Why You Need Video

Not only is embedded video a must for Web sites from a promotional perspective, but hosting clips related to your business can boost your search engine optimization. Whether you sell used cars or toys, sporting goods or books, it helps to make video available to enhance your inventory and bring a personal touch to your brand. Video is viral – post a humorous commentary or pratfall and people around the world will e-mail, blog, “tweet” and post to their social pages. In some cases, the national media picks up on popular videos to spotlight on news briefs. The immediacy of online video – the sight and sound – draws viewers to a webpage and holds their attention. To create a video clip with your site URL or sales information could increase awareness of your company and associate your name with something hundreds, even thousands, of people will share.

Why Host Your Video

Given the popularity of YouTube and Google Video, you might ask yourself why you need to enhance your own Web site when you can just create an account and upload videos there. Truthfully, maintaining a YouTube account is a great idea, but it shouldn’t be your only option in site promotion. Having your videos hosted on your business site establishes the material as your property, and emphasizes your brand. If you distribute instructional videos, for example, the archive you create on your site can become a valuable resource that remains as third-party sites come and go. In the event somebody is unable to access your YouTube account, the main site remains open to visitors.

Apply Video to Your Site

If you are not yet schooled in the proper coding and implementation of video, consult with an experienced Web designer to handle redesign and embedding of video clips for your site. Depending on the scope of your project, you may find that video design is quite affordable, and a small price to pay for increasing traffic, sales, and leads to your business.

Kathryn Lively is a freelance writer specializing in articles on streaming video web design and Virginia web design.

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Recent studies by ranking sites like Quantcast and Compete place Facebook in the top 5 of most used and visited Web sites in the US alone. That Facebook is set up to parse users into specific “networks”, mainly geographical, is helpful because it can allow you to promote properties to people within your region, while the viral aspect of the social network extends your reach to possible buyers elsewhere in the world.

Once you set up a Facebook account for the purpose of boosting your real estate business, you will want to recruit friends. Encourage visitors to your Web site to join by placing buttons on your site or blog, or anywhere else you have an online presence. Because Facebook now allows vanity URLs you can select a proper tag for yours (like “virginiarealtor” or “isellhomes”, depending on your location and what’s available), it is easier to use the addresses on business cards and print materials. Use the Photos function to upload pictures of available properties you have listed, and import an RSS into your Notes box to run new listings.

For other ways to maximize Facebook to your advantage, you can set up a “fan” page for your agency and invite friends and colleagues to join and share information about the neighborhoods you sell. Join a local group based in your area and become active in the conversations, sharing information on available homes and tips for open houses and home loans. You could also form your own group and provide expert information to people seeking advice on buying and selling homes. In the long run this could prove beneficial to you as people just may contact you to represent them at a later date.

If you’re not connected to Facebook, don’t wait to sign up. As social media grows in popularity and importance, so you can improve your real estate business and exposure through this network.

Kathryn Lively is a freelance writer specializing in articles on Virginia Beach homes for sale and downtown Norfolk condos.

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That said, one might think relaying news and information in 140 character increments is simple and guaranteed to drive traffic to your Web site, but Twitter is a bit more sophisticated than that. Twitter users, too, tend to be choosy about whom they follow and what they relay to the world. Like other social platforms, Twitter is not immune to spam tactics, and as people grow wise to dubious practices, it’s important to know what to do to keep users interested in reading what you have to “tweet.”

How to Lose Followers

In reviewing comments by Twitters users, there are a few ways to easily cause followers to drop off the radar. They include:

Sending an automated message upon following: Not everybody wants to be hit with the hard sell immediately. Many people now regard the automated message as the first sign of a spam user, and may not stick around to read further messages.

Constant sales pitches: Take a look at a typical day of tweets. Do you tend to push more products than actually socialize? Especially for an account designed to look more personal than professional, this can be a turn-off for followers, especially those who aren’t tracking many Twitter users. Somebody reading the same message every two hours is going to give you a message by unfollowing you.

SEO spam posts: “I just landed five thousand Twitters followers, you can, too!” We’re starting to see these crop up – viral optimization posts that lead to links for various programs and books. In truth, you might visit the originator of the message to find he/she doesn’t have the alleged five thousand at all. As Twitter grows in popularity, so will attempts to monetize it, and if somebody receives enough of these messages they may say enough.

