Quick Ways to Start SEO on a New Website

Search engine optimization, while hands-down the most effective method for long-term, high-quality traffic, is not an overnight process. Depending on how competitive your keyword is, it can take anywhere from a few weeks, to a few months to start seeing organic traffic from the search engines. To help you get some good traffic while you wait for the search engines to push your website up the rankings, here are a few quick ways to start SEO on a new website.

Networking

In the early days of your new website, the majority of your traffic will be coming from other, more established websites within your niche. The most effective way to snag some of this traffic is to network with web masters, blog owners, and anyone else at the top of a well-established website. This can lead to these webmaster giving you a mention on their website or something similar, instantly making you an authority in the eyes of their readers. Ideally, you could form partnerships with some of these web masters which will give you a significant boost in traffic early in your SEO career. For example, you could offer to split the profits from an e-book you wrote by asking a webmaster to send your e-book to his already established e-mail list.

The Main Advantages Of SEO

Dollar for dollar, there is no greater investment than search engine optimization.

In a time when the Internet is the resource for most to find products or services they need, there is no higher financial commitment than SEO for your company. SEO Professionals is aware of the value of SEO and how to make your web page develop your company even while you rest. SEO Experts put the effort to force your website to the top of Google.

Top Benefits of Search Engine Optimization

Long-Term Standings

Once a appropriately executed marketing strategy is in place, your results will last a long time, giving you the peace of mind that once you’re up in the rankings, your website is conveying you customer’s day in and day out without having to continue spending advertising dollars.

Beat Your Competition

Optimized websites are the fastest, easiest way to dissolve your competition. Fact: Web users rarely search through pages and pages of search engine listings to find your business. It’s a race to the top of the listings, so who will get your potential clients’ attention first? Be the victor with the help of Web Marketing Pros.

Some Link Building SEO Tips

Here are some SEO tips from somebody that has been working on it for years. Generating back-links to your website is the best way that I know of to boost the number of visitors that your websites get on every day basis. But, which links are most efficient?

Webmasters disagree about that. Personally, I feel that all links are efficient to a certain level. If you only generate links from one social network or website, then you have essentially bet all of your money on one horse.

To continue with the gambling scenario for just a moment, if you go to a race track and you spread your money around, betting on several different horses in the same race, your odds of winning some money are better. Of course, at the track, you will lose money on the horses that don't win.

Unless you pay for back links, there is no way that you can lose. Posting at some of the directories is a waste of time, in my opinion, because they don't allow relevant links within the text or they don't have an author's box at the end of each article.

Of course, time is money, so without further delay, here are a few more link building SEO tips. These are all free options.

- Find related websites and offer to trade space. You allow the website owner to put a link on your site. He allows you to put a link on his.

- Create a daily blog with links to your website. Provide helpful information related to the products that you sell or promote on your sit.

- Write informational articles and post them at EzineArticles, Amazine or Go Articles, three of the top article directories online. Posting is free and each of the ezines allows back-links in the body and in the article box.
The next link building SEO tips have to do with social networks. You should have enough confidence in your products or the ones that you are promoting to encourage your friends and family to buy them.

If you do not have a Facebook and a MySpace page, then you are a little behind the times. Twitter is the latest thing, but for user friendliness and beginners, I would recommend Facebook, first.

The more links that you have leading to your website, the more traffic you will get. You cannot have too many links. If you also have outgoing links, then your site ranks higher in the search engines.

So, those are my SEO link building tips for the day. Wish they help you create more traffic to your site.

SEO Tips to Increase Page Rank

Never put ads to new sites right away as Google may mark your site as “ ad farm “ and will not index the site. You should wait for a month or so to begin ad activity.

It has been seen that Google bestows high ranking to sites having multiple inbound links. The important fact is that such links must correspond to higher ranking site only.

You will not get any benefit from any sub standard link exchange sites and more over Google will side line your site for link farming. Your inbound links must be relevant to content of website.

You can link web site with good social book marking services like del.icio.us, reddit.com, dig.com to name a few but there are many other such sites which will serve your purpose but Most of social book marking sites use rel="nofollow" attribute which does not help increasing Page rank of website.

Google detects duplicate contents, copied content etc and never index sites which use them. It is always advisable to give relevant link and disclose the content source etc.

Always link single page with canonical URL. Always refrain from excess use of key words, over optimizing, irrelevant use of key word as this adversely affects website’s page ranking.

