Social networks are getting a lot of attention these days including Wikipedia, del.icio.us and MySpace. Along with the buzz, these sites are also generating a lot of traffic! How can you integrate links for these types of social network sites into your search engine marketing program? While there are an increasing number of social networks, this article will stick to the above as they are kings of their domains so to speak.

I recently had the opportunity to attend Search Engine Strategies in New York City this past February, 2006. While attending a session in regards to community marketing tactics using both Wikipedia and tagging, the panel asked the audience, “Who here knows what Wikipedia and tagging are?” less than half the room raised their hands.

Let me give you an overview of these concepts.

Wikipedia is a free community content driven encyclopedia. I have included an excerpt about Wikipedia from their about section:

“Begun in 2001, Wikipedia has rapidly grown into the largest reference website on the Internet. The content of Wikipedia is free, written collaboratively by people from all around the world. This website is a wiki, which means that anyone with access to an Internet-connected computer can edit, correct, or improve information throughout the encyclopedia, simply by clicking the edit this page link (with a few minor exceptions such as protected articles).”

Your benefits of using Wikipedia as an online marketing strategy are various. To begin with, your submitted content about your product or company may be very short and simple to begin with. As your content ages and more members view and contribute to your content with edit revisions, your content submission will grow and grow. For example, your submission may start out as a forty word brief that may turn into a multi-page article. Additionally, Wikipedia has a good Google Page Rank of 9 which will help boost your website’s PR with a quality backlink from your submitted content. Finally, using keywords that relate to your site in your contribution will assist you in controlling more space within the search engine results’ pages for your particular brand, product or name. For example, doing a Google Search for the term “Microsoft” returns a Wikipedia content entry about Microsoft in the tenth position of the Google SERP for “Microsoft”.

You should only submit content about a famous person, a patented product your company invented, a trademarked brand, famous places, etc. When you write your content you will want to write from an extremely neutral viewpoint. Don’t write all sorts of features and benefits; write more factual based information related to your subject. Your focus needs to be the community and not your subject. Tread lightly, the community is helpful to assist you in producing additional content, but be careful of keyword spamming and link spamming.

Although there are many benefits to using Wikipedia for SEM, there are also just as many caveats to using it. Submitting content to Wikipedia is a double-edged sword. You will only want to contribute to Wikipedia if your product or service is of relevance to the community. Using spammy techniques in your content or submitting an entry that has no real value such as “another affiliate website” could have the opposite of desired effect by producing negative feedback about your brand or product from the community.

Tagging on the other hand doesn’t have quite the negative drawbacks as posting to Wikipedia.

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site where members contribute links based on tags that anyone can search. I have included their about page found at del.icio.us/about below:

“What is del.icio.us?

del.icio.us is a collection of favorites – yours and everyone else’s. Use del.icio.us to:

o Keep links to your favorite articles, blogs, music, restaurant reviews, and more on del.icio.us and access them from any computer on the web.

o Share favorites with friends, family, and colleagues.

o Discover new things. Everything on del.icio.us is someone’s favorite – they’ve already done the work of finding it. Explore and enjoy.”

There are a few simple techniques for commercial tagging through community type sites such as del.icio.us: create bookmark worthy content or link bait, get your tags in front of the right people or choose the right category, give your created tags only one self generated bump in del.icio.us, rinse and repeat about once a month. Below is an excerpt from del.icio.us to help you answer what various parts of tags are:

Posts

When a user saves an item on del.icio.us, it is posted to the front page as well as the tag page for each chosen tag. A sample is below explaining the various information pieces:

Here is a del.icio.us example listing under the tag “web 2.0″
O’Reilly — What Is Web 2.0 save this
by Scottcard to web2.0 oreilly article reference … saved by 2938 other people.

You will first notice the title with the link to the site, next is an option to save the link to your tags. Secondly, you see a Username Scottcard. Here you can click the username to see Scottcard’s tags. Next you can click on the next links to see other related-sites within those tags. Lastly, you will see a highlighted link where you can view the members who have saved this site.

The good and the bad of tagging is that you will receive good quality backlinks to your site and increase visibility. The bad is that the majority of the time your tags will be removed from community members because the members are technically savvy and intolerant of any type of commercial push. Choose your keywords wisely and make sure your tag is in the right place and contributes to the community. Other tagging sites to consider are: Technorati and Digg. There are many others, but these are the ones that matter.

I see tagging or social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us gaining in popularity within the next three years as blogs did two years ago. Yahoo has already taken notice by purchasing del.icio.us and flickr. Digg and Furl are also making headway. Other sources to consider are the social network sites for developing a web2.0 SEM strategy.

