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Social networking has become a huge source of traffic for business websites as much as the conventional traffic from search engines. So optimizing in social networking sites in the current situation will definitely increase your ROI that you are spending for your Internet marketing campaign. Several statistics in the period between 2010-2011 strongly claims that social networking marketing campaigns has generated almost 40 % of the revenue in comparison with search engine marketing campaigns. Facebook currently is the most powerful player in the social networking arena. Commercial business owners were able to retain their clients through continuous engagement with them on the business offers and latest deals. With this social networking sites client retention has become easier. Hence social media marketing now have become an integral part of any Internet marketing campaign. This is great news for business owners and marketers but for one firm and guess who? . Its none other than the search engine giant Google.

Google never may have expected that Facebook would emerge as its biggest nemesis in Internet marketing and search industry. Though Facebook need not be Google’s direct competitor, its started bothering Google from early 2009. Google sensed danger and came out with its own social networking website in 2011 known as the Google plus.
Lets us overview Google plus’ overview and its impact on SEO.

Features of Google plus:

Like Facebook, Google plus has all the basic features such as chat, adding comments to friends’ status updates, sharing photos and videos etc but in an enhanced manner. Additional features such as multiple videos chat have caught the attention of people who were starting to feel the monotony of Facebook.

But on having a closer look, Google plus is social networking product from a company who is the leader in search industry. So Google plus will definitely have some factors supporting SEO. The proof is when any business firm’s name is typed in Google, the Google plus page appears in search results. (It should have a Google plus page). In the near future Google may bring an algorithm update like engagement with Google plus may bring more favorable results in search rankings for businesses. And the above said factor provides a solid proof. So as a proactive approach, the Google plus profile pages should be optimized.

Title of the page:

The one major advantage of Google plus infact any social networking site is that the brand name of businesses can be established. Business owners can use their Firm name as the Title and Google plus itself recommend doing that. When your business network in Google plus grows the brand name gets registered strongly with the clients and retention becomes half done.

“Title is like a label and if it goes wrong everything will go wrong”.

Business Information:

Business owners can enter their business name and descriptions about their business in the name, about you and employment columns. There is a 160-character limit and hence the business descriptions should be crisp and information rich. They should be in such a way that the whole crux of your information should be covered within that. Incase of personal profiles restrictions can be done but case of businesses make sure they are public.

The Midas touch In Google plus:

Google always has the habit of doing things that will literally stun anyone on the planet. And in Google plus, Google has brought in its core factor of “dofollow” straight into the picture. All the text, names and business are dofollow and the get indexed in search engines especially in Google. So keyword rich (anchor text) can be added in the business info and it will make difference in both organic SEO and SMM. And again, they should be done in a polished manner so that your profile does not become an awkward one to view at.

Compendium

Overall Google plus has emerged as a great platform for internet marketers and the combination of conventional SEM and Google plus will be great combination of business development and stabilizing it respectively. Also, Google plus is brand new to the picture and as the time goes by we can expect more from Google.

A paradigm shift
In the famous words of Thomas L Friedman – the world is flat. Business and commerce globally has seen a paradigm shift with the advent of global networking metaphorically represented by the internet. The use of social networking is characteristic of this shift which has taken the world by storm with sites like Facebook and Twitter becoming the modern day lexicon.

Managing perceptions
Business today depends far more on modern methods like social networking to reach and service its customers. From firms to film stars – it is now common practice to interact with your target audience for getting a feel about what they think about you, and propagate your thoughts and views on them. But mere conversation is not enough. It is imperative that you selectively leverage your interaction with the target audience to make a perceptible yet subtle change in the way you are perceived. Take the case of what Comcast has done on Twitter. Without making any significant change in the way they service their customers, they have been able to make a change in the way their clients perceive them.

