Not that long ago, the general view of watching videos on websites was that they were too sales-orientated and in some cases, that they were simply annoying (especially if you chose to view one in an open plan office!). However, this view has changed significantly over the years to the point that people will choose to click on a video link often before they choose to read the text content. In part, this is due to the relevance of those videos which are now less likely to be sales-oriented and are more likely to be information-oriented. In other words, videos now play a much greater role in conveying useful information to website visitors. Here are four reasons why you should add videos to your website.

YouTube

YouTube is now the second largest search engine in the world after Google. It seems hard to believe, but people are searching for videos more than they are using Bing or Yahoo. This means that YouTube could offer you a significant source of new website visitors who are either made aware of your business via your YouTube videos, or they click from YouTube to your website directly.

Cost

Another great development in online videos is that in many cases, they do not need to be professionally filmed. In fact, having a video that is ‘too slick’ could discourage some viewers from watching as they may feel they are watching a polished video advert rather than a useful, information-rich and ‘homemade’ video. In this case, you simply need a video recorder and the right backdrop for your videos and everything else is free.

Put a human face on your business

The old adage that ‘people buy from people’ remains true. For many businesses, having a human face and personality that is visible on their website can help their visitors feel comfortable that they are an organization to do business with. Don’t be afraid to show your personality in your videos (without, of course, overstepping the mark) so people can start to build a relationship with you even before you have met or spoken to them.

Search Engine Optimization

As mentioned earlier, You Tube is the number 2 search engine, that happens to be owned by the number 1 search engine: Google. With Google owning the number 1 and 2 search engines, it will be keen to leverage the benefit of each. This means Google is starting to increase the number of YouTube video in its organic listings. Whilst your website might rank well in Google for several keywords, you may find that your YouTube videos could also rank well for additional keywords which in turn can help boost your website traffic.

There’s no question about it; video marketing works. The use of video in online marketing is on the rise, and for good reason, that is where the people are. A recent study showed that videos were 50 times more likely to receive an organic first page ranking than standard text submissions. Online video is the fastest growing medium in history. 52% of people took action as a result of watching video online. 77% of Americans who use the internet watched an online video last month.

1. Make Your Video Public. This obviously basic step allows your video to be searchable and is a step often missed.

2. Choose the appropriate category and tags for your video and use the description box to actually describe the video. Stuffing this area full of keywords may seem like a good idea, but trying to trick Google is risky.

3. Create at least one call to action including a link to your website. Activate your viewers by giving them the next step to learn more about your offer or the topic.

4. Publish transcripts on the same page as the video because it provides search engines with information and it provides users useful information. Search engines don’t index video content very well.

5. Use tools other than YouTube. There are things you can do on other services that you can’t do on YouTube.

6. Include unique URLs in the Video Description. The URL could be for a landing page, or even your homepage. The objective is to minimize obstacles which might prevent leads from being driven back to your website. In B2B marketing, generating leads is typically an important content objective. Links back to your site facilitate this lead generation process while simultaneously improving various page-ranking metrics with search engines.

7. In video, less is more. Your video needs to end, and it should probably end sooner than you think. Break your video content up into shorter sections, 2.5 minutes or less, if needed. Keep in mind, people have short attention spans and it is unlikely they’ll sit through 10 minutes of video.

8. Use a sitemap to facilitate search. An XML Sitemap is a structured format that a user doesn’t need to see, but it tells the search engine about the pages in your site, their relative importance to each other, and how often they are updated. HTML sitemaps are designed for the user to help them find content on the page, and don’t need to include each and every subpage. This helps visitors and search engine bots find pages on the site. Besides video sitemaps, there are video microformats. Facebook and Yahoo (SearchMonkey). It makes content more easily discoverable. Microformats and structured data are becoming more common for supplying/formatting content to search engines.

9. Creating interesting and engaging video content isn’t about featuring the smartest person in the company, it is about tone and manner. When selecting the talent to appear on-screen, consider who would be the best at presenting content and explaining things clearly and in a compelling way.