In short, use Twitter to communicate with followers, not to pressure them, and you may find you can grow readership and loyalty with this popular media platform.

Kathryn Lively is a freelance writer specializing in articles on local PPC advertising and professional SEO writing services.

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In short, if you blog, does it make sense to feed the blog’s RSS into Twitter and Facebook, and anywhere else it may fit? Is there the risk that somebody who follows all three of your profiles will become bored or irritated by the repetition and drop you altogether?

The answer is hard to determine, as one can’t truly determine how social media optimization will work for everybody. What works for Company A could backfire for Company B. However, there are pros and cons to repetitive content that can be explored and considered by those interested in getting the most out of their social media profiles.

Duplicating Content: Advantages

Tools exist that allow you to feed your blog posts into your Facebook profile and your Twitter account. Though there is no discernable way to feed a blog into MySpace’s blog, widgets can be set up to present an RSS version on your material on your profile. The main advantage to having everything connected is that you can create content at one source and distribute it easily to several places with the click of a mouse. There’s no need to log into several profiles. With the addition of bookmarking tools on your browser menu bars – for social bookmarking sites like Delicious and Digg – you can reach diverse audiences with your content.

Also, optimizing specific keywords to link back to your main site can be helpful in boosting your search rank.

Duplicating Content: Disadvantages

If you spend enough time in the Twitter and Facebook worlds, you may tend to read from other users of their dissatisfaction of some profiles. While it’s a given that anybody who sets up a social profile is advertising to some degree, to simply set something up as a droning feed may be a turnoff to some users. “Social” is optimal word in social media, so if you do have these profile it is encourage to use them beyond their RSS functionality and converse with the people who choose to follow your exploits.

It may take some experimentation to find the perfect balance between your content and the way it is presented. Study how you use social media, and learn what works and what doesn’t.

Kathryn Lively is a freelance writer specializing in articles on Virginia web design.

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If your primary function for the Internet is promote your business, it is imperative to have a web blog connected to your site. Whether you host the blog software on your domain or use a third-party host like WordPress or Blogger, regular use of the blog to optimize keywords for your main site can be of some help in boosting your search rankings.

What should you write? Regardless of the purpose of your website or business, the blog should have a down-to-earth, friendly appeal. Though it is to be utilized for promotion, perhaps alerts on sales and new services, it shouldn’t be constantly used as a means to hard sell visitors every time they come to read, lest they be turned off altogether. Keep a good mix of blog posts active; talk about what you do and what you offer, but take the time to hold an online conversation with visitors. Post about local happenings, use pictures or embedded links to related videos, and try to stimulate feedback from visitors.

Combining these efforts with social media networking can improve traffic to your blog as well. Open accounts with Facebook and Twitter, for two, and use them to refer people to new articles on your blog. Sign up for social bookmarking sites like Delicious and Digg, and save the URLs of specific articles and posts you feel have a wider appeal. The more “word of mouth” enthusiasm you can generate, the better for your stats, and business. You just may find that blogging can bring you a decent income as it leads people to your main site.

Kathryn Lively is a freelance writer specializing in articles on Virginia web design.

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The Personalized Domain versus the “Free Site”

One thing I notice, specifically with authors, is the usage of a free site to host information on books and other writings. Assuming an author only has so much to spend on promotion, it’s understandable to want to be thrifty, but one can also argue the purchase of a domain is a necessary and worthwhile expense for anybody wishing to market online.

When you look at a business card, for example, are you more apt to visit the site of a business with this URL:

http://www.freesite.com/mybusinessname

…or this one?

http://www.mybusinessname.com

The latter certainly may look more professional, and will also imply that the site is done with great care. Free sites, while helpful in a pinch and good for personal websites, often come with strings attached. Signing up for a free service may require you to run banner ads on your pages, and may force you to limit the type of content you can have on your site. With the recent news of Geocities closing, too, comes the realization that there is no guarantee a free service will always be there to store your pages. Having your own web space and URL is easier to maintain in this respect, as pages and URL positioning can be moved if needed.

The URL name: Yours or Your Topic’s?

