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You don’t want just any traffic coming to your site. You want the right kind of traffic — the kind of traffic that either ends up buying something from you, subscribing to a newsletter or RSS feed or hiring you for the services that you vend.

Managing Editor Eileen Shulock and I put our heads together to come up with the best and brightest ways to bring traffic to your site in this Web 2.0 environment. Below are our top 12 tactics.

1. Give Your Website a Web 2.0 Upgrade: If you haven’t done so in the past year or two, it’s high time you add functionality to your website that at least matches the new and exciting features available on some of your competitor’s sites and in other categories.

All the promotional budgets in the world won’t help you if your site features the “same old same old”. People will see the same old thing and hit the back button faster than you can say “wasted budget”.

In a nutshell, Web 2.0 invites users to interact more with your site and/or with each other. So think about offering new features that you promote thereafter. One way to do so is to offer videos on your site. Google now offers universal search, which means videos, user reviews, press releases and more also come up right away in search results. When you see a still of a video, you’re apt to click on that before other static blue links. Hint: Make sure you label these videos with the appropriate keywords, ie., the types of keywords your target audience is apt to search on.

2. Start a User Forum? It’s a big idea that might also turn into a big budget item. But if you can afford it, nothing gets better word-of-mouth than an active, vibrant forum where people participate often and react to others. People will tell other people about their posts and the hotly-contested discussions that are going on at your site.

Keep in mind that you’re going to want to keep a close eye on your forum to keep it clean, keep it on topic and to remove any self-promotional posts that others have made. Look at the Terms and Conditions policies of other forums carefully before posting your own T&C.

My guess is you will probably want to have a significant amount of budget put aside to promote your spiffy new forum. You want to be sure there is a “there, there”. Keep in mind that many more people will come and read than will post. Typically, as in any gathering, there is a core group of vocal participants, while the rest look on. If things get boring, you may have to delegate someone to step in every now and again to introduce new topics and stir the pot.

If you don’t budget resources to make sure that the forum’s conversation is moving along and stays interesting, you may wind up with just a couple of posts over a week’s time, which makes the thing look sort of vacant and unsuccessful. It needs to be robust, happening, a must-see. You get the picture. For examples of campaigns built around or inclusive of online user forums see Dove skincare products or REI camping gear.

3. Flog a Blog: Yes, a blog is a good thing to have because the constant publication schedule tells the search engines that your site has some vibrancy to it. But, like user forums that have few users, an abandoned blog is an eyesore that does your brand image no good. Map out what you plan to put in this blog on an ongoing basis. Maybe it’s trade show coverage and quotes from leaders in your space, or what have you. Make no mistake, a blog is a serious, longterm time commitment, for you and for readers (especially if you expect them to keep coming back and to tell others about it). In fact, the key question to answer here is: What are you going to write about that will keep your target audience returning often and linking to you?

All blog gurus I know insist that one should allow for comments to promote what they call “link juice” or “link love”. Talk a lot about other people so that they have reason to point back to you. Some bloggers thrive on controversy and people’s seemingly insational appetite for gossip, breaking news and other such fare that get people talking around the proverbial water cooler.

4. The Importance of Inbound Links: You may know the search engines look at how many sites of your stripe are pointing to you. If those linking sites enjoy a high reputation, then that in some ways reflects well on you. Think “Link Neighborhood”. Sending out bot messages asking for links is like asking for something for nothing.

It’s probably a better idea to link to someone first, before asking for a link to your site. “Hey buddy, can you spare a link?” Who’s got time for that? And if they did have time for that, it may well be they’re not the optimal linking partner for your site.

In the tech world, you can look at your referrer logs to see who currently points to you. Why is this important? Is it a nicety or do you have real functionality worth pointing to? In the marketing world, what you’re asking for is indeed a referral, which otherwise would cost you real money.

The inbound links pay dividends because you get traffic in two ways from them:

The traffic that comes from the link itself on the remote website; and
Presumably better link profile results in the search engines, which then think more highly of you and therefore rank you higher in search results.
5. Hire a Good PR Person: Unless you’re wise in the ways of media, you might be better off using a PR person to help promote your site. Here are three reasons why:

Good press people like Lee Odden and David Libby are apt to get you into places you might not get into otherwise. When I see those names in the FROM field, I am more prone to open that email because I know they know what they’re talking about.
An objective writing style is needed for your press releases. It isn’t easy talking about yourself in the third person, and it can get downright smarmy and obvious if you do it wrong.
A good PR person will know how to most efficiently send your press release. Let’s face it, not every newspaper in the world needs to see you’ve just launched a new widget, so why pay to reach them when they don’t want to hear from you anyway?

6. Spend Real Money Promoting Your Site: In fact, why not make your site the focus of an entire media blitz? The cost of a really building a really hot site doesn’t come close to the cost of a national TV spot these days. Alternatively, take some money out of that substantial media budget of yours and reallocate it to doing something worth shouting from the mountain tops, and then do exactly that with the rest of your media spend.

In this way, you’ll be promoting something of substance and you’re creating a way to engage your target audience in some interaction and relationship thereafter. Seems like a no-brainer to me. But it’s not done nearly as often as it could be. Make the website the star of your next media campaign.