10. Remember branding. Besides blogs, YouTube and your own website, video can be embedded and shared almost anywhere. As you plan and produce your video, be sure to incorporate your brand identity and key messaging into the video content. Create a clear and consistent brand message that shines through regardless of the video platform you use. You can also watermark the video with your brand and website address, or you can go a step further and include intro and exit segments that ensure branding is clearly delivered alongside your website URL and other key messaging.

Blogs and blog posts are naturally search engine friendly because they are text-rich, link-rich, frequently-updated webpages that use stylesheets or CSS, and have very little extraneous HTML.

Optimizing a blog is very similar to optimizing a website, and optimizing a blog post similar to optimizing a web page. But depending on the blogging service or software you use, the results may look somewhat different.

If you follow some simple rules for search engine optimization, your blog can rank much higher than static website pages in the search engine results pages.

Here are the most important rules to follow to get your posts listed for keywords of your choice.

1. Use your primary keyword in your blog domain

Whether you purchase a separate domain (recommended) for your blog, or host it on a blogging service or a subdomain of your own site, try to ensure that your URL contains the primary keyword you want to optimize for.

For example, if you want your blog to get found for the keyword “RSS” get a domain with the keyword “RSS”, or use the keyword in a subdomain. Getting a domain name with your own name might make for good branding, especially if yours is a personal blog.

But if you’re doing it for business and want the targeted traffic to flow your way, keywords in the domain or subdomain are a move in the right direction.

2. Use your primary key phrase in your blog header tags and the title of your posts

If your primary key phrase is “business blogging” make sure that the word business, or blogging, or both, appear in your blog headers (the H1 or H2 tags) as well as the title of each of your posts.

Most blogging software will take the keywords in your post title and put them into the file name of the permalink posts it creates.

For example, if you have a blog on Blogger and title your post “Search Engine Optimization For Blogs”, Blogger will automatically create a page with your post and name the file “search-engine-optimization-for-blogs.html” or something similar.

With other server-side software like WordPress and Movable Type, you may require the mod_rewrite command to save the title of your entries as a permalink.

3. Use your secondary keywords in the body of your post

If you want to get listed for secondary keywords use them infrequently in the body of your post and pepper your blog titles or links with them appropriately. Don’t overdo this or your posts will end up sounding unnatural and spammy to readers.

4. Use your keywords in the anchor text of links

Keyword in links have more importance than simple text. Use your primary and secondary keywords in the anchor text of links when linking to other blog posts or to other pages on your main site.

Link keywords where they naturally appear in the body text, but again, don’t overdo it, or you’ll end up with spammy looking pages.

5. Make sure search engines can spider your blog easily

Set up your blog so that the side navigation bar is present on all pages. Make sure your archives and previous posts are accessible from all pages of your blog so they get spidered easily.

6. Get backlinks from other blogs or websites

Links pointing to your blog or posts are essential to build pagerank and make your blog rank higher in the search engine listings. I recommend that you focus your linking efforts on the methods here.

Submitting to Blog Search Engines and Directories:

Submitting your blog and RSS feed to blog search engines and directories is essential for getting high-quality links back to your blog.

Link Exchanges:

Many similarly-themed blogs are often willing to exchange links with other blogs and form richly interlinked networks or communities. Link exchanges with other blogs are easy to implement with most blogging software.

Trackbacks:

You can also get links back to your blog using trackbacks. One of the disadvantages of using Blogger is that it does not automatically create trackback URLs that others can use to link back to your posts.

But if trackbacks are an important component of your linking strategy, I would advise using another software or system that adds this feature automatically.

Comments:

You can also get back links to your blog by posting legitimate comments in response to posts on other blogs.

7. Update frequently

There’s no better food for search engine spiders than fresh content.

Post and update your blog frequently using all the rules outlined above and there’s no reason why your blog will not get you top rankings in a short period of time.

8. Stay put

Once you create your blog, try to stick to the same domain and blog host or system for as long as you continue to publish.

You could end up losing a lot of your traffic, your readers and all your search engine listings if you decide to move.

Let’s say you are writing a web site to sell beach homes on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada.

You look for some good keywords and come up with ‘Vancouver Island waterfront property’. So you use that term in your title, headline and here and there in the text.

So far, so good. The phrase will help you with your rankings. And the use of the phrase on the first screen of your home page will let your visitors know they are in the right place.