Let’s say you have decided to spring for a simple web hosting package and a URL. The domain name you choose must best express what you plan to showcase on the Internet. Authors, actors, and musicians will tend to use their names if available, yet the business owner has options. If you operate a bakery in your town, you may wish to purchase a domain that is the name of your business, or else a keyword-strong URL that tells people exactly what you do. “YourTownBakers” or “YourTownBakery” where “Your Town” is where you are located, is a viable option. You stand the chance of increased search relevancy based on the keywords used, and one doesn’t have to guess what it is you do.

A good method of determining the right URL for your company is to consider how it will look to the public. The words that comprise the domain should be short, easy to remember, and to spell. Consulting a site like Domize can tell you if the URL you want is available for purchase- if not, you may be able to find an alternative to work for you.

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Microsoft launched its new search engine, Bing, a few days earlier than expected. The search engine is designed to give users a more granular experience, allowing them to not only hunt for general information, but also conduct specialized searches for travel and shopping. Microsoft hopes that Bing will allow it to claim more market share in the competitive search-engine arena, which is dominated by Google. More from eWeek.

Twitter search engine Topsy launches with $15M

Topsy.com, launched last week, is a brand new search engine focused exclusively on Twitter content. Like Google, it presents its results based on popularity metrics, namely the popularity or influence of the tweeter in question — a factor determined by how many followers the user has and how many time his or her messages have been re-tweeted. More from Venture Beat.

Apparently the way Topsy works, is that a search is queued and results are brought forth, mainly to links posted in Twitter by users. A search on “Outer Banks”, for example, yields results from the Twitter accounts of various regional news stations and newspapers, plus a few OBX real estate companies. It doesn’t appear to be as thorough as Google as far as relevant information is concerned, but in terms of popularity via Twitter this is where people are going.

How can Topsy work to the advantage of somebody in SEO? As you search Topsy, the results will pull up a list of Twitter users who have recently “tweeted” most often on the topic. This will give you a good idea on which Twitter users may be followed (or may be inclined to follow you back). Users of Topsy will be more inclined to find your information online the more you “tweet” using relevant key phrases.

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Users of Twitterfox, a handy Firefox extension that lets you track folks from a pop-up screen on your browser, will note that URLs too long to appear in posts are cut using TinyURL, perhaps the best known of the shortening services. What TinyURL does is take a long URL like this:

http://hg.highsearchranking.com/2009/05/01/are-url-shorte…s-good-for-seoare-url-shorteners-good-for-seo/

and make it shorter through its own root and a random extension, like this:

http://tinyurl.com/djvfvq

Some services, like TinyURL, have recently allowed users to customize the URLs, so the first string above could be also marketed like this:

http://tinyurl.com/urlshortshsr

The downside to this, for one, is that more popular names may be taken. “url-shorteners”, for example, was.

Good to use on the go if you Twitter constantly, but are shortened URLs good for your site’s SEO? In observing recent trends in Twitter, it isn’t difficult to see spam accounts are on the rise, and the inclusion of such a URL, however innocuous the preceding text may appear, could lead to a phishing link. It stands to reason one should look on shortened links carefully, clicking through only if you are certain the source can be trusted. The use of another company’s URL root in your posts, aside from your own domain, might also set back marketing efforts. The more people see your name, the more apt they are to remember your URL. Long strings cut short risk the dilution of your brand as you micro-blog.

This is not to say you should never use a shortening service. One suggestion, if you must promote long URLs for specific pages on your site, would be to use a service that lets you customize their link name. Make a spreadsheet and record all the customizations – using your brand in every way possible – and drawing from that list as you Twitter. With many services the shortened URL is permanent, so you can reuse them as needed.

Another suggestion for marketing via Twitter is to create alternative pages on your site with short file names that best describe the content. This way, you can provide good text before your link and get everything in under the character limit.

URL shortening services are handy in a pinch, but ultimately it is important to promote your own domain in Twitter, Facebook, or other social networks.

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From an SEO standpoint, this does make a bit sense, considering how MySpace toys with outbound links to make it difficult to track inbound referrals. This speaker recommended alternatives: Squidoo, a helpful tool if one uses it constantly, and bookmarking sites like Digg. By conference’s end, my friend and others had set up several lens and created account to “dig” blog posts about their books.