Selecting what works
Social networking is more predominant among young ITES organizations, yet conventional manufacturing organizations have also tried to delve into its business benefits. These firms sometimes experiment internally with their business associates through tested options like SharePoint or Web 2.0. This has seen the genesis of a collaborative approach towards innovation on the web. The most revolutionary use of this approach has been the development and use of Linux as a freeware. The choice is yours – see what benefits you most.

Core business benefits
You can create and improve your brand image online through social networking. For e.g. in Facebook, you can create a pointer to your website which provides promotional data and introduces clients to your client or website. Similarly, in LinkedIn, you could put up a showcase event or roadshow which your company is sponsoring. Even in audio visual networking sites like YouTube, you could upload a video showing an award your company has won or a prominent speaker delivering an address at a marquee event supported by your organization. The options are seemingly boundless.

In a time and age where b2b and b2c opportunities are endless, social networking is a vital cog in the wheel of corporate brand building, managing stakeholder perceptions and attracting & retaining clients. But given the intellectual property driven business realities, it would be wise to take time to decide the path you would be most comfortable with. So choose wisely and enjoy the plethora of benefits which social networking can bestow on your business.

The difference between an ethical and unethical SEO company quite literally is the difference between your website being rewarded with top placement by the top search engines – or possibly being banned by those very same engines. Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it? Well, it is.

To those who have never had their websites’ positioning in top search engines “punished” due to unethical SEO practices, you’re just in time. You’re in much better shape than those who have been victimized by unscrupulous SEO companies that will do anything to get their business – and anything to achieve top results – even if it means violating the major search engines’ acceptable use guidelines. Such methods are known as “black hat” in the SEO universe, and the top search engines rarely give second chances when such practices are employed. Pleading ignorance rarely works, as you, ultimately made the decision to employ such a company. It’s your website after all, right?

How Do I Know If My SEO Company Is Legit?

It’s imperative to screen your prospective SEO partner carefully, check references, confirm physical address and phone number and use any other means to verify credibility. While this still is not 100% foolproof, your chances of falling victim to the “quick strike and run” companies are greatly reduced. How can you further improve your chances of finding an ethical SEO company?

1. Ask questions. While “successful” SEO companies rarely give away the ingredients to their “secret sauce” (and understandably so), they should be able to answer general questions – without hesitation – about their practices. Here’s what we tell our clients: “We use only white-hat SEO techniques, primarily because we’re ethical, but secondarily, because we want you to be our client for years to come. The easiest way to lose clients is to ‘cheat,’ using bait-and-switch techniques or irrelevant content and inbound links to obtain quick results that will “impress” the engines for a few months – only to drop your site like a hot potato because the methods utilized have violated the engines’ acceptable terms of use.
2. Beware of “Guarantees.” In the world of organic SEO, there is no such thing as a guarantee. We don’t own the search engines – so how can we tell you how they will treat your website? How can 10 different companies “guarantee” their clients top placement under the same search term? Sure, we feel very strongly about our methods, but we’d never profess to “speak on behalf” of Google, Yahoo! or Bing. We can; however, assure you that we will do whatever we can, within the acceptable guidelines of “white-hat SEO” to provide the search engines with highly relevant content specific to your website. We can also show you what we’ve done for others, and invite you to speak directly with our clients for an unbiased testimonial of our services. Don’t just take our word for it!
3. Delete “anonymous” emails. Many of our clients receive dozens of emails weekly from “SEO experts” who guarantee No. 1 results. Well, we’ve already discussed “guarantees.” Now it’s time to consider the source and ask yourself more questions:

• If this company is so strong in organic SEO, why does it need to solicit me by email?
• Why is there no phone number?
• Why is there no company name?
• Why is this “expert” sending me an email from a “free” email platform (Gmail, Yahoo, MSN, etc.?) instead of a corporate email?
• How did this person find me? (Many times, it’s because you’re at least moderately positioned in Google already!)

“Cheap” Is Expensive

So many of our clients have fallen victim to the many email scams out there, as touched upon above. Unfortunately, such companies give our industry a bad name, and thousands of dollars – or even tens of thousands of dollars – are lost before clients come to us. If you want quality, LASTING organic SEO, accept the fact that there are no shortcuts and that you usually get exactly what you pay for. Cliché as it sounds, if it sounds too good to be true… It is!

