So, you joined Twitter to use its marketing resources, and now you need to make people follow you.  Certainly, the more followers you get – the more popular your account becomes, and the bigger your chances are to promote your company, website or blog. If you are new to Twitter, you should know the basic rules of how to make other users follow you there.

Increase Your Twitter Followers!

Let me share some rules that will help you make you attract more followers on Twitter.

1. First of all, your Twitter blog should be “alive”. This means not only should you tweet regularly, but also make sure that you share useful facts with your readers. And don’t forget to add  relevant links to blog posts on your site from time to time,

2. If you are new to Twitter, post at least 10 tweets before you start inviting people to read your blog. Give people a reason to follow your account first, before plugging in your site’s URLs.

3. If you find an interesting article on the web, don’t hesitate to share its link via Twitter. The idea is to create the right impression—that you are on twitter to share and engage and not just to promote your own site!

4. Show yourself to the world! A good Twitter profile begins with a good photo, people need to see the person they are following to really connect with him/her. The same can be said about your name: your Twitter account will be associated with your name, so try to choose a really good one for yourself, not just AR53425 or anything. The perfect variant is your real name of course.

5. A very good method to attract readers’ attention is to post famous people’s quotes and sayings, or just deep philosophical thoughts. This will increase your chances of being retweeted.

6. Take part in conversations. Comment on other people’s tweets, agree or disagree with them, retweet their posts etc. Remember Twitter is about engagement, not just posting 140 character tweets. It’s also a good idea to participate in twitterchats relevant to your niche.

8. Don’t forget to thank all readers who comment on your post. It shows that you truly care about engaging with your followers.

9. Join FollowFriday. On Fridays, you can recommend your followers one of your favourite Twitter micro blogs. Other people can do the same for you.

10. If you use Twitter as a marketing instrument, keep the following ratio: 1 ad tweet = 10 informative ones. If you go overboard with promotional posts, there’s a good chance that people will start un-following you.

11. Finally use hashtags appropriately. For example, if you are tweeting about social media use #socialmedia, so that anyone looking information about ‘social media’ on Twitter will be able to find your tweets easily.

Image Source: http://cdn.visual-blast.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/twitter_icons_free.jpg

A little bit of planning goes a long way: It may sound a little tedious, but it helps to define your objective for using Twitter. There are many ways to use Twitter for marketing your blog, but you need to be clear on your main goal – e.g., to get more visitors, to network with like-minded individuals, to be perceived as an expert in a particular field, etc.

How you use Twitter depends on what you aim to achieve with it. If your objectives are multiple and varied, you can even use multiple Twitter accounts to share relevant messages.

Tweet Your Blog!

To be memorable, become a brand: While you may already have a Twitter ID on your name, you may want to create another Twitter account with a name similar to that of your blog.

Why? Because it’s a great branding exercise – a similar Twitter handle will help your regular readers identify with your blog and follow you to stay updated with your latest posts. Make your blog a brand and give the brand a push using Twitter.

Tweet often: Don’t just stop at getting yourself a Twitter handle – you need to ensure that you post tweets on a regular basis. Sharing information often is among the most basic things you need to do to build your number of followers. Otherwise, people are going to lose interest and unfollow you.

Retweet and re-follow: It’s a great practice to follow your followers – especially in the initial phase of your Twitter activity. Over time, maybe you can restrict yourself to following users who you would like to connect with. Your followers will also appreciate it if you occasionally retweet (RT) what they share – it shows you are willing to even listen to what they have to say, rather than just serve your selfish interests.

Participate in discussions: An effective way to engage your followers is to have discussions on your Twitter account. When you post something and someone posts a response to your tweet, you can continue the conversation by replying to the user’s comments. You would most certainly receive comments for your blog via Tweets when you share your latest blog posts.

Engaging in conversations shows that you care about your followers, and you never know, you just might receive a great idea for future posts through such discussions.

Tweet your latest posts, and more: At the most basic level, you can use Twitter to share links to your latest blog post to get more visitors to read what you have written. But don’t just restrict your Twitter activity to sharing links to your blog posts – share unrelated thoughts and anything else that you found interesting enough on the net.

Post in the form of questions: Instead of using tweets to just convey your thoughts, you can also tweet in a question format to encourage more of your followers to take notice of your posts. A question makes them think and makes them more curious to know what you have in store for them – hence, they would be more likely to click on the link to your blog post in search of an answer.

