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Move on to any social media or networking website and you would surely find that some people are always available there and some of them are hyper active. In fact, you would surely meet some social media optimizers or marketers out there.

Is it really worth hiring a social media optimizer or marketer to promote your site or blog out there?

Does it sound like a silly question? I understand - today, it is like asking if you should hire a SEO expert to optimize your site or not!

But the answer may not be so simple. Let’s take a look:

Would you hire just any public relation company or executive to manage or sustain your brand name or identity? If your answer is no, why do you think that any social media marketer would be good enough to promote your business!

A public relation group is hyperactive when your brand is in big soup - the same thing does not happen with a social media marketer. As a part of their responsibility, most of them represent your website in different social networks throughout the year.

They actually become your company’s face to the public. Are you keeping any track of their activity? Did you consider the point if that person is qualified enough in your domain? If he or she is just a marketer, they might not be able to properly communicate with other people in your niche. It is like employing a literature student to answer forum questions on Google’s Algorithm (search - find - rephrase - answer = cool model and good money!!).

What to look for in a social media marketer and optimizer?

1. Domain expertise: he or she must know about the product and the industry.
2. Name as an expert: If he or she has a name in your niche as a resource person, he would just be a great marketer. I think he has got some marketing skill.
3. Overall web presence: A blogger in your niche can be the best social media marketer (provided, he has enough experience in social media). You can also find out if he or she participates in different forums in your niche or not. Take advantage of his or her social presence - that’s why you are paying him.
4. Social media optimization does not mean adding a few bookmarking buttons in each page. What else do they offer?
5. DIY - yes - you can do it yourself. If things seem too much time consuming, just select one or two niche networks and spend at least half an hour everyday. But don’t forget to learn the art and science of better communication.
6. Experience: Do I really need to write anything on this point!

Did I miss something? Why don’t you write a comment?

Whenever, someone talks about web 2.0, the very next term they use is ‘social media marketing’. And it is so fashionable in these days that everyone just jumps into it. And most commonly people think that “social media marketing” means simply adding up as many bookmarking buttons as you can along with adding up as many people as you can in your social network friend list.

To the most they take the pain to send a common message to everyone like “you have a very interesting and informative blog. Please visit my blog/site too; thanks”. I have received this message a lot of times just like you in mybloglog or blogcatalog.

And if you talk about Twitter (undoubtedly a very powerful networking site) you would get lots of followers even if you do not update your account at all.

I talked to one of the self declared social media marketer and he said, “at least you get a chance to be visited by a fellow blogger who may like your content and …”! Does it really make sense?

Mindless promotion is simply mindless promotion - no excuse is enough to support your cause behind such mindless and senseless promotion (or should I say spamming!).

First thing first - ask yourself, if your business or your client’s business is ready for social media marketing or not!

The very next and most obvious question is “which are the parameters to decide if a website is ‘social network ready’ or not”!

This is undoubtedly a very complex situation. Here are some simple questions that may help you to understand some parts of it:

1. Who are you?
2. Do you provide a platform for interaction?
3. Do you have something interesting for people to talk about?
4. Is your target market roaming in a specific social network?

These four questions, to the most, may show you the tip of the iceberg only - you must delve deep into it to find an answer.

Things to remember:

1. You are dealing with real people and it is always safe to put your best feet forward. These people have their voice and ground to talk about you - so, be careful. You are lucky, if they just ignore you.
2. Do not jump into social media marketing unless you are ready for it.
3. No product is for everyone - find out your niche and their den and then be one of them before you start promoting your product.

The most common link building strategy employed by most of the seo companies is to add a few resources or links page and rush out in the web to find opportunities for reciprocal link building. To the most they develop a few complimentary websites and go for ‘three way’ or ‘four way’ link building.

However, try to think about it from a different perspective. When you are using your mother site for link building (in case of two way reciprocal linking), aren’t you putting your website’s future at stake? Don’t you think search engines have all the rights to penalize your site? It is not always possible for you to monitor the neighbors you are creating in this process.