But for writers who focus too intently on keywords and phrases, there is a danger.

A danger in optimizing your pages for good keywords? Yes, I think so.

There is a significant difference between the keywords that pop into visitors’ minds, and the hopes and ambitions they carry in their hearts.

Let’s look at the real estate example again.

As a potential buyer I might type the phrase ‘Vancouver Island waterfront property’ into the Google search box, because that’s what I’m looking for. But that term doesn’t reflect what I’m feeling.

Having a home on the coast may have been a lifelong dream. It may be something I feel very strongly about. So when I come to your site, I am looking for two things.

- First, the rational part of my mind is looking for confirmation that your site can help me find what I want. And this is where the use of keywords and phrases makes perfect sense.

- Second, there is a strong, emotional element at play. As a potential buyer, I am looking for someone who can help me fulfill my dream. And this is where a writer who focuses too intently on keywords and phrases can end up with poorly performing copy.

By all means, optimize your pages for Google and for the rational part of a searcher’s mind. But be sure to understand and address the emotional needs of the visitor as well.

That means using keywords as the starting point. Beyond the keywords, you need to use language that addresses the deeper needs of the reader.

Yes, understand what Google wants. And understand what your visitor is looking for. But if you want results, you also need to understand and address what the visitor is feeling and hoping for.

Search Engine Optimization, optimizing your website for it to be visible in the search results of a search engine’s query or in a search result of a directory.

Basically, SEO is a marketing strategy for your site. To be included in the top ten search results of an impressive search engine/directory guarantees a return of investment. Search Engine Optimization can be viewed as a new form of publicity for a website which secures definite visitors and targeted traffic for your site.

There are various Search Engines in the net today. The top rated search engine is Google. It is a prestige and good practice of SEO to be included in the top ten list search result of Google.

Google and other search engines use a crawler to search for the site most relevant to a certain category or field. Google’s crawler is called a spider. It is a bot designed to crawl websites for keywords and site linkings. It has developed their Googlebot to be pretty efficient and fast.

Directory and Search Engines

Directory and Search Engines are two different entities. But to the average user, the look and feel is the same. But for a website owner interested in optimizing their website, it is important to distinguish between the two.

Whereas the search engine uses bots to crawl websites, Directories are searchable databases of websites that are categorized, reviewed and ranked by humans.

Yahoo is the most popular Directory listing on the web. Another important directory is the ODP or Open Directory Project. One emerging Search Engine is the MSN Search, you can watch out for its launching soon.

Once, website submission was a good way for your site to be visible on a search results rank of a directory. But website submissions for some directory listings may require fees and does not even guarantee a high ranking in the search results. It may take them long to approve the submission and the visibility of the site in the search ranking will still be dependent upon the keywords and site links. A good marketing practice for your site is just to optimize it. Optimizing your site may require extensive research on relevant keywords to be used in your site, optimizing the content, and A site can be optimized for search engine/directory listing through many ways. It can be with the use of keywords in the title and description fields of your Meta tag and through site linking. A search engine’s crawler uses these leads generated by a user’s query to look for the most pertinent site related to the query. So a good practice of SEO is to custom tailor your sites’s content and reflect this on the keywords visible on your site. SEO is not only dependent on the keywords your site has. The freshness of the contents also counts. It is advisable from time to time to change the look and feel of your site.

Blogs and blog posts are naturally search engine friendly because they are text-rich, link-rich, frequently-updated webpages that use stylesheets or CSS, and have very little extraneous HTML.

Optimizing a blog is very similar to optimizing a website, and optimizing a blog post similar to optimizing a web page. But depending on the blogging service or software you use, the results may look somewhat different.

If you follow some simple rules for search engine optimization, your blog can rank much higher than static website pages in the search engine results pages.

Here are the most important rules to follow to get your posts listed for keywords of your choice.

1. Use your primary keyword in your blog domain

Whether you purchase a separate domain (recommended) for your blog, or host it on a blogging service or a subdomain of your own site, try to ensure that your URL contains the primary keyword you want to optimize for.