Find your niche on Twitter: There are many interesting people and brands on Twitter. Find the ones that resonate the most with your blog and make it a point to follow them. Who knows, the people you find interesting might come across your tweets and find them interesting enough to follow you back too.

Use hashtags wisely: Just the way you have tags and categories on your blog, you can organize your tweets using similar hashtags as well. For instance, you can have the same hashtags as the categories on your blog, so that every time you have a new blog post under a certain category, you can share it under that particular hashtag.Keep your hashtags relevant enough and get more people to retweet and discuss your posts.

Be interesting: Of course, all the above points listed are on the technical side. However, to really succeed at marketing your blog through Twitter, you have got to be interesting. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how well you use your keywords or how often you tweet. Unless you have something worthwhile to say, your followers are just not going to be interested in what you share.

Image Source: http://media02.hongkiat.com/twitter_icons_03/twitter-social-icons.jpg

The interpretation?

1. Don’t let just about anyone and everyone guest blog on your site.

2. Pitch your content to blogs and websites that seem to have quality control guidelines in place. A look at a site’s existing content will tell you if it’s worth your while.

3.  Submit your posts to sites relevant for your niche. This means if you are a in the business of fashion, don’t go around submitting content to SEO blogs.

4. Don’t allow contributing authors to insert random outbound links in the text of the post. A good idea is to allow them one or two commercial links relevant to your niche in the author bio.

5. Start using a social author bio plugin; it shows the blog is written by a real person.

Good Luck!

There’s not much information available at the moment, but from what I have gathered after scanning multiple SEO forums it is:

1. Either a glitch and shouldn’t affect the site’s rankings (though in some cases it looks like the fall in link count has had an adverse affect.)

2. A change on how Webmaster tools displays data.

However, as usual there also those nagging voices saying it’s a deliberate move against link building. I am not sure if that theory carries much weight though, considering what’s been posted by John Mu, from Google on productforums:

Response On Google Product Forums

There’s an informative post on SEO Roundtable about the same as well. You can read it here.

SEO is all about mastery and not magic. Performed right, SEO is an organized and logical process that can foster leads and improve sales over a period of time

Don’t have real high hopes that can attract you into believing in outcomes that no one can promise.

However, SEO has a few associated myths and truths that are discussed below.

Myth: Page rank is the most important thing for a web page

Truth: Conversions matter more than page rank – Are you one of those who focus on improvement of page rank without giving any importance to the website traffic or the conversion rate. Well if yes, then it’s high time you wake up.

Conversion is the most important metric. Focus on how many people who visit your website are converting into your customers. Don’t pay for higher page rank but pay for increased conversion rate.

Myth: Search engine is the God

Truth: Think beyond the search engine – Seo’s only focus on pleasing one entity that is Google, they just don’t think beyond the search engine.

To have a strong online presence you need to focus on social media marketing too. A balance of both SEO and SMM is a must to stand strong in the online world.

A web presence must be denoted for its exclusive keyword phrase with in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest as well.

Myth: SEO can be done overnight

Truth: SEO is a long term project that requires time and effort – Nothing happens overnight especially SEO. A successful SEO campaign requires investment, time and effort. When you do it right, SEO steadily builds the site’s authority over time to harvest real outcomes that last for long.

Myth:  Incorporate some top keywords to the website content, and the website ranking will rapidly increase.

Truth: Adding keywords is not a magic SEO wand – Appropriate primary and secondary keywords can’t just do wonders alone. Successful SEO requires a blend of various methodologies and techniques. One solution is not enough to complete the whole job or yield results you are looking for.

Social media can make or break your online reputation. Likes and followers are all good, but when used inappropriately, social media can create a PR nightmare for you!  Brands and public figures have all paid a heavy price for their social media blunders. To make sure you don’t fall into the same trap, here’s what you should stay away from:

Insulting others or posting something controversial – Controversy may be good for movies and celebrities, but for businesses it’s usually not.

Don’t post anything malicious against any person, company, corporate group etc. It might help you grab some eyeballs initially, but the backlash won’t do you any good. Worst-case scenario, you’ll find yourself slapped with a legal notice.

Boring posts – Make your posts innovative and catchy. Your posts must have a unique perspective and personality.  The crux of branding is to instill your sense of humor, ideas, or perspective within each post.

Ignoring comments – Agreed that it’s time consuming to monitor each and every comment and response to your post, but there is no escape. Initially you have to revert to every comment posted by the customer, but as you build a strong online presence you can post a follow up comment per post to show that you care.

