http://www.google.com/profiles/timjgill

http://www.linkedin.com/in/timgill

While search engine optimization encompasses social media through the creation of links caused by popularity, or “link bait”, social media marketing has attributes and effects that go beyond the boundaries of SEO. This includes direct traffic (typed in to the browser, bookmarked, and e-mail campaigns), online reputation, and brand community building.

The book analyzes dives into the marketing side of ecommerce and analyzes the buying process and the steps to a purchasing decision.  

‘Always be testing‘ reminds SEOs/web designers that when people buy, they basically go through a very linear process:

1. Problem recognition.
2. Information search.
3. Evaluation of alternatives.
4. Purchase decision.
5. Purchase completion.
6. Was the problem solved?

This is an often forgotten process that many don’t implement in their ecommerce designs.  The idea of being a resource to evaluate alternatives scares many websites however when I see a product / benefit / competitor matrix I often move forward with my purchase with confidence.

This creates several questions that will be on the top of many SEO minds.

1. How long will it take the general public to catch on to this? 
2. How long before unethical SEOs use this to show their clients that they are in first place even though they are not?
3. How will your vote influence others’ searches down the road?
4. Do I get paid for enhancing the quality of Google’s search results?

While SEO is itself a form of marketing, these tenets fall into the more general category of online marketing. It is along these lines that the terms social media optimization and social media marketing are also defined.

Social media marketing is primarily about knocking down your site’s walls so that content can be readily discovered, dialoged, distributed, and shared by diverse online communities and social media portals. Virtually every Web 2.0 site carries a degree of commercial usefulness. Yet some sites have built-in hindrances, such as “nofollow” links or pages accessible only behind passwords.

Before you embark on your journey into social media, you have to understand and implement some key metrics in order to track your success.

But those links won’t help unless you customize your page to be publicly viewable especially the links part.  Then Google can index it and follow the links.  The “public page” URL is good to use your name.  If your name is already taken, try hyphens or adding a geographic locator to your custom URL.  Get your name quickly or someone else will unless your last name is Fondrk, theres only like 5 Fondrk’s in the USA the rest are in Finland.  Not only does it make it easier to tell to others your URL, it may further help your page’s click-through rate in the SERPs.  

Here are some other tips for getting the most out of your LinkedIn profile:
• Add as much of your work history and education as you feel comfortable, I even added my high school job (it actually helped me reconnect with my old boss because he listed it too!)
• Make as much of your information publicly available as you feel comfortable (the worst thing that could happen is ridicule over the fact that you were a subpar bus boy at the country club).
• Participate in the different areas of LinkedIn and be sure to visit the site at least once a week to see what is happening within your network, post questions and your friends may answer or find they have the same question.•
• Check out the “Profile Views” to get an idea on who may have been checking out your profile.

Contests can be good lead generators. You need to do you homework first or you’ll run into legal issues or management issues.  Email newsletters still work, but they have a downside: huge commitment, monthly work, labor intensive.  Kids! They’re great at communicating viruses (especially this time of year) and viral marketing. They swap SMS messages and mention and recommend products in ways more likely to be indexed by search engines.  Coupons. Creating coupons is easier than ever now with Google Checkout.  Nearly 20 percent of U.S. Internet users have redeemed a coupon online. Sixty percent of Pubcon attendees used a coupon.  Come on admit it how often have you Googled ‘online retailer x promocode’ right before checkout.  If you haven’t you could be missing out on the savings!

For the most part it is really not anything too surprising.  For your perusing I have taken the five best tips and summarized below:

1. Create unique, accurate page titles

• Use brief, but descriptive titles - Titles can be both short and informative. If the title is too long, Google will show only a portion of it in the search result.  

2. Make use of the “description” meta tag

• Accurately summarize the page’s content
• Use unique descriptions for each page

3. Improve the structure of your URLs

• Use words in your URLs
• Keep your directory structure flat

4. Good practices for site navigation

• Create a naturally flowing hierarchy Use mostly text for navigation
• Use “breadcrumb” navigation - A breadcrumb is a row of internal links at the top or bottom
• Use sitemaps: HTML and XML
• Create a custom 404 page

5. Create great content

• Write clear, organized, using accepted relevant language
• Make fresh unique content