholesale Medical Towels On Sale”

10. Use .html or .htm for page naming. If you are using a CMS system and prefer no extensions such as /keyword/ that is fine too. While using .html may be considered old school, it still works. We all know that everyone claims that search engines treat most pages extensions equally, but my experience has seen differently. It’s still a good practice.

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Guest Author: Jason Kreidman is the Vice President of Business Development for Best Rank, Inc.  Jason has been building, managing, and marketing ecommerce businesses for over 14 years and now assists other merchants in getting results online.

The recipe for spicy copy always includes salt – lots of it – fresh hot pepper such as a jalapeno or Serrano, and earthy-flavored herbs. Without spice, your copy is tasteless. It reads like every other piece of website content or advertisement or brochure.

At best, readers forget spice-less copy. At worst, they don’t read it at all.

Next time you sit down to write, bring the salt, hot pepper, and herbs with you to the keyboard. I’m about to show you how to add the spice your copy desperately needs.

Salt for Headlines and Imagery

We’re visual creatures. Readers need pictures for engagement. The good news is that it’s simple to find free stock photography or use your own photos in marketing materials. It’s also possible to suggest an image without any pictures at all.

The best headlines evoke an image.

The importance of headlines cannot be stressed enough. There are even books written on the topic. Headlines matter that much.

But for the purposes of this article, let’s make it simple and say that your headline should address a problem your reader has and that you’re able to solve. It should also reference a concept that’s easy to grasp and one that will cause the brain to automatically conjure images.

What if the article to this headline read: “How to Make Your Copy More Interesting”? What kind of pictures would you have automatically thought of? Nothing interesting comes to my mind.

“Wake Up Your Readers with Copywriting Spice” produces countless images for me…alarm clocks, people sitting in front of computer screens with wide eyes, salt, peppers, etc.

Hot Pepper for Facts, Anecdotes, and Quotes

What sound do you make when you bite into hot pepper? Chances are it’s something this: “Whoo!”

Aim to give your readers that same reaction when they read pieces of your copy. Give the reader surprising facts, emotional anecdotes, and inspiring quotes. Here’s an example.

Version 1: The retail industry has grown significantly over the last year.

Version 2: By fourth quarter 2010, U.S. retail sales reached just over one trillion dollars, which is an 8% increase from the same quarter in 2009.

Which sentence are you more likely to care about?

Herbs for Subheads, Bullet Points, and Short Paragraphs

Herbs round out meals, because they add pleasing scents, flavors, appearance, and some even aid digestion. Herbs are used as a garnish for this reason.

If copy doesn’t look easy to read at a glance, then it might not be read at all. Think of herbs as the subheadings, bullet points, and short paragraphs of your copy. Herbs make your copy smell nice and make it easy to digest, too.

End with More Salt…and Maybe Lemon

Mirna recently posted about how important it is not to piss off your readers. In the post, it says you must not bore your readers and must give them what you promise. I agree.

At the end of your copy, pull it all together. Use salt (to taste) to achieve that perfect flavor. Be sure you answered any questions you asked in the piece, make sure your last paragraph coincides with your headline, and provide that oh-so-important call to action.

If after that the copy is still missing something, then add lemon, a notorious flavor enhancer. I think of lemon as “the main point.” Whatever you’re trying to say can be distilled in one sentence. And sometimes that one sentence at the end of your copy can be incredibly powerful.

Here’s an example: If you don’t add spice to your copy, no one will remember it.

Guest Author: Sara Lancaster writes spicy copy for businesses through her website content writing agency, No. 2 Pen. For fun, she writes the food blog, Saucy Dipper, which includes actual sauce and dip recipes. You can find Sara on Twitter as @SaraLancaster.

It is fair to say that most consumers consider Google and Facebook the Internet in its entirety.  While they may be aware of other sites, when they think about the Internet, what they are thinking about is one of the above corporate giants. Social networking has been around for a long time. One of the first online communities was “The Well,” which still exists and was created in 1985 as an extension of the “Whole Earth Catalog.” MySpace, Xanga, and many others were very popular until the Facebook juggernaut took over the entire Internet. So will there be only one search engine or a single social network in the end?

The Faceless Book

It was not too long ago that Facebook was, while successful, just one of a number of social networking sites that people used to keep track of friends, communicate, and post pictures and messages. Friendster, MySpace, Xanga, Classmates, and others all served different demographics and markets.