The second way, where webmasters are using complimentary websites for three way or four way link building, is a bit secured. At least, you do not put your mother site’s future directly at stake. However, there is always a chance that smart search engines like Google would track a linking pattern. But it is still more secured than reciprocal link building. At the same to, you would need to spend a lot of time to develop the complimentary websites and gain some PR.

You would even find some webmasters who solely depend on article marketing to improve search engine ranking. They submit articles to different directories and if these articles are good enough they get syndicated by other websites. However, if you track the progress of an article marketing campaign, you would see that, the syndicators do not always link to your website directly. On the contrary, they link to the article directory as the source of the article. To add to this, they often strike out any link embedded in the body of the article. Thus you do not get full value of article syndication. To add to this, you would hardly find more than 15 to 20 article directories worth submitting. And the best of them do not allow you to put a link inside the article body. So, what is the value? And, as far as my experience goes, one link from one domain is good enough and thus there is hardly any need to publish more than one article in a directory.

In all these situations, you actually end up in a breakeven status - 1:1.

Let’s rethink our link building strategy - can we be more strategic in our link building effort! What should be an ideal link building strategy where the ROI would be more than 1:1!

For example, a successful link bait or networking offers better ROI. But you cannot say for sure that at least 1 out of 5 link baits would be successful.

What else?

Webmasters often (or always?) say that I need more visitors - how to get that?

Bloggers often (or always?) say that I need more visitors - how to get that?

Say for example, in one fine day I offer you 500% extra visitors - what would you do with them? What would be your net result? Are you sure that you would be able to retain them for a long time? And more importantly, does more traffic mean more business (unless AdSense is the only source of your income)! Do you really have any plan about how you can earn from this huge rush?

Lets talk about Fred - the new (or old!) you tube superhero. His video has already got 3,464,006 views, 27,144 ratings and 26,789 comments. And Fred is not a one show wonder. Almost all his videos have become super hits - at least in respect to visits, votes and comments.

But does it really fulfill any goal for Fred? Perhaps, it does - He has already grown into a really BIG mini star. But is YouTube is smart enough to cash in on Fred? And it is not that Fred has done great for a single video - he is doing great in all the videos with around 250,000 subscribers to his channel (a lot of TV channels have less amount of regular subscribers).

May be the geeks have their own views on this issue, but it does point out a few things very clearly -

1.    You can gain a lot from word of mouth publicity.

2.    Quality content (in any form) is important to keep the subscriber’s base growing.

3.    _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ (fill in the blanks…. if you wish)
But there is another point - Do you really think that Fred would have done great if he did not publish his video on YouTube (platform)? Do you really think that he would have received similar response if he had published his videos in his own website in a distinct corner of the internet?

But now, as Fred has become a mini celebrity, perhaps it is time for him to start his own channel - the time is ready for him to get into business.

Is there anyone ready to sign him up for a real venture?

While working with different clients, the primary obstacle we face is that the client is too confident about the greatness of his content and do not want to change it at any cost. The second scenario is even worst; the client does not have enough time or resources and asks a freelance content writer to write the content for $2/page around some keywords.

In both the cases, the website stumbles on the ground even before the race actually started. Only if someone had given enough importance to the content they are publishing, they would have saved a lot of money and time while promoting the website in the market.

Why should you always think about Google - after all, Google won’t buy your product - if your content cannot please your target visitors, you reach nowhere. And ultimately, Google will stop sending visitors to your website. And at this point, you loose business, time and effort you have invested to rank top and more importantly you loose energy.  But if you can win your visitors, search engines will be happy to send them to your site.

And, right after developing the website, people start moving around for links and more links and more links. They start knocking every possible contact us page to get some quality one way link. But they forget to develop the content or quality of their pages.

Why would someone like to link to you for free, if you do not have any quality? A great design, to the most, may fetch you a best design award but it won’t improve your ranking for targeted keywords.