Sometimes the feedback that the clients share is more like an attack on the company’s reputation than a request for help. What can you do in such situations? The best approach is to focus on showing everyone how important your customer is to you. Humility and graciousness should be your two keywords here. In addition to that, you may also find the following tips useful when dealing with angry customers:

Don't Let Angry Customers Scare You!

Respond Quickly – Don’t take too long to revert. Be polite and tell the customer that you have heard his/her complaint and that you are working on it.

Don’t lose your temper – Don’t lose your temper at any cost. Clichéd as it may sound, customer really is the king, treat him like one!

Talk the conversation offline – Make use of direct messages or mails if required. If the customer is just being unreasonable it’s the best to take the conversation offline. Make sure the first response is public, for people to know that you respect what your customers have to say.

Image source: Grant Cochrane/Freedigitaphotos.net

Is your website showing on page four? The question is who do you think will ever get as far as page four?

Even after strategic SEO efforts, if your website still does not show on the first page of any search engine result, you seriously need to figure out where you are going wrong.

After the panda and penguin updates, Google has changed the approach, to build a successful SEO strategy. Things have changed post the penguin update or changes in Google algorithm, which has increased the importance of partial match anchor text instead of exact match anchor text.

The Road Ahead For SEO--2013

Check if you have got that one right? Exact match anchor text is passé; partial match is the new thing.

But just getting that right wouldn’t help; here is a list of few SEO killers that you must avoid:

Duplicate content – Your website might just get penalized if Search engine crawlers find the same content think you have copied content from somewhere or are using the same content on your side over and over.

Keyword stuffing – Make sure you choose the correct keyword for your business with the Google Adword keyword tool. The Keyword should not be used for more than 2 – 3 times in your content, and you must try and include at least 3-4 different variations and synonyms of the keyword.

For example, let’s say your keyword is ‘designer sport shoes’, here’s what your keyword variation and synonym list should look like:

1. a) High end-sports shoes
2. b) Sports shoes
3. c) Designer Sneakers and shoes
4. d) Designer running shoes

Title Tags – Use engaging and intelligent title tags that include your keyword, for better online presence. Titles must be catchy, to catch readers attention.

Avoid Spammy Links – Links from ambiguous and indefinite sources or links exchanged with bad neighborhood sites, will do no good to your website ranking. For high search engine ranking, links must be appreciated and known by Google.

Top Signs Of Negative SEO To Watch Out For In 2013:

• • Multiple backlinks from foreign language websites.
• • Links from dubious and bad neighborhood websites – adult, criminal, illegal, gambling websites.
• • Links from spammy pages, which have been created for the purpose of fooling the search engine.
• • Links from sources that generate warnings of malware in your browser

Keep yourself up to date with the Google algorithm updates and avoid the above-mentioned SEO faux pas to see your site, on the first page of search engine results.

Image Source: FrameAngel/Freedigitalpohtos.net

Google has finally launched the much-awaited Link Disavow tool. Not surprisingly, it’s been talked about and dissected in almost every SEO forum on the web. If you’ve been suffering from a case of information overload, here’s a simple explanation of what the Link Disavow tool means for the average webmaster.

What Is The Link Disavow Tool?

With this tool you can tell Google that your website is being harmed with low quality links over which you have no control. Google’s algorithm may then ignore those links while assessing your site’s worth in terms of ranking and PR.

How To Use The Disavow Tool?

Upload the file that contains the link you want Google to ignore. In case you wish to block a domain just specify the name of the domain.  The size of the file is limited to 2MB; you can also insert comments, if you wish to.

Is It Good For You From An SEO Perspective?

If your site’s been hit and run down by Google’s penalties, or a negative SEO campaign, and you’ve been running from site to site trying to clean up the mess, the tool may seem like just the thing you’ve been praying for.

In many ways it could help your site regain some of its lost ranking. But, it isn’t a tool to be used lightly. Not only has Matt Cutts advised webmasters against overusing the tool, if you analyze the various aspects of link disavowing in detail, you would realize there are many layers to it.

Here’s What You Need To Be Careful About!

The link disavow tool is akin to an admission of guilt. Webmasters who’ve been around for a while understand that there’s a difference in what Google says openly and what it means. So, while the tool may help you clean up your act, it could also mean that Google will start watching you more carefully.