It has been very common practice to use invisible text and use it at the end of the main page but this is no longer a sensible thing to do as modern search engines detect it and may penalize your site. Always try to avoid query characters such as “?” as search engines never appreciate dynamic pages with such characters.

It is very essential to perform correct redirecting. When moving content from one page to another make sure to include 301 redirect codes, which indicates that page has been moved permanently.

Google suggests that there should be less than 100 links in a single page.

Always put links having equal or higher page rank sites and must be relevant to the content of the page.

Never use unauthorized softwares or programs to check rankings, submit page as you may be violating service terms etc.

How to Get Your Google Sitelink!

Have you ever looked for something on Google and on the top list was sub-pages listed on the site directly below the main list? They called Sitelinks listing search has. In this article I will explore Sitelinks, and most importantly, how you can help Google identify sub-pages as you want for your site link!

Sitelinks only appear in the list of the best for a given query. Normally, you will see these when you are looking for a specific company name.

Google said Sitelinks appear only if their algorithm can determine which of your pages would be eligible Sitelinks. It is important to note that Google shows these steps for webmasters, but for those who use the Google search.

One thing SiteLinked web sites have in common is an easy site to navigate. The main categories (which are useful for site links) are distinguished from other links. In general, the main category pages should appear as links on site.

These categories can include your company profile, company history, contact page, etc. If you have a product line of products for the services of four or five, it would also be ideal for website links. From Sitelinks depend on the structure of a website is something we can control.

To help Google find the pages you would like Sitelinked, the best practice is to link to those pages twice on every page of your Website. Many Websites have a left navigation structure that points to the main internal pages, which is fine. But we really want to highlight our main internal pages even more. Therefore, it is important to also link to these pages on the footer. Please look at the example link structure below.

Product | Product 2 | Product 3 | Company History | Contact Us

Notice how each page has a separator. This is very common among the many Sitelinks I have seen. If needed, use two lines for your main category links. There is a limit on the number of sub-pages that will be listed for a Sitelink, and from what I have seen eight is the limit.

The wording of sub-pages listed in a Sitelink can include anchor text, image alt text, and the url name (ie. widgets.htm would list as Widgets in a Sitelink). In creating Sitelink friendly pages, keep these considerations in mind. The goal here is to create consistency. So if you have images that link to your main categories, use alt text that matches the anchor text of your footer links.

SiteLink certain search queries return a link to a map. One thing that is common between these lists is a contact page that clearly and concisely state the name and address, as if it had been written for one envelope. In addition, the font size is larger than the text on the rest of the page and is not crowded between advertising or other text.

How Google ranks pages for Map Link website is something we can never fully understand. But we can reach some conclusions by looking pretty strong already Sitelinks!

Keywords Optimization

An integral part of any campaign in support of search engine optimization (SEO) is the research and choose keywords for your website. It is essentially words or phrases that are trying to defend in the search.

Do you Sell PEZ dispenser? You can then use the "fish", "service providers" , or the most popular items, such as "Star Wars Pez." When you decide on these keywords, you must enter keywords in the content and identification of the site is considered relevant for search engine placement for your site.

This includes the copy on your site, and all page titles, heading tags and links. This is not an easy process, but necessary for SEO.

When you insert your keywords throughout the content of the on-site, it is vital to understand the density at which the keywords are optimized on a page. The "keyword density" is referring specifically to how often a keyword is used in your copy of the in-page. Search engines compute the percentage of keyword density, and found the more often a search term in content, most will think that your page is relevant and should be ranked higher. However, there is a fine line between having an optimum density of the keyword and over-stuffing your content with keywords and terms.

Please note: Just because you have the right amount of keyword density in your SEO campaign, it means that the higher you will automatically align. The new Google algorithm favors really related terms to search only the keyword density. Focus also on the quality of its content, which only focus on your keyword density. If you exceed the optimal density of the keyword, you can face a penalty of over-optimization.

There's percentage of "perfect" in the keyword density in SEO, but strives to keep our Volacci density at or below 5 percent. The percentage of a page is relative to its length happy, so it is recommended that you know the formula for calculating each page. The formula for the keyword density is quite simple.