MySpace is the current king of social networks, as it is literally a social-space network with 2.5 times more daily users than Google (psst, this is a huge untapped market). The domain dates back to 1999 where it was originally an online hard-drive of sorts. The current rendition took hold in 2003 making MySpace barely three years old. The main demographic is made up of teens to 20-somethings. The music industry is currently using MySpace as a marketing tool, not the labels themselves, but the bands. For example, Pearl Jam is announcing their upcoming release for May with sample songs and concert date announcements. One of their sample songs from their upcoming albums is one of the most played songs across the entire MySpace network. Independent film makers have also taken notice. In February 2006, amateur filmmaker David Lehre released a short film called MySpace: The Movie. This short film has quickly become a hit, registering over six million views following its release.

Benefiting from MySpace traffic is pretty straight forward. You will want to create a user profile and post links to your company or websites such as blogs, feeds, etc. Profile note, you can post html code in any field regarding your profile. Next, create your social pipeline of users and keep the demographic inline with any product or link you wish to shamelessly promote in the future. You don’t want to get spammy here either. The downside would be getting your user profile terminated from MySpace or members posting negative comments within your profile. Again, tread lightly by thinking neutral and keep the benefit of the community in mind.

The opportunity costs associated with community based SEM are very high. However, tagging in particular may be time prohibitive for most organizations as it requires a lot of trial and error. Tagging can seem like a waste of time as most tagging submissions will be removed by community members who find your submission “spammy”. Time spent on tagging isn’t a problem for most sole proprietors, but can be costly to your employer who is left with little equitable return to show for your time spent.

Utilizing Web2.0 sites such as Wikipedia, del.icio.us and MySpace, will prove effective for your business if done properly. Remember to tread lightly, don’t use “spammy” techniques and stay neutral keeping the benefit of the community at heart in your content development. Doing so will help your business to avoid a negative backlash toward your brand from the community you are developing content for.

Bill Younger writes for Elixir Systems, a full service search engine marketing company specializing in organic search engine optimization services, online public relations management and paid search or PPC management.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bill_Younger

Have you ever heard of Hubpages? You know I probably should have, but I had not heard of them until I happened to open up an email that looked intriguing and read about HubPages – hubbers and a whole range of interesting things.

So if you have heard of this phenomenon then your one step ahead of me on this one. If you haven’t let me explain what the rage is all about…

HubPages is an Internet community (web2.0) where users can publish content and gain information about specific subjects. It was first rolled out in 2006 and has been gaining popularity at quite a rapid rate.

As a matter of fact:

? HubPages has a Google Page Ranking of 6

? Google Loves HubPages – it is looked at as authoritative.

? HubPages has more than 56,000 links coming in from yahoo

? Alex Ranking is 220

What does this mean to you?

When you become part of the community on HubPages you will be able to increase the SEO standing on your websites and blogs by strategically placing back links to your online businesses.

You can also pump up your affiliate marketing revenues – and make extra money with AdSense…

But how, you may be asking?

You do it by going onto HubPages, registering and making Hubs of your own. Hubs are essentially articles on virtually anything you would like to write articles on. You can write articles on your interests, your business, your expertise…

I am sure you can see where I am going with this, in a marketing sense this is as good as gold, you are establishing yourself as the expert while gaining a following and linking back to your website – blogs and RSS Feeds…

This makes you a hubber, HubPages is user friendly, which is something I cannot say about a lot of the web2.0 sites I am looking into.

One of the unique things about HubPages is its ranking system. Each hub or article have a ranking between 0-100, hub scores and total number of hubs created are taken into account when the hubs are ranked.

Oh no, I can just hear you now, how can I write yet another article I have the answer !! You can recycle some of the articles you write in your blogs and make them into hubs, that will make your life a little easier and perhaps get the word out about you a little faster.

As a matter of fact, that is exactly what I have done on a few my hubs…

As with learning anything it is great to be able to look at the actual item and see what I am talking about below you will find a list of hubs I have really enjoyed, and may be profitable for you as well!

Sign-up you too can earn money take a look, go to http://www.hubpages.com my name on the site is Creating Wealth look me up and say hi!

The only online opportunity to associate with millions of potential customers is creating an effective website. In today’s business environment an effective and appropriate website design has a crucial role; website reflects the visual representation of a business. Therefore, it is quite important to build up your professional image in the online market.

Realizing the importance of designing a winning website, there are several web development companies that offer exclusive web designing services. However, with so many options available it is quite difficult to choose the right one. Whether your business delivers services for selling products, business applications etc for all of these you need to take assistance of professional and reliable web Development Company.