7. Point to Yourself: I know of many email newsletters that don’t point back to their home page, except in the boilerplate section. I’ve seen companies with print newsletters not point to their own websites. Business cards, speeches and signage are all typical missed opportunities. This also seems like a no-brainer. Since a website is not a physical thing, people just aren’t going to bump into it every day unless you promote the living daylights out of it. Just be sure you’ve got something worth promoting.

8. Advertise on a Content Network: Go beyond plain old Google AdWords search engine advertising and get your ads on relevant content sites. This is called the Google Content Network, which is composed of thousands of content sites big and small. There are several ways to go about this.

First of all, you can go the lazy way and allow Google to pick the sites relevant to your advertising, which they call “contextual” placement (you can edit out places where you definitely do not want your ads to appear). Your ads will then run on those contextual sites.

Or you can get proactive and pick and choose the content sites on which you want your ads to appear. To do so you can:

Go through lists of content sites by category, such as home, financial or automotive;
Search for relevant content sites by keyword within the content network, such as “Acura owners”, “financial reports” or “handbags;
Choose appropriate sites based upon demographic information selected by you;
Look for specific sites of interest such as The Food Network, The New York Times or Engadget.
You can plan on spending at least an afternoon selecting your target content sites. It may seem overwhelming before you start, but once you get going it’s pretty easy.

Then things get really exciting. You can simply run your current AdWords text advertisements, or you can create specific text advertising just for the content network. If you set up individual campaigns you can even create specific text ads for each individual property. Or you can go wild and crazy and delve into graphics, as most of the content properties do allow banner advertising. The only drawback with that approach is that it feels like every single site has different banner ad dimension requirements and you need to go through them one by one. Arm yourself with a spreadsheet and a Diet Coke and take your search engine advertising to a new level… oh right, and drive new and potentially better qualified traffic to your website as a result.

Hint: Depending on your niche, you might find some real deals on underexposed websites that cost less than the PPC programs at the major search engines. However, it has been this editor’s experience (in the fashion industry) that you will pay every bit as much for specialty websites that attract a premium audience.

9. Raise the Stakes: A relevant (and we mean relevant) sw**pstakes can drive beaucoup traffic to your website and introduce your brand to an entirely new audience. It is essential that the positioning and the “prize” be totally relevant. Garnering people who aren’t interested in you — but are interested in the all-expenses-paid trip to Istanbul that you are offering — isn’t going to do you any good in the long run. They’ll forget you as soon as they are off of your site.

Relevancy is the ticket. This editor has experienced sustained, month-long 50% traffic increases to her site as well as hundreds of new email subscribers per day by running a relevant sweepstakes. Sure, you say. It’s easy to stay relevant in the B2C space. But with a little ingenuity it’s easy to do B2B as well. Are you a search engine marketing consultant? Well, get thee over to Amazon, pick out ten SEO and SEM books and offer a “complete search engine marketing library”. You’ll drive relevant traffic to your site, and chances are if they are interested in your SEM library, they will be interested in what you have to offer as well.

10. Market to Blogs: Even if you do not have a blog yourself, you can always market to blogs. This editor sends new editorial weekly to blog editors in her topical space. Don’t send warmed-over pap, however. The content she sends is timely, unique and above all, interesting. Think about packaging tip lists, top 10 lists or other “quick hit” valuable information that a stressed-out editor can grab and run on his or her blog with a simple cut and paste.

Then you need to cultivate your list of blog editors in your niche, begin emailing them on a regular basis and eventually start personal relationships with them. Once they start looking forward to your content or reaching out and contacting you for a quote or feedback, you’ll know your strategy is paying off. Zip on over to Technorati now and see how many blogs out there have mentioned your site. Then check back every week to chart your progress and to personally thank those editors who are using your content.

11. Get Your RSS Feed Published On Other Websites: Most people think of RSS feeds as being read by the end user in an RSS reader at Yahoo, or some other IN box provider, or on their own computers. But if your content is really top notch, there’s a good chance that your feed will be carried on other websites. Make sure you have plenty of good reasons to link back to your site from that published feed.

Some feeds feature only the headline with a link back to the mother ship, while others feature snippets and a link to the rest of the article back at the site. Still other RSS aficionados insist that you send the whole article via RSS and link to other content back at the ranch. We report, you decide.

12. Create a Widget: Make a handy tool that people can put on their own website, Facebook page, desktop, etc.. Offering a tool, game or some sort of handy device that people can use elsewhere is an edgy way to increase your footprint. The tool or widget must appeal not only to other site owners, but to people who are visiting their sites. It’s a type of over-the-shoulder marketing.

Embedded in your widget is a link to your site. The person who places your widget on their site should be made aware of this. After all, this is your payback for offering this cool tool gratis.

Nothing that was described in part one should be considered difficult by anyone. If it is, please email me individually, making sure to swallow a pinch of salt before you do.

In part two of How To Write An SEO Article, I’m going to take everything we have learned in part one and apply it to the article that needs to be written. I’ll also cover that slightly boring, but all-important, ‘techy bit’.