1. Count how many words you have on your page.
2. Count how many times you have used your keyword
3. Apply this formula

Keyword density = ([key word count]) * 100 / (total word count]
For example, let's say you have a 500 word article about PEZ dispensers, and you are optimizing for "FISH"

• - Total Word Count: 500
• - Applications of FISH keyword: 12

Density of "fish" = (12 * 100) / 500
The keyword density for "FISH" on page is 2.4%

SEO campaigns, have keyword optimization in content on-page is very important to be relevant to the search engines. However, if you focus too much on keyword density, you can potentially lose focus on other important elements in the dynamic approach to optimizing your site. Use the formula for keyword density to ensure that you are applying relevant applications of your keywords in quality content and links so that you are getting the most out of your research. If you abuse your keywords, Google will get you gods, so the stuffers are not saved.

Many SEO company is very passionate about their online success. By the end of the contract to have at least a lot more is spent on business services, your website ... or work for free until you.

Google Image Optimization

Google Image Optimization

There are ways to optimize the image out of the first results of a search. Optimizing images is not as complicated as many think, Know the factors that influence the positioning of images:

Filename: You need a name depending on how you find the image. A name that contains keywords. For example, if you have an image of a Celebrity Gossips, Pudes not upload the picture with the name you gave the default img1968.jpg camera should bear the name of the Celebrity Gossips.jpg

The ALT attribute: Make sure you provide an adequate description of the photo with the ALT attribute. This attribute was intended for display in text browsers that do not bear the images (many years ago). Try not to use too much text. Focus on a text containing keywords that accurately describe the picture.

Title and text: The title gives you a better idea of what Google imagen.Al treated like the text surrounding the image.

Anchor Text (Text Link): When you link an image using the appropriate link text. It's like the anchor text you use for enlzar pages.

Google Image Labeler: Using Google Image Labeler http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/ this will help your pictures scrambled to the top of the search engines so that others can sort your photos. This tool is pretty funny. Simply turn on the Google Image Labeler from Google Webmaster Console.

These tips will get you a better position your images and therefore more traffic to your website.

What is Google Adsense

AdSenseis a Google service that inserts the administrator of a website-based text ads, known as AdWords, and get money for each click users click on the ad.

How does Adsense?: 

The operation is very simple. webmaster inserts JavaScript code that calls a Google server. This server parses the page where you insert the code, and depending on its content, generates a code that shows a series of advertisements for companies that are related to the theme of the page.

In this way, you get the 'clickthrough rate' (the percentage of visitors who click the link) is higher, since readers are more interested in the topic. Thus, the benefits are greater for the webmaster.
Moreover, the formats of the ads are highly customizable, both in color and size. Even you can prevent ads from your competitors web sites appearing in this advertisement posted.

What I need to participate in the service Adsense?: Only need to be the administrator of a website and make a request to the Google team. That yes, Google has some very clear rules with the quality of the websites, not to insert AdSense on pages that have pop-ups or dialers, for example.

Once your site has been accepted, you can start inserting advertising in minutes. However, it may be that the ads are not visible for a few hours since the Google ad server have to crawl your site.

How much money will I make?

Google does not have the money for each click, varies with each advertiser, and it is Google that decides what amount. But every moment you can see how much money you earn.

Google sends a check to your home at the end of each month if you earn more than $ 100 Anyway, the end of each year you send a check for the amount of money you will be.

Google Page Rank (PR)

Google Page Rank (PR) is a numeric value that represents the importance of a site is online. Google is the idea that when a website puts a link (link) to another is a vote for the latter.

The more votes a page that will be considered more important by Google. In addition, the importance of the page that casts the vote decides the weight of this vote. In this way, Google calculates a page's importance by the votes received, taking into account the importance of each page that casts the vote.

PageRankTM (developed by the founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin)is the way Google decides the importance of a page. It is a valuable data because it is one of the factors that determine the position will have a page within the search results. It is not the only factor that Google uses to rank pages, but it is one of the most important.

Keep in mind that not all the links are taken into account by Google. For example, Google filters out and discards the links of pages devoted exclusively to put links (called 'link farms').

In addition, Google admits that a page can not control the links that point to it, but you can check the links page to other pages in place. Therefore, links to a page can not harm it, but it links a page to place penalized sites may be harmful to your PageRankTM.

If a site has PR0, it is usually a site penalized, and may not be intelligent to put a link to her.

