SEOMatrix LLC Blog: Your Daily Ethical Search Engine Marketing Treats

Back in March of 2008 I discovered LinkedIn and have been an avid user since. Apparently, I was a little late to the party – as this phenomenal social networking site’s inception dates back to May 2003. I use LinkedIn for an assortment of task that is unparalleled by any other social networking site. It’s an excellent medium for staying in touch with colleagues, business partners, and even family. However, LinkedIn’s best use is not merely for staying in touch – it is answers; via connections and groups. LinkedIn follows a similar trend that other social networking sites do. LinkedIn allows users to establish connections, which operate similar to friends on Facebook or Myspace.

On any social networking site it is always preferable to have a lot of “friends,” or connections. However, in LinkedIn’s case, the more connections you have, the more it benefits you in reality – not just online. It’s great to stay in touch with people you once knew, but LinkedIn is different – it is professionally based. It grants users the ability to stay connected with business partners, and establish new business partners in your field (or even other fields, depending on your needs). The site is incredibly flexible; it caters to professionals, meaning (in general) it isn’t filled with 10 year olds looking for free music, or spam. The population of LinkedIn (again, in general) is comprised of fairly intelligent and articulate individuals that are generally there to help and receive help.

LinkedIn’s “about us” page breaks its purpose down into three general purposes; “Re-connect, Power Your Career, and Get answers.” Staying in touch with anyone is simple – merely lookup the name, workplace, school, or residence of your friend, classmate, family member or business partner and LinkedIn provides you with a results page with accuracy reminiscent of the mighty Google. Powering Your Career is also fairly simple. This area of the site is where you need to be creative. By establishing good connections, joining good groups, and having a well setup profile anyone can boost their career to the next level. Getting answers is probably my personal favorite part of the site. When you join a group, or have a solid amount of connections, you can pose a question. LinkedIn allows you to post this question in a variety of methods – in group boards, or your “wall” (they don’t have an actual name, so I’m using Facebook’s example). Posing the question in a group is generally the most effective. Groups are filled with intelligent and articulate people; I nearly always get excellent answers, even to questions that are incredibly specific. When asking a general question, only people you are connected to can see the question (and answer it). So unless your connections are avid LinkedIn checkers, it’s generally best to pose a question in a specific board.

LinkedIn is not just a great social networking site. It is also incredibly useful for SEO purposes. You can create personal profiles, and corporate profiles. Corporate profiles are wonderful because they provide people with your company’s philosophy and synopsis of practices as well as contact information. Personal profiles (if done correctly) can majorly influence your online identity. When doing a Google search for your name (if you have a LinkedIn profile) it will nearly always come up on the first page, unless your name is exceedingly common – like Mike Smith for example. LinkedIn will also generate inbound links to your website and indirectly affect your overall web visibility.

Everyone loves YouTube. The website has literally revolutionized the internet. I remember way back in 2000 I was sifting through the barely categorized, non-descriptive and difficult to navigate Yahoo! videos - on a quest for music videos. I virtually never found what I was looking for, and when I did; I had to download some foreign application for the video to play. Then one day back in February 2005 I stumbled upon YouTube - the greatest thing to hit the internet since…well…it was just the greatest thing I ever saw online. 

Think about, you can search literally tens of millions of videos that load instantaneously. You can upload your personal videos of any nature for free, any time. Everything is available on YouTube - from Sarah Palin’s wildly outrageous interview with Katie Couric to music videos. Better yet, YouTube maintained the tradition of the internet by shattering the barriers of entry for video. Everyday-people have become famous from their videos on YouTube. Ever hear of Chocolate Rain - thanks YouTube! How about the ever popular Kimbo Slice - the latest craze in the world of MMA - YouTube allowed him to get his name out there for beating people up in his backyard. 

When I do a search for anything at all - chances are one of the first results is a video on YouTube. Whether it is some sort of educational/instructional video or a news clip from a political speech I missed - YouTube is always there for me, giving me exactly what I need all while proving highly relevant search results. This being said, YouTube is an excellent supplement for SEO. Social Media Marketing can be defined as “[online] activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio.”  Personally, I believe SMM is only going to increase in popularity. 

Regardless of your business, by putting valuable information onto YouTube you are guaranteed exposure of some caliber. People are always searching for new videos on YouTube - unless the quality of the video is so poor you can’t stand to watch it - people will without a doubt view your video for some reason.

Better yet, if your video does well and people find it informative - they can “embed” the video onto their website or blog. Embedding is a great feature of YouTube - it allows anyone to paste a piece of code on their website to display any video on YouTube (assuming the author of the video has enabled embedding).

In summation, YouTube is just one of the many mediums of SMM that you can utilize to promote your business online - for free. 

Google Chrome is the latest venture of the search giant, Google. According to Google, Chrome is going to revolutionize the way we surf the web, similar to how Google revolutionized the way we search for information scattered across the internet. But is Chrome really that great? I have taken a deeper, unbiased look at this new piece of software.

There are several excellent elements of Chrome that, if fully utilized, could prove quite promising. Similar to the extremely popular Firefox, Chrome is capable of tabbed browsing. Which is infinitely easier to use (and saves precious RAM) than opening a new window if you want to surf multiple pages at once. The old Internet Explorer 6 lacked this feature, while its competitor, Firefox 2.0 did not. IE 7 (and 8 - which is still in beta) now has tabbed browsing. However, Chrome has a nice little addition to the standard of tabbed browsing, it’s called; “Dynamic Tabbing.” Dynamic Tabbing allows the user to drag and drop a tab off the browser to create bookmarks easily and create a new window for the tab you have open. Another advantage to Chrome’s tab feature(s) is Crash Control. We’ve all had Internet Explorer or Firefox crash, then close all of our open tabs. This does not occur on Chrome, if one tab or “application” crashes; only the crashing tab will close - not the entire program.