Employing an ethical SEO company like Macronimous to help get you to the top – and keep you there – is the right move not only for companies that have been snake bitten by scammers, but first-timers who want to get it done right the first time. Call or contact us today to see what we’ve done for others – and more importantly, what we can do for you!

Like any other year for a web development company, 2010 went with lot of learning. Not even a single day left without the impact of technology advancements and new techniques to learn. At Macronimous, we always try to let our clients know what we learnt: jQuery/HTML 5 instead of Flash, Ajax driven forms, Mobile and Tablet interfaces for websites, Security for WordPress blogs & sites and social networking integration are some of the key considerations for improving the deliverables. Few things were challenging and few attempts didn’t turned up well. At the end of the year, it’s a summary of things will help any business to focus or rethink to make 2011 better for us and most importantly for our clients.

1. Social Marketing: Facebook and twitter will rule next year (or next few years too). Every SEO company which helps their client to succeed online, should help them by letting them to consider these technology giants, which might take them to next level. Social media optimization will not replace Search Engine Optimization, but social media optimization should go in parallel with SEO.

2. Cloud applications and hosting: We started using invoice applications first (Freshbooks) and it ended up with cloud hosting. We moved our sites to cloud. Also helped clients to taste the flour of clouds. Web hosting with Amazon web services was a very different service we offered to our clients. Setting up their sites and web applications with EC2 were initially needed some learning with Amazon, but it became an expert service at the year end. In 2011 we will be providing setting up applications in cloud as a key service.

3. Social Media integration: We learnt FBML, Facebook SDK with PHP and started offering business pages and applications with Facebook , which will continue next year. Marketing those pages is another fruit to reap. Similarly Facebook Like button integration and Twitter API integrations are two important promotional services clients will require in 2011.

4. Blogging: Is blogging dead? No, it has come out in different format. Twits and Facebook status updates are micro blogging and People who do not want to write much, or those who like to share instantly use them. But, still business blogging isn’t dead. Macronimous helped serveral clients to start blogging. WordPress helped us much. We provide SEO friendly WordPress blogs by adding SEO plugins and basic SEO readiness setup as a mandatory feature along with every blogs.

5. Search Engine friendly coding: SEO readiness is no more a value addition. Every site we develop should be ready to for Search Engines. It begins with light weight coding and ends with Keyword setup. Making dynamic sites such as CMS driven content, ECommerce sites and Flash sites with PHP and .NET are offered by us as an expert SEO service.

6. HTML5 for Flash: We started offering HTML5 based presentations and sites. Flash was replaced by jQuery for many clients and they were happy too. By 2011, HTML 5 should be the standard, and Flash will move for interactive applications. The test results made at RWW in March 2010 was an eye opener. With full fledged CSS3 and HTML5, easy to create interactive web applications without Flash should be feasible.

7. Rich Internet Application – Flex was used much in few projects this year. We look forward to work on RIA based frameworks, such as Sencha.

8. PHP Frameworks: We used Codeigniter very much. But MVC is still not very popular, and framework based applications are relatively lower then non MVC based solutions like WordPress etc.

9. Smartphone and Tablet applications: We did much with iPhones this year (including 2011 World Cup Cricket app), moving to iPads. Android development for Smartphones and tablets will be our important strategy for 2011. By the end of this year, we see more Tablets, and thanks to iPad, which regenerated the new platform of business. Building portable applications for the mobile and tablet browsers is another channel. By providing mobile friendly websites we help clients become accessible everywhere. Sencha Touch nd dhtmlx’s JavaScript mobile UI APIs will be a part of the development in 2011.