One way to know a page is PageRankTM download it the Google search bar (only available for MS IExplorer). Bar appears in the one shown in green PageRankTM value on a scale of 0 to 10. PR10 websites are Yahoo, Microsoft, Adobe, Macromedia, and Google. You have a full list of PR10 sites.

The google page rank Algorithm "PageRankTM" was patented in the United States January 8, 1998, Larry Page. original title is "Method for the position of the node associated with the database", and was appointed as the patent number 6,285,999.

Top 10 Seo tips For Web site Optimization

10 tips / tips to consider optimizing your site before sending it to Google. Following these tips can get Google to record better your website.

1. If your website has the Welcome screen
make sure you have a text link that allows visitors access the site. It is common to see many sites with a welcome screen very striking and full of effects thrown into Flash but no other way to access the site. It is advisable to have a text link that gives access to the site traditionally because Google can not read Flash pages and therefore can not access the rest of the site.
2. Sure not to have broken links.
Sounds pretty obvious. But it's impressive the number of errors experienced by the Google engine daily due to broken links. So we would have to check all internal links on our site.
3. Check the labels TITLE
The title of the pages is very important to Google, so you should check that the TITLE tag is relevant to the content of the page in question. This does not mean you have to put a title of more than 20 words, but rather in keeping with the content and easy to read by search engines and surfers.
4. Check the META tags
Rumors that Google is not interested in the META tags are not entirely certain. Google uses these tags to describe a website when there is too much code to read. So enter some valid as META tags KEYWORDS and DESCRIPTION for keywords and site description respectively.
5. Check ALT tags
ALT tags should be the least likely used by webmasters. We add these tags to describe images for them. They are not a factor, but a plus for Google.
6. Check your frames (frames)
A frame is a frame or separate box in which we can load a web page. If you use frames that Google can not index us 100%. I personally recommend not using frames, but if you decide to use them read this article.
7. Have you got dynamic pages?
It is known that the web evolved greatly in recent years, and that more and more pages based on dynamic scripting languages (PHP, ASP, etc.).. But it seems that Google is limiting the amount of dynamic pages it indexes, so we could include some static pages ... when the momentum is not necessary.
8. Regularly update
This is a very important aspect that you should consider, as quickly Google indexes more pages that are updated with some regularity. Podes note that the number of pages indexed by the search engine is increased if you update daily, but may stagnate or decrease if not provide new content. I recommend you put a META option in the header to tell Google how often you should return to reindex.
9. Robots.txt
This file can be very helpful if we use it correctly. With robots.txt you can filter search engines recorded our website and to restrict access to certain URL's that do not want to be indexed (login page, file folders, etc.).
10. Cahe Cache or not?

Google maintains a cache of some pages to have a faster access to them. Some webmasters prefer not to be cached, or Google cachee our pages all we have to do is place the following META tag between the heads:

SEO Terms Part -3

Top 10 Seekers:
Page listed in the top 10 search engine results for a specific keyword or phrase.
First Time Visitors:
The number of visitors accessing your site first. It identifies a visitor for the first time by the absence of a cookie.
Visitors Returners:
The number of visitors who stayed at their site in a period prior to being returned and have returned. It determines whether a visitor is no returner through a cookie. Visitors returnees are counted only once in the period but have multiple entries to the Site. port period.
Unique Visitors:
Unique visitors are day visitors only on a given day. A visitor can only be a first-time visitor or a visitor nonreturner. Unique visitors are counted only once during the period several times while accessing a website. Number of visitors accessing our website over a specific period of time from a particular IP address.
Page Views:
Each time a page is downloaded by the user. In terms of entries to the site only HTML pages, dynamic pages and forms considered page views, no access to images, audio, video or advertisements.
Average Page Visitors:
The number of pages each visitor views on average.
3-Way Link Exchange:
How to link exchange agreement between three sites, a site of links to site b -> b link to another site c -> c link to another site.
Algorithm:
Algorithm is a formula that is used by the search engine to categorize sites
Anchor text:
A text is a hyperlink.
Backlinks:
Backlinks are links from other websites to your website or web page. In the world of SEO, the more backlinks you have, the higher the page-rank of your site.
Black Hat SEO:
This is an unethical SEO method used to classify your site as a site with hidden letters, black background, etc.
BLS:
backlinks.
Cache:
Cache is a storage area engine search database where you store all web pages.