For example, if you want your blog to get found for the keyword “RSS” get a domain with the keyword “RSS”, or use the keyword in a subdomain. Getting a domain name with your own name might make for good branding, especially if yours is a personal blog.

But if you’re doing it for business and want the targeted traffic to flow your way, keywords in the domain or subdomain are a move in the right direction.

2. Use your primary key phrase in your blog header tags and the title of your posts

If your primary key phrase is “business blogging” make sure that the word business, or blogging, or both, appear in your blog headers (the H1 or H2 tags) as well as the title of each of your posts.

Most blogging software will take the keywords in your post title and put them into the file name of the permalink posts it creates.

For example, if you have a blog on Blogger and title your post “Search Engine Optimization For Blogs”, Blogger will automatically create a page with your post and name the file “search-engine-optimization-for-blogs.html” or something similar.

With other server-side software like WordPress and Movable Type, you may require the mod_rewrite command to save the title of your entries as a permalink.

3. Use your secondary keywords in the body of your post

If you want to get listed for secondary keywords use them infrequently in the body of your post and pepper your blog titles or links with them appropriately. Don’t overdo this or your posts will end up sounding unnatural and spammy to readers.

4. Use your keywords in the anchor text of links

Keyword in links have more importance than simple text. Use your primary and secondary keywords in the anchor text of links when linking to other blog posts or to other pages on your main site.

Link keywords where they naturally appear in the body text, but again, don’t overdo it, or you’ll end up with spammy looking pages.

5. Make sure search engines can spider your blog easily

Set up your blog so that the side navigation bar is present on all pages. Make sure your archives and previous posts are accessible from all pages of your blog so they get spidered easily.

6. Get backlinks from other blogs or websites

Links pointing to your blog or posts are essential to build pagerank and make your blog rank higher in the search engine listings. I recommend that you focus your linking efforts on the methods here.

Submitting to Blog Search Engines and Directories:

Submitting your blog and RSS feed to blog search engines and directories is essential for getting high-quality links back to your blog.

Link Exchanges:

Many similarly-themed blogs are often willing to exchange links with other blogs and form richly interlinked networks or communities. Link exchanges with other blogs are easy to implement with most blogging software.

Trackbacks:

You can also get links back to your blog using trackbacks. One of the disadvantages of using Blogger is that it does not automatically create trackback URLs that others can use to link back to your posts.

But if trackbacks are an important component of your linking strategy, I would advise using another software or system that adds this feature automatically.

Comments:

You can also get back links to your blog by posting legitimate comments in response to posts on other blogs.

7. Update frequently

There’s no better food for search engine spiders than fresh content.

Post and update your blog frequently using all the rules outlined above and there’s no reason why your blog will not get you top rankings in a short period of time.

8. Stay put

Once you create your blog, try to stick to the same domain and blog host or system for as long as you continue to publish.

You could end up losing a lot of your traffic, your readers and all your search engine listings if you decide to move.

Two list members then (who claim to be SEO’s) quoted Jill Whalen’s above comment suggesting they believe that keyword meta tags still have an effect on ranking. Can keyword meta tags possibly still matter? Title tags still matter – critically, description tags may, sometimes matter … a little, but keyword meta tags? Uh-uh.

It’s long past time to stop wasting energy on that tag and I hope those two SEO’s who both claimed they found meta tags useful will spend their energies elsewhere in the future. It’s old news that keyword tags are worthless.

I wrote an article in 1999 or 2000 titled “Keyword Meta Tags Search Phrase Tutorial” listing the top 8 ingredients to ranking well in the search engines.

I went back today to review it and found that remarkably few things have changed. So I massaged and edited a few things, added a small type disclaimer and linked to some online tools from that page, including a “Search engine simulator tool” and an “HTML source code viewer” and a also linked to a previous article I’d written in 2002 called “SEO Keyword Voodoo: Invisible Meta Tag Mumbo Jumbo” because, as you might guess from the title, I am 100% with Jill Whalen on the futility of mucking around with keyword meta tags.

Keyword Meta tags went south in about 1998-99 or so when webmasters began keyword stuffing and the search engines stopped paying attention to them. They are not used, nor are they trusted at all by any search engines. If they are not purposely abused, they are completely misunderstood by webmasters still. Don’t waste your time fussing with them or tweaking them. They’re an old and badly abused element of HTML code that no longer does a thing for ranking.