Facebook on the other hand was originally a social network strictly built for Harvard students, and because exclusivity breeds desire, it led to Facebook expanding to include all Ivy League students. It later expanded again to include all college students of any school, and, finally, anyone with an Internet connection. This “forced scarcity” and tiered rollout created a huge demand and now we have the Facebook of today.

Facebook now claims to have 500 million users, which, if true, constitutes 25 percent of all Internet users. The other social sites have faded fast and while some have survived, many are no longer in business. With the social networking side of things well in hand, and Google the largest gateway to the web, Romulus and Remus rule us all and we are experiencing the end of the Internet. Or is it?

The Little Guys Strike Back

Like Twitter, Facebook has become awash with companies and individuals seeking to make a name for themselves, generate sales, and drive traffic to their sites; however, nothing could be more annoying. A certain amount of that is to be expected, but when the party population is more networkers than friends, it starts to go flat, and for this reason, other sites are starting to strike back.

Angie’s List is a good example. The website serves as a clearinghouse for reports and reviews on services rendered by contractors in order to aid others in finding good help and avoiding bad service. The company’s recent television ad campaign is proof that it is not fading. Recently a rush of sign-ups for Quora and Aardvark exploded; these websites provide question and answer services in which people can ask a question and get answers from other people on the network.

Increasingly, other social media efforts are gaining back the ground that Facebook claims to own. Actual social networking sites like Path and CollegeOnly are gaining momentum by limiting membership and limiting the number of friends a user can have; up to 50 in the case of Path. These sites are indications of a trend; people are looking to get away from the giant crowd and to a more personal place.

Create Your Own Social Network

SocialGo and Ning are not social networking sites, but they could be the beginning of the end of Facebook’s domination. With services ranging from free to $150 a month, anyone can create their own social network. Do you really want a stranger watching you share pictures with your family in Oregon?  Why not create a social network for only your family and friends and end the problem. Facebook has many privacy issues and this is a clear answer to most of them. Are you an avid Fly Fisher? There is a site for that called Troutpad, as a site exists for just about any hobby or interest.

Facebook may have created the social network as a popular new “Killer App” for the Internet, but the future may not belong to them. History buffs will remember that at the turn of the twentieth century, America fought back against monopolies and won. Maybe it is time for that to happen again only this time users can do it for themselves. There are many alternatives out there and users are starting to find them. The social networking monopoly, or claimed monopoly, will be temporary and people will begin to break off into more exclusive, “walled communities” that are private and safer driven by the increasing security threats and information privacy issues. Teens used Xanga as a way of keeping away from parents eyes. Perhaps the adults are doing the same thing.

Guest Author: Jon T. Norwood is a managing partner at Broadband Internet, a site dedicated to providing information on Mobile Broadband News.  Jon can be reached at jon@velocityguide.com.

Are you trying to build backlinks on a budget?  Just because you don’t have tons of cash to throw around on fancy SEO services, your website does not have to get stuck on page 5 of the search engines.

Here are four of the top no-cost link building techniques that get results fast:

Blog Commenting

Blog commenting is a fairly fast and painless link building technique, but most people do it incorrectly because they spam blogs.  Whether you do it yourself or pay someone else, blog spamming doesn’t make sense and won’t get the results you want.  The problem with useless spammy comments is that they don’t get approved.  This leaves you with zero backlinks.

Here’s the right way to do it:

Post a thought provoking, informative comment that might pique the interest of readers.

The benefit, you ask?

For starters, your comment is much more likely to get approved if you actually provide value.  This will increase the number of readers who click-through to your site.  You want people to see your comments and think, “Hey, that’s a great point.  I wonder what else he/she has to say…” *Click*.

If you can establish yourself as an authority in your comment, the people that click-through to your site are already mentally prepped to have more trust and respect for your opinions.  This means they’ll stick around longer, subscribe, maybe even make a purchase, or share your site on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

The only other part to the blog commenting equation is finding blogs to comment on.  There are two ways that I consider the best options for finding blogs to comment on.

The first is to use Drop My Link.  You can search for specific types of blogs such as KeywordLuv blogs and add your keyword in the search.  This will help you find a lot of relevant blogs to comment on.  I suggest searching for KeywordLuv blogs first since they allow anchor text, they are “do follow”, and they add a link to your most recent post if you have a blog.  It’s definitely a big win situation.