Using Keywords and Keyphrases

Okay, so you have your keywords either by your own intuition or from a client. Then what?

Well, the first step is to go back to step one, and remind yourself what the actual article that is going to be so helpful and informative to the reader, is all about. Then, based on this remit, write the article, and along the way, include the keywords and keyphrases among the text in as natural and logical a manner as possible.

It may be you can build the article around the keywords themselves, but the most important thing is not to over use them. It makes the article appear like an attempt at SEO article writing gone mad. Also, it won’t read well and a reader will give up before he gets half way through.

If you are struggling to find suitable places for the keywords, never force it into the text just so you can include it. If it doesn’t flow with the natural rhythm of the piece, leave it out or re-write the text. If you still find it impossible to use it elsewhere in the piece, wipe the slate clean and re-write the article from an entirely new angle.

Obviously, if you are writing to the demands of a client who has given you a difficult remit with awkward keywords, this rule may have to be bent a little, but being a creative freelance writer means being able to adapt to situations like this, so trust yourself and go with the flow.

Point of Note #1: they wouldn’t need someone to do it for them, if they could do it themselves.

Point of Note #2: remember you’re the expert, so write the article for the reader, not the algorithm.

Where possible (although this may not be part of your remit), try to include one of the keyphrases in the headline, and if possible, the sub-headline. This is a neat way of taking the pressure off the article content, while keeping the keywords at the front of the search engine algorithm results when it comes around.

Hypertext Links

Creating hypertext links that are embedded within the content of an article, is a great way of increasing general interest, as well as allowing a higher chance of search engine spiders being able to reach it.

Too many hypertext links within your text will only annoy readers, though, so creating links to every keyword is not recommended. Linking to other interesting articles or websites from other words or phrases, that may not be specific to the remit given to you, may help to build a higher percentage of user interest, as well as boost the SEO ranking of the page the article is published on.

For example, here is a section from an SEO article for the music industry I recently wrote:

“Bidding for concert tickets from an unknown Internet source, is not a good way of buying your all important seats to see Britney Spears.”

The keyphrase in this article is ‘concert tickets’ and as you can see, has been used within the article’s context. However, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that more searches are run for the phrase ‘Britney Spears’ than for ‘concert tickets,’ therefore, not only is it mentioned in the same paragraph, but there is also a hypertext link included which links to her official site.

Having both phrases, ‘concert tickets’ and ‘Britney Spears,’ alongside each other, is quite clearly a potent combination for anyone concerned who might want to run an Internet search like it; Britney fans, music fans, memorabilia collectors, ticket touts, etc.

Therefore, this sentence when published, will look like this:

“Bidding for concert tickets from an unknown Internet source, is not a good way of buying your all important seats to see Britney Spears.”

Keyword Density

Keyword density is a term often used in the context of SEO, and is often stressed as being a vital component of every SEO article writer’s armoury. The phrase came into being because keywords, which provide the foundation on which SEO copywriting is based, led many people to conclude that the more keywords included in a SEO article, the higher chance there is of that web page being ranked during a search. Scientific formulae were developed to try and prove this, and thus an industry was born.

Unfortunately, in this writer’s experience, this is almost always complete rubbish.

Generally, one will find that no matter how many times the phrase ‘Britney Spears,’ is used in an article, when published, it simply will not shoot into the top ten in Google’s search ranking.

Good keyword usage is supported not by the amount of times it is used in a web article, but by the combinations of other relevant keywords it sits beside, as in the example given earlier of ‘Britney Spears’ and ‘concert tickets.’ Each individual, but related keyword, helps narrow the search down even further.

However, even with the most advanced SEO keyword placement strategies in place, there is still one remaining factor that is vital to help support the use of keywords and keyphrases: web page construction.

Which takes me neatly onto the ‘techy bit’.

Web Page Optimisation (The ‘Techy Bit’)

As a freelance writer this section isn’t really required, but I though it wouldn’t hurt to come to a better understanding of the different ways that keywords and SEO can be applied, to increase the page rank of a website.

Within the construction of a simple HTML web page, is a section at the top called the Header. Within this section there are various meta tags, the most important of which is the Title tag, and the Meta description tag.

Search engine spiders read the meta data within a webpage, and are attracted to those sites which have keywords present early on. Search engine spiders and web browsers read HTML code from top to bottom (meta data then content), so what comes first gets read first – and is therefore output first.

It is therefore very important for good web page optimisation to occur, that an emphasis be placed on the usage of keywords in the Title tags and Meta tags, and to have the most important ones placed near the beginning.

For example, here is an extract of HTML data taken from a website that might have published the article on Britney Spears concert tickets:

<html>
<head>
<title>Britney Spears Concert Tickets</title>
<meta name="Keywords" content="Britney Spears, concert tickets, Britney on tour, gigs, stadium tour, Toxic, Oops I Did It Again”>
</head>
<body>
Bidding for <b>concert tickets</b> from an unknown Internet source, is not a good way of buying your all important seats to see <a href=”http://www.britneyspears.com”>Britney Spears</a>
…..etc.
</body>
</html>


As you can see, the most important keyphrases were used in the web page title, as well as at the front of the meta keywords line. And in the content we had the combination of keywords and keyphrases, including a logical hypertext link to what happens to be a very popular website on the Internet, for whatever reason.

