Archive for the ‘Social Networking and Search Engine Optimization’ Category

Boost The Social Side Of Your Site

If you haven’t noticed the popularity of social sites on the net, you’re either very busy or dead. Social media sites have been popping up in greater numbers all over the net over the last decade, and the more successful sites have been attracting participants in greater and greater numbers. There’s no way that the average site can compete with sites like Facebook, but the average site can certainly learn from social media.

One of the things that social media sites have brought to prominence is the strength that social influence has on the net. Basically, if something is shown to be popular, it is popular. This may sound like circular logic, but it’s not. Being seen to be popular is an entirely different thing to actually being popular. This is something that can seriously affect your site.

For example, say your site attracts traffic in the tens of thousands in a day, but you haven’t done any off-page campaigning to show this. Anyone visiting your site will be able to perceive it for the quality site it is, but they won’t be able to detect that it’s a huge hit just by looking at it. That is, unless you leave them signs that allow them to detect your popularity.

Here are just some ways you can demonstrate your site’s popularity:

*Traffic stats: The most obvious way to show your popularity is to publish your traffic statistics. Usually it takes a big traffic count to impress.

*Subscriber count: This is a more meaningful statistic, as it reveals people who are willing to link themselves to your business. There are some extremely attractive subscriber count plugins that you can easily slip in to your pages.

*Members online count: This demonstrates that not only do you have subscribers or members, but they are active. Internet users are aware that people join sites and immediately abandon them. Proving that your membership is active shows you are currently popular.

*Social bookmarks: Being Dugg, Sphinned, etc, is a sure sign that your pages are popular. Social bookmarking takes a little extra effort to gather, and it’s a good idea to consider a separate social bookmarking campaign.

*Comments: This is a very solid sign of popularity, but it can be a little more difficult to fake. While people are easily impressed by solid numbers, it takes a significant number of comments to establish your popularity. It can be difficult to get your site users to comment, but doing things like publishing a ‘comment of the week’ encourages users to participate. You can talk to us at SEO Consult about encouraging comments on your site.

*Awards and membership badges: There’s nothing like an award to show the approval of your industry. Membership of a club is also a sign of acceptance by others. If you’ve got these things, use them.

Showing signs of popularity is important for SEO because it attracts return traffic and, more importantly, inbound links. Everyone wants to link to people who are popular. Demonstrating your popularity can have a big impact on your off-page search engine optimisation.

How To Appeal on Digg

If your site’s content has been Dugg, there’s a big chance that your traffic rates have skyrocketed. This social media bookmarking site has been around for a while, and its influence hasn’t really abated. If you want your content to travel further than your pages, you need to know how to make your site’s content appeal to Digg users.

Knowing what it takes to be Dugg is a part of social media optimisation, and it’s a good idea to discuss it with your search engine optimisation firm. You can consult our experts at SEO Consult about SMO. There are some basic tips that may well come in handy if you want to attract the attention of Digg’s user base:

• Feature Digg buttons on your pages. It’s a basic step, but it needs to be taken

• Become a top Digg user. This is a difficult suggestion to follow through on. Having a top Digg user on side is a huge bonus, and it’s worth courting one if you can’t become one yourself. The way in which the ranking of the user affects the articles they Digg is far from understood. What is clear is that it has some effect on the positioning of the article on Digg’s home pages. This relationship was once a little clearer as Digg displayed the ranking of its top users, but this was perceived as a threat to Digg’s integrity and the system was changed. Now, you’ll have a little more trouble calculating the clout of individual Digg users, but clout does still count for something

• Choose the right topic. There are many unknowns about Digg. One thing that is easy to know is exactly what is popular with Digg users. Digg’s users are mainly tech types, and technical information has been the most successful on Digg’s pages since forever. A second category is weird stuff, which is a little harder to define but just as popular. It can pay to make regular checks on Digg’s most popular topics and make note of trends as they come up

• Form a list. Lists are hugely popular on Digg, which is one of the reasons they’re such a favourite of the SEO community. Digg’s home pages have been plastered with lists from just about day one. It is thought that lists appeal because they are, in a way, guaranteed content. Users know simply from the title that there are going to be a certain number of tips, and that reading the article will take a specific amount of time. This has massive appeal for the time-pressured internet user

• Keep it short. To judge from the articles that appear top in Digg’s listings, one thing Digg users seem to hate is clicking through lengthy articles. Most Digg users don’t spend a lot of time on a page while assessing whether it should be Dugg or not. Make it easier for them by keeping everything nice and short

• Talk about Digg. Digg users love to talk Digg, and mentioning the site makes them feel more at home