For the other blog-finding tactic, I suggest using the SEOQuake plugin for Firefox to sort each page of results by PageRank (PR).  A page doesn’t have to have a high PR to be worthwhile to comment on, but it definitely helps.

In summary, using the above techniques will help you quickly find blogs that are relevant, allow anchor text,  are “do follow”, possibly have high PR, and  allow backlinks that attract visitors plus you get an extra link to your blog…and oh yeah… it’s all at no cost.

Google Blog Search

Another great way for finding relevant blogs is to Google your keyword and then click on the “Blogs” link on the left sidebar of the search results page.  This is going to reveal the most relevant blogs/blog posts to your keyword as well as many of the most recent posts that relate to your keyword.

This tactic has advantages and disadvantages compared to the blog commenting tactic explained above.  Its strong suit is that it is more likely to get you traffic and help you rank in the long-term, but no short-term.

The blogs found on Google are all going to be fresh and up-to-date.  A lot of the posts you’ll find with the first technique will find older, less maintained content.  The advantage here is that your comments will be more likely to be approved (faster as well), they’ll have more opportunity to get you targeted traffic, and finally they might end up with PR in the future.

The Google blog search technique has a greater focus on traffic now, and rankings later.  Used together, these blog commenting tactics will help you get that sought after targeted traffic both in the short-term and the long-term.

RSS Submission

In case you didn’t know, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.  In other words, it’s a quick easy way to get your content all over the web.  If you have a blog then you already have an RSS feed, but if you don’t, you can still create an RSS feed for your site with www.Html2rss.com.  It’s free and awesome.

There isn’t much of a strategy with using RSS.  Basically, you just want to submit your site’s feed to a bunch of RSS/Blog directories.  These submissions will be found by the search engines and add more backlinks to your profile.  They will also help get your site indexed or crawled more often.

Here are ten of the most popular, highest PR RSS/Blog directories:

www.bloglines.com – PR 9
www.plazoo.com – PR 6
www.icerocket.com - PR 6
www.blogcatalog.com – PR 6
www.bloghop.com – PR 6
www.portal.eatonweb.com – PR 6
www.blogged.com – PR 6
www.bloggapedia.com – PR 6
www.feedcat.net – PR 5
www.feednuts.com – PR 5

One way you can get creative with RSS feeds is to mix and match the URLs with the above mentioned site.  What you can do is essentially compile a list of helpful URLs into an RSS feed with some of yours as well.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is an excellent method for building links.  They’re fast, simple, and effective.  In addition to getting backlinks, social bookmarking also drives traffic, and is great for indexing.  If you created a site recently that you want indexed, you’ll want to start bookmarking.  A Digg or Delicious bookmark alone can get your website indexed in mere hours.

Because of how easy they are to build, bookmarks are great for linking to your homepage and every other page on your website as well as linking to articles, web 2.0 properties, and other backlinks to your site.

One easy-to-use and free tool for bookmark submission is www.socialmarker.com.  It semi-automates the process and takes you site to site while you simply copy and paste your way through.  Another free tool that many SEO practitioners swear by is www.onlywire.com.  The free version of the service only allows 300 submissions per month, but it completely automates the process which allows you to move on to other tasks or even leave the computer while doing your bookmarking.

These popular link building techniques have been used for years by search engine optimizers and Internet marketers, and will not be going away.  Remember, you don’t need expensive software or services to rank well and get traffic to your site.  You can accomplish all of this with just a little bit of effort.

Learn more about the above strategies in this SEO course and laugh your way to the top while your competitors add up their SEO bills.

What other favorite techniques do you have for link building?

Guest Author: Ben Jackson is an SEO expert and enthusiast, and founder of www.seodiscovery.org.

Image courtesy of http://younghoteliers.blogspot.com/

Because social media is so huge today, more and more businesses are using it. Even hotels are getting involved with marketing on social media sites because they see the value in finding customers that way. If you own or manage a hotel, work for one, you’re thinking of starting one, or you’re thinking about studying hospitality management, you may want to consider the top 10 ways hotels should be using social media.

1. Twitter questions and answers

Create a Twitter page and let people ask questions about the hotel. They can get quick answers that way, without needing to call and talk to an employee.