And that, in a nutshell, is about all you need to know to get started writing SEO articles.

The methods I am going to talk about in this article have not been learnt in online courses, nor have they been taken from theory manuals you can download for a price on the Internet. Everything I am going to discuss has been gained from hard experience, both as a writer (over 10 years), and as an I.T. consultant (University degree and 18 years in the business).

Is Writing an SEO Article Complicated?

No. There are no magic formulas or weird science to SEO, and there’s no right or wrong way of doing things. There are guidelines, however, as you will discover in this two-part article.

SEO writing is very much a matter of common sense, and the application of some very simple points that are based on the idea of well constructed articles, and well constructed websites. Surprised? Don’t be. Just read on.

SEO writing is no more complicated than writing a standard article for a magazine, the only difference being, there are a couple of other factors to consider. But the basics are always the same, which is where I am going to kick this article off.

Get The Basics Right

Whether the article is for your own website or as part of a freelance writing contract, the most important thing to always remember when writing a Search Engine Optimised article, is to make it a GOOD article.

By good article, I mean the article must be useful to the reader. It should provide them with a benefit they can visualise, or offer something of value to them that is applicable and relevant to their lives or businesses. It should be something they can relate to easily.

There’s no point in writing a technically good SEO article, for it to be a load of nonsense to the reader. Not only will the website concerned lose a potential customer or lose out on traffic and advertising revenue, but the article will become a non-entity and be a complete waste of everyone’s time.

If the article is no good to the reader, don’t expect it to be picked up or linked to by affiliates, link marketers, or any other medium that could have provided valuable promotion or marketing – all of which would have boosted the website’s rankings.

Always remember to write for the HUMAN who will read the article at the end of the line, not the search engine algorithm that finds it. Get that right, and you are already half way there!

Components of SEO Content

An SEO article is made up of two distinct, but very important components:

1) it has to contain relevant and value added content
2) it has to be supported by good website infrastructure (the ‘techy bit’)

As I have already mentioned, SEO article content must be topically relevant, and provide value to the reader. And as with a standard article on any conceivable subject that’s possible, it has to have a new angle, a good initial hook, and and it must be imortant to the reader. Writers of articles for all kinds of publication will tell you this; it’s what you learn on day 1 at freelance article writing school.

What they might not tell you until much later, is that in an SEO article content must include certain keywords and keyphrases that are relevant to the topic, and the article context. These keywords and keyphrases must appear seamlessly in the article, and not disrupt the natural flow of the piece; they should ehnance it and be inconspicuous at the same time.

I’ll cover the ‘techy bit’ in the part 2 of this article.

Keywords and Keyphrases

There’s no science to figuring out what keywords to use within the content of your article, so that they show up in search engine results. Forget about AdWords, keyword software, scientific algebrae, and costly training courses. In my opinion these are expensive sledgehammers being wielded to crack a nut,and in my experience, are only designed by people hoping to make a quick buck by taking advantage of what writers don’t know.

Here’s what to do. Sit down with a notepad and pen, and write down all the words and phrases that could possibly relate to the subject/business interest you are writing about. Almost all of these will (or should) be getting used in the meta data of the web page, but this will probably not be of your concern anyway (this is also covered in the ‘techy bit’ in part 2).

Some of the keywords you write down, can be used within the SEO article.

For instance, I recently wrote an article for a website that is in the business of superior tourist accomodation in the Scottish Borders – a bed and breakfast. The keywords and phrases I came up with were: “bed and breakfast”, “hotel”, “guest house”, “Scotland,” “Borders”, “tourism”, “accomodation”, “Scottish Tourist Industry”, etc.

However, in most cases, especially if you have been hired to write an SEO article for a third party, it is more likely you will be given certain keywords to use within an article in advance. This is fine – they’ve done the brain storming for you – but however they came up with the words and phrases, it’s your job to write a quality article that has them embedded in the text.

It’s not difficult, as you will see in part 2 of this article next week, when I look at applying the keywords and keyphrases, utilising hypertext links in text, keyword density, and web page optimisation (the ‘techy bit’).

I realize that this is part of the “like, know, and trust” process that enables people to get to know each other, but sometimes it’s simply too much information..LOL. I primarily use Twitter for business marketing. Consequently, I try and limit my personal twitters to no more than 2 per day. My clients, who create accounts on Twitter for business marketing, as well, tell me, “I’m signed up. Now what in the world do I Twitter about? How do I market my business with this tool?”

Here are 10 strategies that I use regularly to marketing my business and my expertise via Twitter. Remember, you have only 140 characters for your tweet (Twitter post).

1. How you’re helping clients. Talk about specific ways that your business helps clients and use their Twitter ID if you have their permission, i.e. “Just finished @clientname brainstorm great Internet marketing plan for 2009″ or “Finally finished setting up Quickbooks for local hardware store – now they can invoice their clients”. This can attract others to become your followers on Twitter.