Cgi-bin:
cgi-bin is the name of the folder that contains the interface of the gateway binaries and scripts.
Cloaking:
A black-hat system delivers customized content to a website search engine spider but hiding the code or information to visitors.
DoFollow:
Standard of incoming links that do not have the attribute "nofollow".
Firefox:
A web browser developed by Mozilla that is free to download and offers an alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Folksonomy:
Social networks managed by the same social network users. Examples include del.icio.us, "technorati.com" and "flickr.com".

SEO Terms Part -2

Domain Name:
This is the text name corresponding to an IP number from a computer connected to the Internet.

Indexed Pages:
This number represents the total number of pages visited and indexed by Google in its website. This number can conclude to what extent the site is indexed by a search engine.
Web Site Optimization:
A thorough analysis of the HTML code, tags, keywords, web statistics, etc.That is, the design, structure and contents that make up a Web page in order to bring it to the top of search engines, or the first results of search engines, most popular.
Website Optimization For Search Engines:
The process of modification and analysis of web pages to get to position the page in the highest positions within the major search engines. The analysis is comprehensive because it includes labels and tags titles, codes and Web design. Check out our promotions website optimization or search engine optimization.
Page Rank:
The Google Page Rank is numerical value assigned by Google to each page present in its database. This value is calculated by Google using special algorithms based on qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the external links on each website.
Entry Pages:
Indicates the number of times a page is the first to be seen within the route of a visitor clicks on your site. Typically the home page should have a high number, if not the top of the list.
Exit Pages
Indicates the number of times a page is the first to be seen within the route of a visitor clicks on your site. Typically the home page should have a high number in this list, unless you have a lot of dynamic content on your site that users see only one time.
Search Keywords / Phrases:
These are the words that users employ search engines in order to reach a website. One Stat lets you know what search words your visitors are using to find your site. As the list of keywords can increase you know that keywords important to find your site are ignored by search engines and added to the META KEYWORD tag of each page to improve the performance of your site in search engines.
Criminalization:
Punishment imposed on a particular page from a search engine as a result of using positioning tactics contrary to the editorial standards of that form. Such punishment often results in the loss of positions and the disappearance of the website, sometimes all, of that form. All projects are NeoMinds search engine positioning tactics accepted by Google and other search engines without penalty futuristic.
PFI (Pay for Inclusion):
Some search engines and directories charge a fixed amount to consider and review the inclusion of a specific page in its database. This payment does not guarantee in any case, a particular position for the revised website.
Platform:
The operating system (Windows XP, Windows 98, MacOS, Linux, etc.).
Flash Portal:
Flash can speak with a marketing campaign with search engines. Search engines are always looking for text in a webpage, and some sites display designs search engines with no text to index. When a search engine views a page with flash during indexing, the site can be indexed only when the search engine can go around this introduction (e.g. a link that says 'skip intro').
Web Positioning in Search Engines:
Web positioning in search engine optimization is the why certain techniques are seeking high positions under certain searches on search engines.
Relevance:
Affinity of a page including a listing of results of a search with the subject or information sought by a navigator
Server:
A computer that hosts information available to users (called clients) on the Internet or other network.
Referring Site:
The URL of a website that has a link that serves as a reference for visitors to come to a site.
Titles Different Pages:
Each page on a website has its own subject, it is very important that the title of the pages tells whether your context contains. A search engine can judge by its title page.