To further prove my point, I’ve created a Rollyo search tool, available from a link in my resource box below, which allows you to search only the top 25 SEO bloggers and the Official Search Engine Blogs for the search phrase “keyword meta tags.”

At the time of this writing, only 9 results came back on that search. Nine. Keyword meta tags are no longer being discussed by anyone, let alone being used in SEO. After visiting each of the nine search results from that searchroll, I discovered that most of those results are either derisive comments about “keyword meta tags” from the SEO blogger or are derisive comments left by visitors about the folly of meta tag massaging!

My favorite blog post from among the results of that SearchRoll are from Aaron Wall of SEObook when he said,

“… an old client wants me to rewrite their meta tags. A total waste of time, but if it makes them happy, oh well … Meta tags? … hehehe”

[http://www.google.com/coop/cse/overview]

One of the huge benefits of the user generated Google CSE’s is that they may turn up in Google OneBox results if one becomes popular enough and people choose it as a trusted source. Nobody has confirmed that yet, but it was one of the benefits of the previous generation Google Co-op “Subscribed Links” program, which is profiled after it’s launch in a Danny Sullivan post at Search Engine Watch blog back on May 10th of this year when Google announced Co-op.

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060510-191214

Custom Search Engines, based on Google Co-op, until last week had required a geek’s knowledge of XML to use effectively. Google CSE has simplified that tool and made it accessible to the rest of us by creating an administration control panel which eliminates the need to “code your own” subscribed links in XML documents. Now it’s easy and any webmaster can create one – and if they know basic HTML – can have that CSE hosted on their own site.

http://google.com/coop/cse

When you create your own customized search engine through Google Co-op, it is possible for anyone to see customized search results drawing only from trusted sites you choose to search. This is similar to the Rollyo.com search engine, which allows you to create customized search which draws from Yahoo results, but only allows 25 sources.

Google Customized Search appears to have no limit on the number of sources and is also allowing you to incorporate AdSense into the search results so that if your custom search engine becomes popular, you can benefit from the traffic generated to your CSE. this is true of both your site-hosted version and the Google-hosted public CSE which is created simultaneously.

Rollyo sends searchers who use your Rollyo custom search engine to their site, while Google Custom Search Engine allows visitors to search from a page on your site AND see the results on your site, keeping them there, rather than sending them away to another site. It also creates a Google public CSE page simultaneously, available at a long URL with your ID embedded.

There is also a new directory which has started up (apparently in partnership with Google) in order to list quality Custom Search Engines created by site owners. They also allow you to suggest other CSE’s for inclusion in their directory (free membership required). They then link directly to those searches at Google from the directory.

So I happened to be writing an article about Corporate SEO Job Searches when I saw that announcement. I immediately went to Google Co-op and created my own search engine which searches all the top SEO job boards for Search Engine Optimization Employment listings. This Google CSE is an incredible tool that allows you to simultaneously filter out all the junk, while at the same time broadening your search beyond just one jobs board at a time.

What’s even better is that when you use query operators like “site:jobsinsearch.com” (which is one of the source sites I included) that it returns only those results from that source. If you add a city name or state to the search box, it returns only SEO jobs offered in that city or state. There is nearly zero fluff or search engine spam remaining in the search results and you get EXACTLY what you were searching for.

I suspect that the Custom Search Engine tool will see a huge surge in popularity once people realize how powerful it can be when you use the CSE tool from trusted sites. I sincerely hope nobody figures out how to game this thing so that it can continue to improve search without polluting results.

Here’s a novel idea which I incorporated into another CSE I created for my Small Business Ecommerce Tutorial at WebSite101 last week – that is to include EzineArticles.com in the list of sites searched, in this case for “Small Business Health Insurance.”

This provides quality results with resources that provide INFORMATION on the topic, rather than pure insurance sales sites. That custom search engine provides a lot of EzineArticles results mixed in with department of labor, small business administration, Kaiser Foundation, National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) and other trusted sites on the topic of small business.