2. What you’re doing in your own business. This is a perfect time to tell your followers on Twitter when you’re blogging, writing an article, creating your weekly ezine, recording your podcast, i.e. “Had great interview with Jane Smith today on speaking to grow your biz. Great ideas! Subscribe to podcast & listen here “

3. Useful tool or resource you’ve found. I run across these all the time in my daily activities, and your followers on Twitter will appreciate you for sharing, i.e. “Found great new Firefox plug-in to monitor & check multiple Gmail accounts at same time at ” or “Read great blog post on working at home with kids under 5 at (URL here)”

4. Ask a question. Need some ideas or some quick brainstorming? Your followers on Twitter might have opinions on what you are looking for, i.e. “Help! Desperately seeking new laser printer. Recommendations?” or “How do I find training organizations online?”

5. Conduct a survey. What do your followers on Twitter think about a particular issue? Ask them via Twitter, i.e. “Quick poll: Do you get more clients from Facebook or Twitter? Respond at (URL here)”

6. Report on live events. The latest Twitter trend seems to be tweeting what’s happening at conferences or workshops. In order for Twitter users to follow a particular event, it’s usually referred to by a name preceded by a # sign, as in #JVAlert, for example, to make it simpler for people who want to follow those posts. So, if you were at an event, you might tweet “#JVAlert John Smith speaking on affiliate programs. Just got a great idea on training affiliate managers!” Just don’t get so wrapped up in tweeting that you ignore the content delivered in the conference!

7. Product or service launch. If you’re about to launch a new product or introduce a new product, let your Twitter followers know, i.e. “Pre-launch pricing for new DVD set about how baby boomers can start an online biz. Get $100 early bird discount at (URL here)”

8. Responding to others with advice or answers. The way to build professional relationships with your followers on Twitter is to help them. So, if a Twitter follower asks a question, comments about something to which you have a response or an idea, or you want to ask a follow up question, this is the perfect place to do so.

9. Acknowledging new followers on Twitter. I’ve noticed a recent trend of acknowledging people who’ve decided to follow a Twitter user in the past day or so. I initially thought that others were doing this as a measure of popularity, but what I’ve come to realize that it’s actually helping out the new followers because it exposes their Twitter profiles to others who may have never heard of them and who might like to follow them. So, to thank your followers on Twitter, you’d tweet, “Welcome new followers @twittername, @twittername, etc.”

10. Automate your tweets. Many of my tweets have been automated and connected to other things I do. TwitterFeed turns all of my blog posts into tweets. aWeber turns each ezine issue into a tweet. EzineArticles.com lets my followers on Twitter know every time I publish an article through their service. Typically all that’s involved here is connecting the particular service to my Twitter account. Once all the services are connected, I get free and automated Twitter posts with no additional effort on my part.

Twitter can be a great time-waster or a wonderful way to market your business and leverage your expertise online. Follow these 10 strategies and you’ll begin to attract and get more followers and get more clients through social networking.

In this article, I will outline how a planned internet marketing approach by using Facebook for business can lead to positive results for you and your business. I will begin the article by addressing a few common misperceptions about Facebook that I hear most frequently from my clients. Next, I will detail how to use and set up the various sections of a Facebook account, including creating a Facebook page for business. I will conclude with several recommended Facebook applications that will add functionality to your Facebook page for business.

Common misperception #1: Facebook is only for personal use

Each time I give presentations on using social networking for business there is the perception in the audience that Facebook is only useful for communicating with friends and family. Facebook started as a closed community for college students, and has not been as effective as Linkedin at highlighting the business page and advertising features. However, Facebook for business continues to grow in use by companies looking to reach the more than 200 million active users, and has very powerful and targeted demographic tools that help companies to hone in on their target market.

Common misperception #2: Facebook is only for college students

According to the Facebook Press Room page, there are more than 200 million active users on Facebook and a million new members are joining each week in the U.S. alone. Contrary to what many of my audiences believe, more than two-thirds of Facebook users are not in college. According to comscore.com, more than 50% of Facebook’s users in the U.S. are over 35; the single biggest age demographic in the U.S. on Facebook is now between 35 and 44, and Facebook’s fastest growing age group is 55 and older. They also reported that Facebook ranks as one of the top social networking sites in the majority of European countries. Many individuals and companies are already using Facebook for business.

Common misperception #3: I am too busy for this, and besides, it is not worth my time

Some of the reasons why social networking sites like Facebook are increasingly being used by companies is because they provide businesses the opportunity to easily and efficiently communicate regularly with the people in their network. Networks can include people with whom they are currently doing business, people whom they would like to do business, vendors, and potential business partners.

Social networking sites like Facebook are serving as an adjunct to, and in some cases, replacement for, traditional means of communication such as newsletters and direct mail. Facebook for business can be used to regularly announce or get feedback on new products, spotlight new employees or existing employees accomplishments or talents, reward customer loyalty, promote special events and special offers, as well as to create partnerships. According to a Forrester Research interactive marketing online research survey (March 2009): “40% of companies surveyed expect to cut direct mail budgets, while 35% will decrease newspaper spend, and 28% will slash magazine money in order to spend more in interactive media.” Some companies have reported that by using these online means of communication such as Facebook for business, they have reduced their marketing budget while at the same time increasing sales.