Another thing to keep in mind is that jumping on the disavow boat without thinking it through could sink your site.  You have to be 100% sure that the links you are disavowing are actually harming you. Matt Cutts has clearly stated the reavowing links is not a simple process.

So, if you end up disavowing links that are actually pushing your rankings up, the only person you’ll please is your competitor! Therefore, before you even start considering using the Link Disavow tool, you need to evaluate your link profile thoroughly, or get an expert to do it.

You also need to be very careful about who has access to your Webmaster Tools account, because anyone with access to it can simply disavow all your good links and kill your rankings.

If by any chance your site happens to be the one that people are disavowing links from, the tool can spell disaster for you. Google is not going to look benignly at your site, if webmasters start showing their mistrust towards it openly.

If you look at it from Google’s perspective, it’s a pretty cool move to get everyone to chip into the Internet clean up act. However, as a webmaster you need to ensure that you don’t volunteer unless you are sure it will help your case. Perhaps, even more importantly, you need to ensure that you don’t end up becoming one of the victims.

In this scenario, you need to be extra careful about which link exchange proposals you decide to accept, which comments you approve, and which sites you agree to host guest blogs from.

In Conclusion

From an SEO content marketing perspective, the link disavow tool is not a negative development. In fact it’s a great relief for webmasters reeling from the effect of negative SEO. However, it’s a not a tool to be played around with.  My advice— Take your time, analyze your link profile, before you even think of pressing the disavow button.

When it comes SEO content writing, his word has to be taken seriously. In this video Cutts states among other things that guest blogging is cool, BUT only if you are posting quality content.

Of course, he goes on to discuss what’s not cool, in his usual way and doesn’t expressly support guest blogging for link building, but you get the overall message—if you are posting quality content on your site, or sharing quality content with others, it’s fine by Google. What quality means though maybe debatable, however, by and large if your content gets accepted by a reputed site, you are most likely covered on the quality front.

What Does This Mean For SEO Content Marketing?

If you are looking at guest blogging for SEO, you you need to keep the following points in mind:

Don’t corners when it comes to quality: Any blog site worth its salt, or PR will not accept a low quality blog. So, don’t bother wasting your time creating one. You’ll either not get any takers, or if you do they won’t be worth your while (needless to say neither will these be seen as ‘quality’ sites by Google)

Stay Away For Sites That Charge For Blogs: Post Penguin, many websites have started charging a fee for hosting guest blogs.  If you are paying to post your content, you are violating Google’s guidelines. By now you probably what that can mean.

Insert Relevant Links In Your Content Only: Don’t go around pitching general social media articles if you are selling fans! You’ll get maximum SEO benefit if your links are relevant to the content you have created. So, create an article on how companies that sell fans can benefit from social media marketing, if you want to pitch your post to social marketing blogs.

Not So Sweet Anymore!

The Panda update came into action, In February of 2011; it was targeted against low quality and copied content. The idea was to penalize websites hosting such content. Then in April 2012 Penguin came into the picture targeted ‘black hat SEO techniques’ and ‘over optimized websites’

You website could have or might have been penalized because of the following reasons:

Inappropriate Page Title – If the title does not make any sense and is stuffed with keywords.

Irrelevant Content – Your website is about food and your content is on crockery. If the content provides no true value to the visitor and has repetitive information.

Participation in link exchanges – If you have exchanged links from dubious or bought sources.

Copied content – If you have copied content from another website.

SEO Content Writing Fight Back Mantras

The idea here is to keep yourself updated with the ever changing Google algorithm. If your site got penalized thanks to any of the above mentioned reasons, then it’s time for you to fight back. The following are some tools that you must have in your arsenal:

Enhance User experience - Give the visitors what they want when they click on your website. Make a goal for your website in terms of number of visitors and work towards that.

Title – The page title is not for robots but for people. Title is what people see on the search engines as search engine results, so titles need to make maximum sense for people to click on it.

Content on the website – Again, make sure you right the content for people and not robots. Your content should not be stuffed with keywords, focus on using them in a manner that appears natural and appropriate. In addition to that your content must provide value to your website visitors, don’t just write for the sake of writing.

Links – Links should not be bought from dubious sources. Avoid exchanging links with bad sites or those hosting malware. Don’t put your money in black hat SEO link buying schemes.

Google algorithm will continue to change but it’s in your hands how you want your website to rank in search engine queries. Your only option is to adapt to these algorithm changes and keep your SEO strategy as squeaky clean as possible.