I intend to include EzineArticles as a trusted source in other custom search engines in different topic areas on WebSite101 as well because it has a such a rich resource of available material from experts on dozens of topics and would be a valuable resource for those custom search engines in many broad topic areas.

I’m off to create some more of these things and plan on making them central features of several of my own sites. I suspect that many will create CSE’s on dozens of amazing topics and can’t wait to see how this affects the search landscape. Quality of resource sites included in those CSE’s are critical, so are those sites filtered OUT of the results by the creators of customized search engines.

It is readily apparent from the first search engine results page how well it has been designed. I believe quality will reign here because nobody will continue to use a custom search which provides spammy results. Bad CSE’s will disappear or possibly only be used by the dopes that design them, while good CSE’s will flourish due to quality results generated and will likely increase in popularity and traffic.

A current search at Google for “Social Media Optimization (as of this writing) has Lee Odden’s TopRankBlog post on the SMO topic showing up number one for that search.

“Make tagging and bookmarking easy – Adding content features like quick buttons to “add to del.icio.us” are one way to make the process of tagging pages easier…”

Until recently, making “the process of tagging pages easier” has been rather cumbersome and tedious for publishers. Collecting code and “chiclets” (logos) from each service first to facilitate using social bookmark service links and feeds, then posting a mish-mash of those links near web content to encourage visitors to subscribe to feeds or bookmark that content through any of dozens of popular services.

But a new service at http://www.AddThis.com has been launched which appears to solve the complexity for publishers and reduces the “chiclet” clutter by providing a single button for bookmarks or a single button for RSS feeds, to allow bookmarks and feeds through any of the most popular services.

What follows is a Q&A with AddThis.com co-founder Dom Vonarburg

Q) Most interviews end by asking if there is anything else you’d like to add, what specifically would you like people to know about AddThis up front?

A) AddThis.com is a brand new service that helps web surfers collect information online with a single click, and send it to their favorite bookmarking service, feed reader, wish list service, podcast service, etc. AddThis also helps web publishers promote their content (web pages, feeds, products, podcasts, etc) online by making it easier for their visitors to collect it, save it, and distribute it to social services. AddThis was launched in September at the DEMO conference, the launchpad for emerging technology.

Q) Do you see AddThis as a potentially big player in the Social Media Optimization (SMO) phenomenon since you make it easier for web publishers to get their sites bookmarked, and their podcasts and blog feeds subscribed?

A) We started working on AddThis back in March 2006, even before the term SMO was first coined. The idea behind AddThis was, and still is, to completely eliminate all obstacles web publishers have in distributing their content to visitors and the social media services they might use. Our internal term for it was initially social SEO, but I like Social Media Optimization better.

We think AddThis will be a very important player in the SMO space, as it is the first service to provide a generic gateway for collecting and distributing many different types of content. AddThis acts as a bridge between the web publisher, the web user, and the social media services.

Q) You’ve added a new angle to the bookmarks game with the “Products” button. If it takes off, it seems like it would be great for ecommerce sites, especially with the reporting attached. I haven’t seen this anywhere else. What made you bring the product angle into an AddThis Product Button?

A) “Products” was the next logical step for us after bookmarks, feeds and podcasts. People want to collect and compare the products and services they find online, and ecommerce websites want to facilitate this process. By adding “Product” buttons to their pages, ecommerce websites are more likely to be included in their visitors’ final purchase decisions. The button also helps spread these products to other people through social bookmarking and social shopping websites (Kaboodle.com, Wists.com, ThisNext.com, etc).

Q) You are offering AddThis as a free service. Is there any plan to move to a higher level plan to monetize it? I noted your participation in the DEMO conference where companies seek venture capital and seed funding. Were you seeking funding and were you successful?

A) Yes, the service is free and will continue to be free. Starting early next year, we will also provide a premium version of the service. I don’t want to say too much at this point, but the premium service will provide many interesting features for web publishers, one of which will be more advanced statistics. Our primary goal with DEMO was to boost the launch of AddThis. We also received the attention of several investors.

Q) Providing stats was an extra step that probably increased costs and complexity for AddThis. What made you consider the reporting to publishers as an important part of a free service?