Seo Terms Part 1

Log File
This is a file created by a web server or proxy server which contains all information about the activity on that server.
PPC (Pay Per Click)
Search engines where advertisers pay present the results of that search every time someone clicks on your link. The major PPC search engines today are Google Adwords, Overture and Espotting.
Crawler / Spider / Robot / Spider
A program designed to crawl the web by following links between pages. Is the usual form used by the major search engines to find pages later part of their databases
Click Through Rate (CTR)
Ratet for clickks is the number of times a link is followed by sailors, divided by the number of times that the link is shown (in turn called printing).
Content:
Information available on one page including images, texts and any other information provided regardless of its format.
Dynamic Content:
Pages generated usually from the information in a database and the demands made by the navigator. This kind of content usually has the character "?" Within the URL.
IP Address
Internet Protocol Address: identifies a computer connected to the Internet.
Directories:
Databases are made by humans. Web pages indexed and are found in directories or subdirectories cataloging at their own discretion. The largest and most important are Yahoo and Open Directory Project.
Doorway Page:
Page designed and optimized for a browser and a particular keyword. The use of multiple pages of this type allows the same content is positioned properly in different browsers. This strategy is highly penalized by the major search engines.
Deep Links
are links to pages that are several levels below the domain root.
Cross Links:
Link consists of multiple websites in order to improve search engine positioning. If detected by search engines domains can be penalized.
Filters:
Specialized software to detect fraudulent practices or penalized by search engines. If the filter detects a search engine one of these practices directly apply a penalty to the website.
Frames:
Most search engines can manage web sites with frames (frames). Although difficulties have yet to try a website for 'frames' that one without 'frames'.
HTML:
Hyper Text Markup Language is the language used to write static pages for the World Wide Web and to specify links to pages and objects.
JavaScript:
Known script programming language that has broad support in browsers and Web development tools with this language you can write scripts.
Keywords Or Keyword:
Found on Web pages that describes the product, service or information presented by Web sites. Placed into the Meta tag "Keywords". Many search engines obviate the meta tag "keywords" due to misuse that has been made of them, so it is very important to clarify the standards used by search engines and directories.
Link Popularity Or League:
It is a measure of the importance of an Internet website based on the number of external links is the website. It is one of the most important factors used by the major search engines to sort the results presented to sailors. The popularity of leagues (link popularity) defines how important a website. Search engines believe that if many sites have links to your site, its content must be of high quality. Conclusion: the higher the popularity of links, the higher the position in Google. Another important thing is that a connection of a website with a 'link popularity' very high at your site has a connection higher than a site that borders low.
Site Map:
The availability of a site map has two advantages: it is much easier for visitors to find their way around the site, and makes it much easier for a search engine indexes your site.
Meta Search:
Websites specializing in consulting various search engines simultaneously and present the information in a comprehensible and orderly.
Meta Tags:
They are HTML tags that contain keywords for which your website will be found. The met tags are very important when positioning a Web site because search engines rank pages according to the met tags they find. The most used are the title, description and keywords.
Search Engines:
A search engine or unbuscador is a system that seeks and indexes websites and allows users to find what is on those sites through keywords. One Stat lets you know from which search engines visitors are coming to your site.
Much Content:
In most text (context) that is available on a website, more information than a search engine can collect from a Web site. This has a positive effect on the trial of the website.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Website Optimization is a intricate matter, but should be known by every industrialist who wants to be successful on the Internet.

According to the glossary of the Royal Spanish Academy, optimize is decision of the best way to perform an movement. Therefore, optimization of your website would make it conform with the best likely with each of its functions.

Recall that if a site is designed only to achieve success in the Search Engines, better known as search engines will not be successful with users as the machines do not buy, not sell it. If, however, is intended only for individuals, difficult to achieve a good positioning in search engines and users will not find, therefore, not sell. In conclusion, a successful web site must comply with both their functions inevitably related to Search Engines such as those associated with the usability by site visitors.

We have said that anyone wishing to succeed in the Internet market should make a website that is a true "virtual branch." That is, this should be an extension of your company and operate as a local online. For this, the site must achieve the objectives for which it was created, must be compatible with the principles and policies of the Company, be functional and actually transmit useful information to its users.

In order to get to a site that complies with the individuality listed above, you must have the help of a Web Optimizer you know how that site should work and how to achieve it.

Top Tips for Social Media Marketing

Social media is a powerful and cost-effective marketing tool for your business. It will not only put you directly in touch with existing and new clients, it will make you more personable, trustworthy and approachable. It will also improve links to your website, boost your SEO, help you to raise your own profile and establish new networks while attracting more business overall.

Of course, for most of you these tips will be completely obvious, however - I have had many people request some social media marketing advice, so to get you started, here are my top tips:

Twitter

Twitter is a hugely effective free marketing tool for your business. It’s a micro-blogging site and somewhere that allows you to talk directly to your customers quickly and easily. You basically follow people and people follow you.

You can tweet about yourself while keeping updated on the rest of the world. Sign up and create an account, reserving your business name and start ‘tweeting’. You can tweet about your company news, point people back to your website and any useful blogs you might have, or even respond to tweets about your sector.

If you’ve got an iPhone, you can use an application called TwitPic to instantly share your photos on Twitter. It’s a great way to add more personality to your business.