Why Social Networking works:

What companies that use Facebook for business are finding is that it allows them to more regularly communicate with people, vendors, clients, colleagues, and prospects, which, in turn, helps business understand their customers’ needs better, increase trust, and therefore build better business relationships. Most people know that Facebook has been helpful as a tool for connecting or re-connecting with friends, family and co-workers. And most understand that even the personal connections have the potential to become new business opportunities, so it makes sense that using Facebook for business increases the marketing scope.

How to Set Up a Facebook Profile:

To make use of Facebook for business, you need to set up an account. After registering you need to do the following in order of importance:

1. Create a Profile

In order to begin to use Facebook for business, you must create a profile detailing information about yourself. Based on site policies, you can create only 1 profile, and it must be tied to a human name, preferably your real name, not a business name. We will review creating a Facebook page for business later in this article, but first you must set up your personal profile. If you are a married female, use your maiden and married names so more people can find you. Facebook has a “Friend Finder” feature that allows users to search for people by school, company, or organization. In order for people to find you through Facebook search, you must so be sure to list all of your previous schools, organizations, employers, in your profile. Thoroughly complete the “About Me” section to describe your business and what services or products you offer. In the “Information” box on your profile page, you need to include links to your website address, newsletter, blog and other business information such as your company contact information, logo and a photo of yourself. Your profile page should be considered your “branding” page or your Facebook marketing campaign. If you are working for a company, you don’t have to list all your personal interests – just limit your entry to listing your professional interests. After all, you are using Facebook for business. You can syndicate your blog on your profile page. By doing this you are enabling any post that you make to automatically appear on your profile page and all of those people who are connected to you will see it.

2. Build Your Contact List

Facebook was created based on the concept of connecting with friends. You can send and receive “friend requests” and once accepted, your friend can view your profile and you can view theirs. To begin connecting with people that you know, you can either import your address book/contact database, or you can also use Facebook search to look for for individual people.

You can also view the friends list of each person with whom you are connected. If you know any of your new friend’s connections, or you would like to know them, you can send a connection request. To maximize your Facebook for business, you should grown your contact list. You can grow your friend list by inviting all your clients, business associates, customers, family, friends, co-workers, school alumni, neighbors, and anyone else you think would be interested in connecting. I would suggest also using Facebook search to look up people with whom you have lost contact. After befriending, your profile will show up on all your friends’ pages. Therefore, the more friends you have, the more pages your profile will appear, leading to more people who will see your page and possibly get in touch with you.

3. Communicate by using Wall Posts

Each Facebook member has a “wall” where friends can post messages. In the business networking world, this is the online equivalent of calling them on the phone. As part of using Facebook for business, you can send a complement to a colleague on their work by writing this on their wall, comment on their new service or product offering, or communicate an upcoming training or networking opportunity.

4. Update Your Status

At the top of your Facebook page is a status box. When you post a status update, everyone in your friends list can see your update on their home page. In using Facebook for business, the status is the place to share tips, promote events, post blog updates, announce new products, links to your affiliate programs, links to interesting video or audio presentations, websites, articles, and newsletters. You can add updates as often as you are able in the ” What’s on your mind?” box. These will appear on all of your friends’ pages so ensure that they are meant for everyone on your friend list, and are professional in nature. Otherwise, you risk people removing you from their list.

5. Participate in Groups

Online groups allow you to network virtually with potential clients and peers. You can also join Groups on Facebook that are related to your work. There are groups for therapist, teachers, coaches, and every conceivable profession. You can network, and learn from experts in the field. Another way to maximize the potential and relevance of these groups in using Facebook for business is to start one of your own. There is no cost to do this and this is a great way to use Facebook for business. For example, I started a group for mental health facility administrators in Boston. This group is now a resource for sharing best practices and may over time lead to mutual referral relationships. To access groups, start from your Facebook home page, view the list of applications and click on “Groups.” You can browse through thousands of groups by area of interest, by industry and geography. There are an incredibly varied selection of topics and professions all over the map.

6. Build Your Friends List

When using Facebook for business, it makes sense to have as many friends as possible. One way to do this is to join a group and send connection requests to fellow members with a note letting them know of your interest in connecting with them on Facebook. Just as you would with an in-person business introduction, be sure to check out their profile and learn about what they are currently doing. Networking always works best when there is a two-way exchange. Find ways you can be helpful to them such as introducing them to a colleague or potential business partner and they may likely reciprocate and return the favor. Also, create your own events page, or post on the Facebook “Events page.” You can even see how many RSVP and get feedback from attendees.