A) The statistics was a fairly simple feature to add and we thought it added a lot of value to web publishers, especially for products. For example, with the statistics, web publishers can find out which products their visitors are most interested in, which ones receive less attention, etc.

Q) Is there any connection with ClickAbility.com? (“Email This” “Save This” and “Print This”)

A) ClickAbility is different in that it provides its own system for saving information. AddThis does not impose any destination for the content collected.

Q) Was the AddThis.com domain already yours, or did you purchase from an existing owner? It shows in domain records as being registered since 1998, but the WayBack Machine at Archive.org only shows a single page with nothing on it from 2002. So little history available on the domain. Has AddThis been in the works since 1998?

A) The domain was not ours; we purchased it from its previous owner in March 2006.

Q) Most bloggers providing RSS feeds to their users did their best to get each of about a dozen of those “Chiclets” allowing subscriptions through the most popular services posted in the margins of their blogs. Many bloggers are now relying on the FeedBurner service and moving to a single feed logo. How does the AddThis.com feed service compare to FeedBurner? Do you see FeedBurner as a competitor?

A) FeedBurner’s primary business is feed hosting and management. Feeds are only one type of content supported by AddThis, we support and will support many more types. We think our generic approach to content collection and distribution is truly unique. So we don’t see FeedBurner as a direct competitor.

Q) Most big publishers and now thousands of smaller web site owners and bloggers are beginning to post Del.icio.us and Furl and Reddit logos and links on their pages in the hopes that site visitors will bookmark their pages in the social bookmarks services. Some are choosing to add a few links to some of the other bookmarking services, but few go beyond the top 5 social bookmarks site links. I see that AddThis Bookmark service offers 16 social bookmarks services. How did you decide ones which you would include? Certain popularity levels?

A) We picked the most popular bookmarking services based on popularity and visibility in the search engines. We only stopped at 16 because of time constraints, but we will add many more of them in the future. By letting AddThis maintain the list of bookmark and feed buttons, web publisher can better focus on their content.

Q) Do you have any plans for a tie-in with Digg? As a news popularity site, they have a different focus than the RSS feeds and Social Bookmarks services, but many site publishers are including “Digg This” links from their web pages as part of a “social media marketing” plan. Does your focus with AddThis stick to bloggers, product retailers, bookmarks, and podcasts or will you consider expanding into the news and other areas?

A) Social news is also a logical candidate for AddThis. We will also add other types of content based on user adoption.

Q) Is there anything else you’d like to Add(to)This?

A) We think AddThis will play a big role because it makes a lot of sense for both web users and web publishers. You can think of AddThis.com as the more social sister of AddMe.com, or its Web2.0 extension. Each service helps you achieve a different kind of visibility.

As a publisher, I had been updating WebSite101 to a new template and had been considering including Furl, Reddit, Del.icio.us, and Digg, but came across the AddThis Demo launch story and dropped Furl and Reddit from the mix in favor of the AddThis “Bookmark” link, since AddThis supports all of the bookmarking services with one button.

I’m keeping the Del.icio.us and Digg links for now, but I think once publishers begin to realize they can simplify bookmarks and if users understand that they can use any social bookmark service through AddThis, that you’ll see strong adoption of the service.

Good luck on wide adoption of AddThis by both the public and publishers Dom, I wish you the best of luck with your contribution to Social Media Optimization!

What happened?

Using social media marketing gets your company involved earlier in the buying process, educates prospective customers, and, when done correctly, generates high quality leads. When you make some of the mistakes noted in this blog post, you will miss out on these leads or, even worse, your embarrassing slip up could spread throughout your network.

Here are eight common social media mistakes mistakes that are getting in the way of your social media success and how to address them.

1. Ignoring your social reach

If you work in an industry with a high sale price, you can find yourself ignoring the reach of your social network to focus only on your immediate connections. This kind of thinking means you will miss out on the potential impact of your content spreading through your connections to the people in their network. While not every person within the social reach of your business will become a customer, they likely exert some influence over someone who may have an interest in your product or they can simply help raise brand awareness of your product.