A useful ‘search’ function on Twitter will help you to find relevant people to follow or even target. For instance, as a PR person, I follow PR Week but also lots of design and marketing agencies around Staffordshire and Cheshire. I’ve found lots of new business by tweeting about my services and sharing my expertise. I’ve also searched for things like ‘PR services’ and ‘web developer required’ to target others and introduce myself.

To make the most out of your Twitter account you can use more advanced tools like Hootsuite or TweetDeck. These will make using Twitter a whole lot easier and come with lots of useful features. Take for instance, Hootsuite – you can schedule Tweets to be posted onto your profile while you’re away from your desk. Twitter has also recently introduced ‘Lists’ whereby you can organise all the people you are following, placing them into categories.

Bear in mind that you can't just self-broadcast. Social media is about sharing and talking to people. Get involved with things like #FF - or 'Follow Friday' where you recommend people to follow every Friday. Or 'RT', meaning 'Retweet', things that people are tweeting about to show your support.

And don't expect to win lots of business overnight with Twitter. Think of it more like a way of building relationships that might turn into customers. But never expect it, otherwise people will see through your insincerity.

Facebook

If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s third largest. As a business, you can start a Page where people can 'like' you, similar to Twitter, and become fans of your business. Like Twitter, this is a fantastic free marketing tool to help build your online presence and get more people talking about you and your products or services.

Again, you can point people back to your website, your blog posts or even seek customer feedback. For example, on Creative Boom’s Fanpage, I often talk directly to my fans, asking their opinion on how I can continue to improve the website. As a result, I recently launched this new Tips section – to other help and advice to freelancers, start-ups and small businesses.

Please note that Facebook is only really suitable for consumer type businesses. There's no point in starting a Page if you sell tiles, for example. Facebook is only suited to those companies who naturally have a community... Take for example, high street retailer ZARA. Their Facebook page has literally millions of 'Likes' and all because their product is so suitable for this social media environment.Therefore, if your firm is more business-to-business, consider just focusing on Twitter instead.

Linked In

Linked In is a business version of Facebook that is hugely popular and has over 60 million users worldwide. It has some very useful functions like ‘Recommendations’ where you can encourage clients or colleagues to add a testimonial to your Linked In profile.

It’s also another social media network that has Groups. On my own profile, I've followed relevant groups such as Staffordshire Business and regularly talk online through the forums. It’s also a great way of keeping informed of any relevant business networking events going on in your local area.

But I'll be honest, I don't really like LinkedIn. It's my least favourite of all the social media. But it's there and many people use it, so it's always best to be a part of it, rather than not at all.

Blogging

Writing a blog gives you credibility, helps you to showcase your expertise and target potential new customers online. What’s more, by integrating a blog into your current website, you’ll be providing fresh and relevant copy.

And search engines like Google love regularly updated copy, which will really help boost your SEO. If you’re stuck for things to write then consider the following: you could comment on something in the news; provide tips and advice; share your expertise; review a product or service relevant to your industry or even just talk about your recent client wins. Or read my Things to Blog about when you run out of Ideas article.

Don’t forget to give your blog posts titles with SEO in mind. Think of what people would search for in the search engines. For instance, this feature would be ‘Top tips for social media marketing’. It’s another great way of being found through the search engine results pages.

Forums, chat rooms and chatting online

Contribute to online conversation and check out other people’s blogs that are within your sector, adding intelligent comments/debate to their posts. It will give you further credibility and put you in touch with hundreds of potential new customers.

More importantly, it will sometimes build links back to your own website. Why is link building so important? It’s relevant for SEO and helps to drive more traffic to your website. The more traffic you have, the more potential customers you’re reaching. The more strong and relevant links you have, the more your rankings will improve. Remember, social media goes hand-in-hand with SEO.

Multimedia

Have you considered using multimedia to boost your online presence? Websites like Flickr, Vimeo and YouTube[http://www.youtube.com] are a great way to add more personality to your business.

If you’re a designer and you want to showcase your work, you can easily produce a video gallery of your work and post it onto YouTube. If you’re a photographer you can upload your work onto Flickr, a photo sharing site that also has groups, forums and online communities.

Or how about adding videos to your own website? You could demonstrate a new product? Or just talk to your customers direct by introducing ‘vlogs’ or video blogs.

Join everything up!