7. Create Fan Pages

Because Facebook requires that a profile be designated to a person, not a business, they have instead provided the ability to create fan pages. You can create a Facebook fan page for a business, book, product, author, speaker, celebrity or just about anything else you want. To create a Facebook fan page, scroll all the way down to the bottom of Facebook and click on “Advertising” (don’t worry, this is free to set-up). Next, click on “Pages” at the top of the screen. You will find some helpful explanations about how pages work, along with the link that will allow you to create your own fan page. Once your page is created you can add links, events, discussion boards and other features that make them interactive. Your fan page is a great way to use Facebook for business. Your updates from your Facebook fan page will appear on your profile so your friends will know about them. You can invite people to become a “fan” of your page as an alternative to sending friend requests which will help you to further cultivate an online community.

8. Use the Marketplace

You can use Facebook for business by accessing the online marketplace. It allows you to list your services and products at no cost. This is a great way for you or your company to get exposure. You can also use the marketplace to find items or services that you need.

How To Make a Facebook Page for Business

Setting up Facebook for business page is easy. Just proceed with your Facebook login and then scroll down to the bottom of the screen. Then click on “Advertising” or by following this link: http://www.facebook.com/business. That will bring up a page with the blue links one of which is called “Pages.” Click on Pages, and then click on the green “Create a Page” box on the right of the screen. You can now start filling this information in to create and customize your Facebook for business page.

After you create your business page, Facebook will automatically add an application called the “Page Manager” which should be located on the top and left side of your log. Again choose Facebook Pages, and then choose the best category for your business. Click this link to load your Facebook business page where you can then edit and add to the existing content.

It is important that you choose the name of your Facebook business page carefully because the page name will become your key word search terms, and is the only text that is used in a Facebook search on a page. Once your Facebook for business page is in place, you can add applications that help to enhance how you represent your company in your own unique way. To find Facebook applications, click on “Applications” in the upper left corner of your page, or search for them at this link: http://www.facebook.com/apps. Facebook applications are fairly easy to install and to set up. If you have difficulty with any one application, please note that there is often more than one application available to accomplish the same task.

Facebook Applications for Business

Simply RSS: This allows you to display up to eight RSS feeds on your Facebook page for business and display the feeds from your business’s main site and newsrooms.

Upcoming: Add all of your events to upcoming.org, and you can easily display them on your Facebook business profile page with Upcoming’s Facebook application.

My Flickr: Display photos from your Flickr account using this application. These photos can include logos, product photos, photos from events, etc. to add more identity on your Facebook for business.

Posted Items Pro: Optimize your Facebook for business with this app that allows you to embed multiple YouTube, Yahoo, and Google Videos, music mp3s, sites, files, and more onto your profile and Facebook pages. You can add any variety of these elements, making it great for a media center or press section.

Twitter APP: If you have a Twitter account, this application will automatically pull your tweets into your Facebook status, and it automatically installs a Twitter-themed icon letting all you friends on Facebook know that you are on Twitter. It also saves you time in updating and ensures that you have some profile activity to keep you relevant. If you are not on Twitter yet, you can add this at any time to complement Facebook and business that you are promoting.

By implementing these Facebook applications you will be creating an interactive page that gives visitors a more complete understanding of your business.

Make the Time to Stay Relevant

In order to stay relevant on Facebook, you need to continually update your Page and use the site. If you do not have the time needed to do this consistently, then I would suggest you hire a copywriter or social media consultant to help. The more actions you take to use Facebook for business, the more you appear in a fan’s News Feed. This keeps you in their mind, and in their friend’s feeds when they interact with you. But updating content will do more than keep you on the News Feed; it will also help make your Facebook Page one that people will return to by offering fans an incentive to continue to read your content and return to your page. There are many ways to do this such as providing exclusive content, special promotional pricing, exclusive contests, product previews, or privileged access to company events.

I hope this information has been helpful to you in getting started in using Facebook for business. Make no mistake about it; social networking is not a passing fad. Facebook and other social networking sites are here to stay. So regardless of whether you make use of all the social networks, you cannot discount the recent research indicating that customers are increasingly going online to gather company and product information, compare prices, and place orders. As with any new technology, social networking will take time and effort for businesses to fully benefit from it; however, it is my belief that this time and effort, if done consistently and in a planned, thoughtful manner, will be time well spent. Facebook and business can indeed work together.

Facebook:
In the last few years businesses have woken up to the advantages of using Facebook to interact with their customers and contributing to an online community to increase brand awareness, without overtly broadcasting promotional advertising. The first step obviously is to create a Facebook Fan Page in order to connect with communities, clients and potential customers. To do this the page needs to be socially active and offer enough to recruit new fans. This can be done by constantly creating fresh content, posting updates and promotions as well as new photos and by hosting events online. Add links to your business blog on your Facebook page, accept all friends requests and reach out yourself to everyone you know from friends, family, acquaintances and people you meet at business events.

LinkedIn:
For businesses, Linkedin can be an even more powerful tool than Facebook, particularly when it comes to networking. If you take the time to set up a strong profile as well as getting involved in groups relevant to your business and build a good reputation from your community, you will soon begin to increase the range of your influence and advertise your expertise. To do this effectively you need to keep reinforcing current connections and building new connections. You can reinforce your current connections by writing recommendations for other people you have worked for and with, as well as requesting recommendations from clients and people you have worked with. You can build new connections by both contacting other clients and businesses and by participating in forums and discussion groups. Display your expertise, be helpful and people will start coming to you for advice.