Incognito Mode is another new feature that is virtually non-existent in other browsers. It allows the user to surf incognito - meaning that if you’d like, Chrome will not remember any of your web history, and will delete acquired cookies as soon as the incognito browser is closed. You can also have multiple browser windows open, one to surf incognito, and another to surf normally.

The best feature I’ve found on Chrome is its superior ability to create simple applications. Many websites have applications that operate just like programs on your computer. Chrome allows you to “download” these applications directly to your hard drive - they can then be accessed without even opening your browser and directing yourself there manually. Web applications like email and blogs operate in this fashion.  You can even save these application files to any directory path you want on your computer.

Chrome is pretty straight forward, but it lacks accessibility by not having the typical windows toolbar of: File, Edit, View etc. These features are still available but they can be somewhat difficult to find. There are two buttons located on the top right-hand corner of the browser, known as the “Tools” and “Page” buttons, respectively. Changing the very entrenched Windows interface could prove confusing and a little frustrating to people accustomed to Windows-style programs. Chrome also lacks the very typical browser buttons like Stop (stop loading) and Home (go directly to your homepage). The shortcut Alt+Home keys on your keyboard still work in this manner however.

Chrome is new, but as far as I can tell, Google worked out all the bugs before they released it to the public. I haven’t encountered any problems as of yet - but only time will tell. Despite all the new features and accessibility that Chrome has, I think it’ll be a while before the general population makes a full switch. Myself, as well as millions of other people are entrenched in using Firefox and Internet Explorer.

The internet is evolving at an exponential rate and to keep up with the dramatic changes of internet, so must Search Engine Optimization. As of late, I have been delving deeper into my research in the area of interest known as “Clean Code.” This element of SEO is quite broad and can be very confusing. Fortunately, there are several guides available all over the internet that can assist you in a nearly step-by-step process.

The back end code of a website is critical for the search engine’s algorithms to index your page properly. The code, despite the language needs to “clean,” meaning it has to be efficient, readable and organized. You can check out www.w3cschools.com for a plethora of information on how to write code for the latest standards.

Eliminating useless tags, and writing code in “shorthand” are two simple ways for you to clean up the back end code of your site. instead of writing <margin = 10 pixels>

<margin = 10 pixels>

<margin = 10 pixels>

<margin = 10 pixels>

to sepcify the borders of a table one can write:

<mar = 10px>

10px

10px

10px>

This not only makes the code easier to read for humans, but also search engines.

The web is getting more and more advanced and complicated everyday. Back in 1999 it was considered high-tech to have dynamic pages, Flash content and animated gifs but in 2008 it’s an everyday occurrence. The web is transitioning to an incredibly accessible social market. With the introduction of Web 2.0 technologies, anyone can find anyone, anywhere. Social Media sites like Facebook, Myspace and LinkedIn are becoming prominent figures on the internet.

As the web evolves, so must the web-marketer. By utilizing these incredibly effective tools that encompass Web 2.0 technologies for your internet marketing needs you are staying up to date with the latest innovations. When your potential prospects see that your business is adapting to “the way of the future” they are not only more likely to contact you (because you’ve made it infinitely easier for them to do so by listing yourself in Social Media venues) you are also setting the prospect’s mind at ease by ensuring them you’re keeping yourself up to date; especially if you’re in a web-related industry.

I often recommend that anyone seeking new business through the internet enlist in social media websites. Websites like Facebook and Myspace are predominately geared towards the younger generation (Myspace in particular). But there is a plethora of venues at your disposal, places like LinkedIn and Jigsaw are excellent ways for you identify yourself to your prosepcts. These venues are also excellent methods of increasing your web visiblity on both a business and personal level. Adding your company’s videos to YouTube will certainly get you more exposure. With millions of visitors a day, your video is likely to be seen on YouTube. The best part of all of these Web 2.0 mediums is that they’re complely free and easy to use.

I would rate my ability to cook and prepare foods at, well, lets say extreme novice. In a perfect world I would be able to “replicate” pizza in a little microwave sized cubby-hole like in Star Trek. Despite how many times I click my heels – it hasn’t happened yet; so I’m forced to order takeout day after day from the same four to five mundane mediocre restaurants. Luckily, I can do a quick Google search for pizza in my area and bam – the ever knowing Google gives me ten additional pizza places I haven’t sampled yet. Not only does it tell me there are other options to where I can eat, it shows me where they are, and how to order some delicious pizza by listing their phone number right at the top of Google. This great feature known as Google Local has revolutionized my dining habits. With Google Local anyone can list their business, their contact information, and the location of the business on the ever-so-convenient Google Maps; you can even display photos of the store-front to boot!

Google Local isn’t just for hungry lack-luster cooks looking for a quick meal. It can be utilized for anything. Any type of business can be listed in Google Local, even businesses that don’t have websites (like small pizza places!). Have a flat tire? Google will tell you where you can get a new one. Desperately trying to find a new place to get your hair cut because your old stylist just can’t quite make you look like Brad Pitt no matter how many times you show him Mr. Pitt’s picture in GQ? Google will provide you with a plethora of different places right in your area.

Better yet, you don’t have to spend dozens of hours reading, researching, and learning the latest web development languages to optimize your site for the search engines. You can get your business listed at the top of the first page in Google for free by utilizing this new and rather easy feature.

If you are considering optimizing your business’ website; start by listing yourself on Google Local. It’s fast, free and surprisingly easy. All that you need is a [free] Google account and a computer. Click Here to sign up and get listed at the top of Google and find that pizza place that will actually put hotdogs on your pizza.