Finally, once you’ve got your own Twitter and Facebook accounts up and running and you’ve started a blog or introduced YouTube videos, why not connect them all up? You can use things like Twitterfeed to tap into your blog’s RSS feed and automatically post things onto Twitter and Facebook.

Just think of Twitter and Facebook as powerful tools that will drive traffic to your website. Don’t forget to add some social media icons to your website so that people can easily follow you on Twitter or become your fan on Facebook.And before you know it, you'll have built up your own online community and be in touch with a whole new range of interesting people.

9 Essential SEO Tips For Small Business In 2011

The end of a decade is upon us and as we ring in and welcome the new year, we do so by building upon what we have accomplished and hopes of achieving our new goals we have set forth. Social media has broken down the communication barriers and helped to pave the way for small businesses to emerge and thrive. While we continue to see growth amongst users within social media, we cannot overlook the power of search engine optimization and getting found.

Getting found online for small businesses is essential to remain competitive in today’s marketplace. The way consumers search has changed, the way they receive and consume the information has changed through sharing on the various social media platforms and also through the way that the search engines present the results for the search queries. In early 2010 the buzz was optimizing for local search, then, were re-introduced to Bing as they went full speed ahead to attract users and making optimizing for Bing worthwhile though creating more of a niche search. Google was hard at work creating instant search and Google Places and most recently confirming that yes, indeed, they are starting to pay attention to our online activity through the social signals. 2011 promises to be as action packed so enacting the essential SEO tips only keeps you ahead of your competitiors.

9 Essential SEO Tips for Small Business in 2011

1. Keyword Phrases. One word phrases are a thing of the past. Yes, it is important to have specific keywords targeted as they relate to your brand and overall industry however we have to keep an eye on what phrases people are querying to find us. Delving into your analytics and analyzing how people are finding you and comparing that to what you wish to be found for will help to secure your ranking.

2. Content. The content that you are creating is not only built around keywords, it is built from what people are going to find useful, has a high propensity to be shared and also to be created from what people would want to link to. The content when we think in the different ways it will be viewed enhances how it is created.

3. Mobile Friendly. A site that is not mobile friendly is losing visitors. We have become a mobile dependent society and adapting your site to mobile devices is not only increasing your chances of searchers having the ability to view your site, it is also securing the trust with them as ultimately when we are searching, we want results. The results via a mobile device need to be more immediate and valuable.

4. Local Search. Local search is still a hot topic. Google Places becoming the default for many industry specific searches has changed the way that people are accepting the search results. This is where the biggest change has taken place. Users have had to embrace this search result change. They want results that they feel that they trust. Appearing in the results, starts the trust.

5. Link Building. A link building strategy that encompasses internal and external linking through directories, reciprocal links as well as engaging in social media through commenting on blogs, creating content that is linked to as well as web pages that are a resource to be linked to is going to point to your site through the search engines as a point of reference and increase your rankings.

6. Canonical Pathway. Creating a clear and precise canonical pathway domain sets to avoid multiple page variations and duplications. The search engine spiders crawl and are unable to determine which is the preferred pathway for your site. Establish one pathway.

7. Crawl Frequency. How often are your pages being crawled? Blogs are crawled and ranked very quickly. Internal web pages that are not linked to or updated and have high visit volume are not crawled as frequently. Monitor through your cache how often your pages are being crawled to determine which pages need to be crawled more frequently and this also can give some insight as to when a new page or blog (for those that are not blogging every day) should be posted to ensure that the page is being crawled and indexed when the crawlers are crawling.

8. Photo Alt Tags. Alt tagging photos seems sometimes to be forgotten. The spiders cannot see the photo, but they can see the text that is associated with the photo. Creating alt tags that contain keywords are not only preventing the stop gap for the spiders, it is allowing an extra source for keyword density.

9. Site Speed. The speed in which your site downloads matters. Visitors will click off a site is taking too long to load.The faster the site loads the more time is spent on the site. This not only is attractive to the user, but the speed of a site matters to the search engines. Of course, the content will outweigh the speed but if you have great content that is slow and people will not wait for it, the search engines will not rank it.

These tips are essential to be ready for 2011. Search is only increasing as we see users engaging online for longer periods and having an ability to do so on the run. Mobile usage, desktop/laptop usage while at work and at home will continue to increase. People are online and trust the search engines to give them results. Can the search engines trust you to give them what they need to rank you?