Twitter:
Though still finding its legs for business purposes, Twitter is already proving to be a powerful brand management tool and useful for generating leads. Once you have established your presence on your website, Facebook and Linkedin and have determined your potential clients and market audience, you can then seek out people in that market using tools such as Twello, a kind of Twitter yellow pages. Once you have found this audience it is easy to follow their tweets and to get them to follow you. This in turn will open you up to all their contacts too, provided the tweets that you put out for your business are interesting, respectful, honest and don’t try to force your company or product down people’s throats. Better instead to provide general and insightful news about your industry that they might be interested in and that might then lead them to look at you as an authority on your chosen profession.

These are all basic steps to get your business out there in the world of social marketing. Once you have mastered these there is much more that you can do, but even just these basics will improve the reach and reputation of your company greatly.

The problem with good keywords is that they are usually not words at all. Good SEO keywords are usually phrases, that is, two or more words strung together in a saying or idea. When you enter keywords into your meta keywords section, don’t use words, use phrases.

Why? I’ll give you two reasons.

1. There are too many single keywords

While you can use single-word keywords, you will be vying for position with the millions of other websites that also use the same keyword.

Let’s say, for example, you are writing a post about how to prepare a manuscript for ebook publishing. While you could use the keyword “ebook,” you will be up against the millions of other blog posts about ebooks, even if they are about ebook readers, ebook sales, or ebook marketing.

By lengthening your keyword into a keyword phrase, such as “ebook publishing,” or maybe even “prepare manuscript for ebook publishing,” you significantly narrow the field of competitive websites, which allows your page to rise higher in Google Search results for that phrase.

Reason 2. Nobody searches for single keywords

When was the last time you searched for something on Google using only one word? That’s right: never.

If you are searching for ebook publishing tips, you don’t search for “ebook” or for “publishing.” Both are too broad. Instead, you search for the complete phrase, “ebook publishing tips.” If that is how you search for relevant sites, then that is also how you should write and prepare your own pages and posts so others can find your sites.

Boost relevance using Google Insights for Search

One helpful site I use to search for relevant keyword phrases to use in my blog posts is Google Insights for Search.

At the top of the page, you enter the single keyword or keyword phrase that you’d like to write a post about. You can choose options including a geographical area of the world you want to focus on, or which timeframe you are interested in, and then hit Search.

Google Insights

Here is a brief video from Google about what Google Insights can do.

Let’s look a little deeper into how you can use Google Insights for Search to write blog posts around a central keyword or phrase. Let us say, for example, you wanted to write a post on the “top blogs.” If you entered “top blogs” as a search term, and did not change anything else, you would discover that since 2004, the interest in searches related to “top blogs” has been steadily increasing.

This is good news! You have hit on a rising trend which might make a good blog post or, better yet, blog series.

Interest over time

But Google Insights also provides you with a list of related keywords and key phrases that people have been searching for on Google, as well as keyword trends:

Top searches

The phrase you originally searched for, “top blogs,” does not appear to be the best choice of keywords. Better and more popular phrases appear on the left, with breakout trends on the right. As indicated, the word “breakout” means that over the timespan chosen, this keyword has trended by 5000% or more.

Choose a few of the phrases or words that are most popular or are trending upward, and write your post focusing on those terms. As the picture below shows, you might be better off focusing on terms like “top blog,” “the top blogs,” “best blogs 2010,” or “best design blogs.”

However—and this is crucial—this search, while helpful, does not show recent trending. Remember, it is using the default search criteria, which go all the way back to 2004. You want more recent trends to understand current searches. So one thing you could do is adjust the timeframe filter, maybe to just the last 12 months, as shown in the picture below:

Reseraching “best blogs”

By adjusting the timeframe filter, you can get a bitter picture of what people are searching for more recently. As the following image shows, not much has changed except the top search phrase on the right. People want to know what the best blogs of 2011 were. Maybe you could write a blog post on that instead of the more generic idea of “best blogs.”

Refining the keyphrase

Let me give one final example.

Let’s say you are launching a blog about men’s health. Naturally, you want lots of visitors as soon as possible. So what sorts of posts would be best to start with? Let Google Insights for Search tell you. You would begin by leaving the keyword search field blank, and then change the filters to reflect a recent timeframe and the “Men’s Health” category.

Google Insights on “Men’s health”

By doing this, you discover the most popular and upward trending search phrases on Google.

Men’s Health top search results

It would appear that if you were launching a blog post on men’s health, you would be wise to do a series on vasectomies, androgen insensitivity, circumcision, and uncircumcision.

Hmm, I wonder why those search terms are popular? I’ll let you research that on your own … but not on your work computer—your boss may not understand!

Using Google Insights for Search to help select better keyword phrases will not automatically rocket your website to the top of Google Search results, but such a practice will help you write more targeted and focused articles, which over time will provide you with more readers.

Have you used Google Insights for Search yet? Share your experience in the comments below.

Jeremy Myers writes at www.tillhecomes.org. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

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