Building your reach will help ensure your social media success and is not as complicated as you may think:

• Start by emailing your current customers and prospects and letting them know about your social profiles – ask them to follow, like and share your business’s content.
• You can promote your social media profiles everywhere – have links to your profiles on every page of your website, on signage, in print advertising, on your business cards and in television ads.
• Create and share valuable content with your current followers – as they share your content others will become more aware of your business and brand and will become more likely to like, follow or connect with your business.
• Make it easy to share your content by adding social sharing buttons to your website and blog posts.

 2. Forgetting about leads

Brand awareness is important, but your social media success ultimately depends on your ability to generate high-quality leads that your sales team can convert into customers. It’s not enough to present great content and a friendly and interactive presence on social networks – you need to collect people’s information and enter it into your sales funnel.

The ability to generate leads is related directly to your ability to write an effective call-to-action (CTA): a prompt that tells your readers or followers to do something in particular. In this case, you are telling them to sign up for a free newsletter or download a free report. In return for the freebie, they need to give some of their personal information.

An effective call-to-action:

• Creates a sense of urgency by using words like “now” or “today”
• Uses numbers to be as specific as possible
• Tells the person viewing it exactly what you want them to do
• Is placed above the fold on your website

3. Ignoring traditional marketing in favour of social media marketing

You cannot ignore traditional marketing to focus solely on social media marketing. Social networks are popular, but not everyone is on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Even if 100 percent of the population was involved in social networking, you still cannot ignore the usefulness of certain traditional marketing platforms.

Focus on how effectively each marketing channel generates leads and customers and you will achieve marketing success. Your company can avoid overinvesting in social media by integrating social media into your current marketing plan and ensuring it works in tandem with more traditional marketing efforts.

4. Forgetting about SEO

Search engine optimization and social media marketing go hand-in-hand. Social media success depends on effectively integrating your social strategy with your search engine optimization strategy.

You can address this all too often disconnect by using the keywords identified in your SEO strategy when crafting copy for your social profiles.

5. Thinking it’s going to be too easy

A common mistake blocking your social media success is not dedicating enough time to your new marketing endeavor –assume you’ll need to spend twice as much time on social media marketing as you plan on spending. This might sound like too great an investment for some marketers.

You can likely find the time to invest in your social media success by examining your current marketing efforts and identifying the underperforming activities. Take the time you are spending on those activities and put it into your new social media efforts to see if they produce better returns.

6. Not showing social media ROI

While leads are important, they aren’t the ultimate goal of your social media efforts. Your social media success will ultimately be defined by the number of sales derived from social media marketing. Too many marketers focus on vanity metrics – metrics that track things, like fans or followers, which really don’t directly impact your business’s bottom line.

When marketers don’t track the right social media marketing metrics, your social media investment is put at risk. You can ensure continued investment in social media marketing by demonstrating the ROI of your social media by tracking the right metrics: conversion rate, referring traffic, total reach, amplification rate, rate of applause, quality of content, conversation share, sentiment, and economic value.

7. Thinking all social networks are the same

Facebook is different than LinkedIn and Google+ is different than Twitter. If your marketing team doesn’t understand thedifferences between the social networks, you will only achieve limited social media success:

• Facebook and Google+ are visual networks and need to include lots of pictures and video.
• Twitter is a news-based social network and your tweets need to include links to be truly effective.

You can optimize your presence on each network by measuring the right social media metrics and noting patterns and trends for certain types of content.

8. Being boring

Clicking “publish” or “post” does not make you, your business or your products interesting. You need to craft compelling content that presents your business in an interesting way. The content you share also can’t only be about your business and your product – you need to take your audience into consideration.

You should try to offer content to your followers that addresses problems they face and delivers useful information. A great way to deliver this kind of content is by creating personas, theoretical pictures of your idea customer or customers.

You can create personas by gathering certain bits of information:

• Who typically buys your product or service?
• What are their demographics?
• What motivates them?
• What is their biggest challenge to success?
• How and where do they consume information and news?

Use this information to create a picture of your customer and write your material for that person. It will keep your content more focused and it will make it infinitely more shareable.

It would be great to hear from you:

• What are the roadblocks you’ve faced on your way to social media marketing success?
• Have you encountered any of the problems listed in this post?
• What steps have you taken to overcome obstacles to social media success?