Some Benefits of professional web developers are been listed below-

? Professional firms develop the website in accordance with the latest online market trends; they take the overview of the content of your business and then set the designing into action.
? Adept website designing companies concentrate on developing the website which is search engine friendly and also congenial with the users and visitors.
? The website is developed with browser compatibility, in order to have varied resolution the website needs to support the browser.
? In order to create basic designs, there are several we-design programs. Use of basic templates for pages and limit the customization that can be done.
? Professional tools like NET, CSS, ASP, HTML, Java-script is utilized to design a website. Professional web Development Company applies all the latest development tools in order to build a credible website.
? Web development solutions are offered in a customized packaged deal, mostly the companies offer an affordable price range.
? Work that has been through a professional delivers assured precision, having an expertise of the work, they release all your worries and tension regarding the web development.

After the professional web designers are through with the process of designing, the web development companies go to the next level, which is known as web development. Web site design and development firms also deliver consultation services under the guidance of design specialists who works upon your project to get the best design. Adept graphic designers make use of their training, experience and skills and make sure the site is not only visually pleasing but also easy to navigate. Leading firms like ‘designgenies’ has developed an enviable image; they deal in affordable web development services.

Still there are some people who disregard the importance of an effective web design, well, it can just save their spending and efforts, but a great website design can make your business an evergreen profitable affair

The web applications are built for providing variety of solutions for a variety of businesses. The custom software applications make the business to be more dynamic and flexible that allows competition in the high performance business world. Custom Software Development is a practical approach to solve problems connected with Software development. Clients want their projects to be unique. Their ideas can be put into practice with the help of new technologies and approaches to solve all the related problems, and finding new creative solutions in order to meet the specific requirements. The preferences to client’s necessities and preferences is the key idea of custom web application development.

The process of custom web development involves planning strategically in advance for the project. There is the combination of domain expertise and the latest advanced technologies for developing effective applications. All the processes are streamlined to increase the operational efficiencies. All these methods reduce the deployment cycle time and cost and provide a faster rate of return. It gives special emphasis on scalable web application development. A scalable web application development can have room for the rapid business changes with ease in the future too.

A customized web application development resulting out of the vision of the client results in higher productivity with the information well managed in an effective manner. It leads to the reduction in the cost and smooth running of the business processes. The applications can be developed in multiple technologies like java, java script, ASP.NET, Python but the selection of the right technology keeping both the present and the future in mind is most important for developing customized applications. A well built application surely gives the client a winning edge over the competitors.

Using the very popular social networking platform to enhance your business is almost outright necessary. Where most people use the Internet to find information, now there are millions going online to use social networks. It is probably not far-fetched to believe, at some point, most people will be using the Internet to find out information by predominantly using social networks. So how important do you think social networking can be to your Internet marketing?

Successful marketers know to well the power of socializing online and the old school marketers are now using these networks to grow their business and income as well. It is more important than ever to brand yourself because regardless of what you are promoting and selling people want to know who they are buying from.

Here are 4 simple tips to succeed at Internet marketing through social networking:

1. Begin COMMUNICATING with customers and prospects so they can get to know you. Hiding behind your computer screen will not cut it anymore. Simply join the more popular networks and start making contact with people who can help your business grow and whose businesses you can help grow.

2. Provide QUALITY CONTENT so you can attract more people to your business and with the progression of technology there is very little you CANNOT do to get your content seen by hundreds, thousands if not millions of people.

3. Start HELPING people so you can get more exposure. If you are using the Internet to make money or provide your off line business a shot in the arm it is imperative you do not turn off people by being an overbearing salesperson.

4. SPREAD the right links to everyone. It is a lot easier to provide a link to a social network you belong to. A lot of people are already members and they use these networks consistently to connect with family and friends. Your blog and website links should be on your profile at the networks so it is not necessary to give it to people unless they ask for it.

If you are not using Twitter as part of your website’s comprehensive search engine optimization plan, this new social networking community could be the death of your business. As more and more search engine marketers integrate the use of Tweets into their SEO campaign, the need to develop an active presence on the site grows. Failure to learn and embrace this growing community could have catastrophic results for your site – and make your competitor’s day.

Using Twitter to climb the ranks of Google is surprising simple, despite the site’s much touted “no follow” links. While other marketers view these no follows as a show stopper, this little trick will allow you to unlock the power of Twitter in no time.

To use Twitter for SEO:

? Define your keywords and keyword phrases

? Use these phrases repeatedly in your Tweets (standard keyword density)

? Insert back links to your Twitter page using your other social bookmarking profiles, Web 2.0 pages and article marketing campaigns

By following these simple steps, you can ensure your Tweets will appear at the top of Google’s search page for your desired keywords. More and more search users (and news organizations) are turning to Twitter as a source of breaking news, opinions, attitudes and trends. When your Tweets come up on the front page of Google, you instantly appear as an authority in your field. Although the links will not feed directly to your website, the name exposure you receive through the increased traffic will trickle down and contribute to your overall SEO campaign.