Thinking about these sites from the perspective of an SEO agent working for various clients, I considered the effectiveness of these tools for the purpose of building rank relevancy. Is it worth the time and effort to post your site and blog links to a multitude of bookmarking sites, given the chance the links will simply languish under the weight of more popular entertainment and news blogs? If you choose the bookmarking route, which sites do you use? To look at the names of these sites: Digg, Diigo, Reddit, Sphinn, Yigg, Mixx, and so forth, one might think he’s stepped into a bizarre spelling bee. What can these sites do to help your SEO progress?

Depending on the purpose of your site, using news bookmarking networks may be useful in attracting local and regional interest. Many of these social media sites track top stories in entertainment, technology, and sports, so very likely you’re going to see the same players at the top – national and global sites like CNN and Reuters and Yahoo! News. If by some stroke of luck you are able to create something viral – a crazy video for Youtube, for example – you may be able to bring in traffic.

To look at Digg, you’ll realize you have a lot of competition for the top spot. Whether you are writing about new technologies or opining on college sport regulations, there are certain to be hundreds of articles similar to yours jockeying for attention. Attracting attention via Digg and similar sites could be helpful if you befriend other Digg users and arrange some schedule of mutual “digging” – scratch a few backs, get scratched in return. With enough persistence, you may be able to produce a submission that catches fire. Depending on how often Diggs user take advantage of the search function, if you make your submissions keyword specific you could gain viewers that way.

If you are unsure whether or not such a site would be helpful to your main site rankings, try an experiment. If your site doesn’t feature a blog, choose a page and create an article relevant to your site. Include embedded video or audio if applicable, then submit it to Digg. Establish friendships with like-minded people on the site, or recruit friends to register and help “dig” you story – one can argue whether or not this is “gray hat” SEO, but word of mouth remains the strongest form of marketing. Friends and family have mouths, or in this case, mouse buttons.

Pay close attention to your stats. Do you see many views for that particular page? Are people entering your site there? If you find the traffic is valuable enough to continue, then “dig” away. If not, don’t worry. Given the climate of SEO and social media optimization, another site is bound to come along that can help.

Kathryn Lively

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There is validity to that question, of course. Speaking as a writer and editor, I use all sorts of social devices to promote work. There are the profiles on MySpace and Facebook, the lens on Squidoo, the accounts at del.icio.us and Digg and…you get the idea. With the time spent pushing works on these sites, one might think I could write another book free and clear. Marketing is time-consuming, yet beneficial, and of course if sales are going to come from these efforts it is important to make sure you market wisely. To put so much energy into a campaign few will see may not yield the results you want, and you can’t get that time back.

These ideas are easily applicable to promoting websites. Is it wise to spend the entire day on Twitter talking about how people should visit your site, when in truth you may have only fifty followers on your profile, and few if any are “re-tweeting” your posts to their accounts so more eyeballs can see them? Who will see your efforts, and how can your business grow if you limit yourself this way, is the argument.

Does this mean sites like Twitter and Digg are useless in promotion? Not necessarily. Due to the growth of Twitter, for example, it now boasts its own search engine which allows anybody to find relevant topics among the thousands of Twitter users. The one advantage to social bookmarking sites and micro-blogging sites is that new information comes as quickly as it is posted on the wires. Somebody may not need to follow a thousand Twitter users for breaking news, when he can search for it. Whether you are selling goods or promoting services, if you use the right combination of keywords the likelihood somebody will find you via Twitter will increase.

Take, for example, a recent event on the Twitter site that captured the attention of bloggers in the publishing industry. A literary agent established a topic called #queryfail which covered the do’s and don’ts of submitting manuscript queries to literary agents. For one day, editors and agents submitted their input via Twitter and using this particular keyword to connect the posts. People using Twitter’s search function could plug in the keyword to see the expanded group conversation. Such an exercise allowed for better exposure for these accounts…one editor reported later on her Twitter account that she gained over  100 followers in one day thanks to this!

Of course, there is no guarantee participation in a group micro-blogging conversation will reap hundreds of followers to your account in a short time, but use of the tool increases your exposure. It’s only a matter of hitting the right keywords at the time your target audience is searching for those same words. Social media tools like Twitter may not wholly replace the blog, the pay per click model, and link building as the be-all and end-all of SEO, but it is a good complement to your efforts provided it is used smartly.

Kathryn Lively

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