10. Security for Opensource applications: Many of us believe that Opensource application based development cost is almost nil. This is a lie. The initial cost of a WordPress or Joomla based application/site development might be relatively lower than a closed, custom application development. But the real cost of ownership is affected by the security issues that comes with the Open standards, mainly when they are affected by Security attacks. We will work hardly on providing secure web applications when we develop them with open source in 2011. Even at this year end we have an important announcement with a  major security fix from WordPress.

11. Remote project management: Managing projects across the globe was a real challenge a decade ago. Using standards and web based project management tools we provide hassle free project management. Tools like Basecamp, dotproject and Eventum helped us much, and we are working with few cloud based PM and collaboration tools, github etc. Apart from this our agile based PM methods have had some customization. Part of that is a project closure questionnaire.

Overall, many easy and hard ways of learning helped our team to build the next year strategy very much. Leave your comments if you had such learnings to share with others. Looking forward to another technologically challenging year which helps us to help our clients.

Dilbert stripe: © Dilbert.com

Our popular E-Book Practical Search Engine optimization techniques is launched for the iPod Touch/iPhones. You can carry this simple iBook  in your iPhones and use it as quick reference. Its available at iTunes to download now.

Twitter, one of the top free social messaging and micro-blogging site, which helps users send and read text-based posts, is also known as tweets. In twitter, text-based posts are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have registered themselves to receive them.

Not only can users obtain updates through the Twitter website, but they can also get information through RSS feeds, emails that are sent and replied by third party companies; through SMS for users from the US, Canada, the UK and India. The UK number caters to the international audience. Also, applications like TwitterFon, Twitterrific, Feedalizr or Facebook are also available to circulate the updates.

Am sure you would want to promote your business site or blog among 3 million users and more

Start registering at twitter.com and add a link to your profile page from your website or blog. Initially you need to perform some ground work like adding your twitter profile page to some top blog post giving some valuable comments, also follow users related to your field. Once users notice your twitter profile page, several users will automatically follow you.

Also the search engines easily index Twitter status pages, and we can see many of them have been getting good Google Page Ranks individually.

In addition, the user pages in Twitter are created as subdirectories, for example twitter.com/username. When seen from the SEO point of view, the sub domains are handled as separate sites altogether, but the subfolders are processed as a component of the original domains itself. This way we get SEO benefits of Twitter to its sub folders that also include the tweets and the user status pages!

Each time I post a link on my Twitter status page, all my followers’ and friends pages get to display that link too. Also statuses links can be found in blog were they use my tweets; by this I get thousands of new inbound links and clicks towards the link I just posted.

So start building natural links through twitter and drive traffic to your website without straining too much

Also feel free to follow us @Macronimous through the TwitterCounter click

What is Social bookmarking? It’s an easy way to save and share the websites/pages you like, with tags, for better classifications, so that you can revisit them easily. You can also share the URLs you like with your friends, site visitors and networks.

Unlike your browser-based book marking, social bookmarking sites help your sites, resources and blogs to reach more, in social media; be it people, group or network of similar interest. This is another way to increase your web page popularity.

Why do we call Social Bookmarking as a tool for SEO and how it helps SEO: When visitors search for information in search engines using keyword phrases and find your site in Google, Yahoo or MSN, if they find the information in your site to be useful, they pass it over to their friends, by bookmarking your site.

Here is a simple tool, which helps you create a social bookmarking button of your own http://www.toprankblog.com/tools/social-bookmarks/ 

Do you think this acts as a tool for SEO? Definitely! Bookmarking the searched pages will bring back the new visitor again as returning visitors and there is a possibility for the searched pages to get popular in your network as well as your friends network to people with similar interest.

So go ahead! Start social bookmarking with this blog

Also feel free to download our Practical SEO Techniques EBook

Here is a video I like about social bookmarking practices and thought of sharing for those who don’t like to spend more time in reading long articles about social Bookmarking and more interested in straight to the point

This video demonstrates explains how effective and easy social bookmarking practices are and comparatively you will know how much it is been complicated when it’s been explained in texts as articles or blog posts

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x66lV7GOcNU