2. Set yourself as an expert

Set yourself apart as an expert on something or as a specific kind of destination — like a wedding hotel, etc. Use social media to market your niche.

3. Write content

Write good content about your industry and offer it for others to use/purchase. This really helps get your name out there.

4. Blog

You don’t want to get left behind when it comes to a presence on the Internet. A website is great, but a blog can help ensure that you connect with your customers and keep them up to date.

5. Respond to bad press

If you get bad press or comments on social media sites, respond to them — appropriately. Don’t just fight back or argue, because that won’t help you keep or redeem your reputation. Instead, be respectful, polite, and clear about the issue.

6. Provide information

Make sure you keep people informed. Your customers are going to want to know what’s going on with your company and if you’re offering any special deals.

7. Promote positive reviews

Make sure your positive reviews make it onto your Twitter page, Facebook page, and website. Let people know that others like the quality and service that you provide.

8. Be aware of competition

Pay attention to the competition by listening online. A lot of people ignore this because they don’t see the value in it. You really need to know what competitors are doing. If you don’t have a clue what they’re up to, how can you be expected to compete with them?

9. Make it personal

Get permission from your guests to take some pictures or videos at wedding and parties. Feature them on your social media sites so that others can see what you’re offering and how much fun people are having at your hotel. That will make people want to stay with you, too.

10. Hire through social media

Do your hiring through social media connections. It can be a great way to find people who would be a good fit when you need to hire workers.

It’s clear that hotels could be doing more to get their name and information out to the public. If they spend more time working with the people they want to see as customers — and interacting with them through social media — they’ll likely find that they can increase their business.

Guest Author: Amy Silver is a Public Health student. She loves her dogs and finding a good deal. She’s recently started blogging, and you can follow her at twitter.com/amyjsilver.

Imagine you had a shop where you sold candy apples. And your shop was located in an area of town where there were a lot of other shop owners who also sold candy apples.

When people walked through your door to buy candy apples, you greeted them with this message:

“Welcome to Tracy’s Candy Apple Shop. We’re so glad you stopped by. Let us know how we can help you and by the way here try a sample of our delicious, crunchy candy apples. Oh and if you are looking or more candy apples, they sell them two doors down and across the street. You might find delicious, crunchy candy apples there as well.”

This sounds ridiculous…right? Well unfortunately I see too many business owners doing this exact thing on their website everyday. That is…sending people to other experts for their solutions.

As a webmaster I am often asked to create a page of links or to add some links to a resources page. Site owners so many times want to give their visitors or readers access to or referrals to other organizations, experts or associations where they can find out more information on a particular topic.

Even the other day I asked a client to send me a few blog posts to get his blog rolling so it didn’t look quite so empty. He ended up sending me links to other sites where there were some good articles on his industry.

And two weeks ago a client wanted me to post links to a industry directory where there are lists and lists of other experts that do exactly what she does.

“But wait…” I said. “Why would you want to send your visitors away to someone else’s site? Especially after you’ve just spent so much time and money trying to get them to come to your site?

It astounds me that people are so willing to do this. But I understand where it comes from.

Many entrepreneurs know that when they give ….they will receive. And I do believe this too.  But in this case, I have to disagree. There is a time for giving and a time for keeping the prospects you struggled so hard to get.

I think there are two reasons why site owners are so willing to do this without really thinking it through:

• They are giving their readers access to some great resources and there is nothing wrong with that. But why not instead BECOME that great resource. It will take time, but consistently adding content to your site is what is going to keep people coming back for more and start to see you as the expert.

• At some point they may have been told that swapping links with other business is a good thing. Again, I don’t think there is anything wrong with that at all…BUT ONLY if there is a WIN-WIN-WIN for all parties involved. Here’s an example: A web designer might provide a link to an internet marketing consultants site and vice versa. They are non-competing. They both win. The client/visitor/reader wins because they’ve been introduced to two people who can help them in different but complimentary ways.

So having said that, I encourage you to stop putting exit links on your site. What you’re really doing, is sending your potential clients and visitors to someone else. It doesn’t position you as the expert and it doesn’t get your client results any faster.

Tell me what you think below and please share this blog post if you thought it was interesting or helpful.

Guest Author: Tracy Matthewman provides internet marketing training for small business owners. Watch her short video on how to build your own website in less than 10 minutes.