If you are running a business (irrespective of size and market segment) and starting a website to host or promote your business that means, you are well aware of the domain you are dealing. If this is true, participate in the development process and try to help the visitors - search engines will follow you.

And just answer a simple question - what would you have done if there had been no Google or Yahoo to guide the visitors to a website! What would have been your business development model in such a situation?

There had been a lot of discussions in different forums, groups and blogs on the issue if site wide links are good or not from search engine’s perspective. Same thing happened in case of paid links.

However, a lot of webmasters restrained them from going out for site-wide links.

But think about it from a different perspective - Would you buy a painting by Picasso unless it is signed by him! Or, do you think that a painter would leave the opportunity to sign a masterpiece!

If you are a web designer or contributed to develop or promote a website, what is wrong in getting a link from them? It is important for your branding - not just for the link value. If Google says ‘no’ - it must think twice.

At the same time I would like to say there are also a lot of sayings that you must get links from related websites. Now, tell me another thing - which websites fall under the category of similar websites for a web designing company or a web development company or a web marketing company or a seo company!

They can simply move forward and try to get links from any domain (even P 0 R N - if you design those websites). However, before you start getting such links think twice if your business domain support such a wide category - just try to establish a logical relation and move ahead?

But does this mean that site-wide link is good?

In my opinion, one link from one domain is good enough - simply enough. Don’t put the link on the common template.

But, if all your incoming links are site wide links, this is not a good or healthy sign. This actually develops a pattern - if you are a good website, you would get natural links from different websites - content based, forum posts etc. You must create a versatile link jungle. The same rule applies to reciprocal link building too.

And I can show you many SEO or web designing websites who are ranking high for different competitive keywords and they have huge pull of site-wide links (they have other links too).

And the last point - do not use the word “website design by NBB” in all the websites as anchor text - this is spam. And if Google thinks you are spamming, you have nothing to complain.

Ok, there is no point in denying that like a lot of other people out there, I am a big fan of Seth Godin. And I just like to follow what he is writing or how he is packaging his products or how he is selling himself.

In my last post [writing a blog post] I was talking about Squidoo. Lets complete that discussion. What do you find the most interesting thing in Squidoo?

I asked this question to some fellow content writers and web designers. And as expected, there were two answers - “emphasis on user generated content” and the other is “simple design”. Do you want to add anything to it?

Ok, here are my observations on Squidoo:

1. The most stunning thing about Squidoo is its navigation - it does not have traditional navigational pattern like - home | submit article | Contact Us | About Us | etc. And this is the section, where Seth has left Hub Pages miles behind. In Squidoo, you have just a drop down image that is inviting you to ‘build your own’ lens.

What webmasters generally does when they start such a website? Just take a look at any other article directory and you will have the answer. We would have definitely kept a common navigation bar for the reason that, the users may not be as much web savvy as we are and may face problems to use the site.

What does this mean? We are actually giving them the freedom to move around as they wish. And Seth (may be with his team) is guiding the visitor through the process of creating a lens. And, undoubtedly, it takes lots of courage to take such a drastic step when you are dealing with general people and Seth has successfully done the job.

2. Another most important aspect of Squidoo is its use of language. All through the process, the website is more playful than serious and he is selling it every time.

3. And the idea itself is great - a one page blog on anything with as many link as you want.

There are lots of other issues that you may notice in Squidoo. And this is what I call Web 2.0.

By the way, did you click on Seth’s Head in his blog? What do you call it? Just a design or idea branding?

Subscriber lists can help in any online marketing campaigns because you can send promotional materials direct to your target audience’s mailbox. You don’t need to worry about the technical aspects of putting the subscription form in your website either because e-mail management service providers will provide the necessary HTML for this. So you just need to focus on its marketing aspect.

Aside from search engine optimization which will enable visitors to find your site, you also need to focus on promoting your subscription form on your website itself? But how will you do this? Well, simple marketing tactics such as putting the subscription form where readers can see it will surely help. Most of the successful placements I observed had the subscription form placed at the upper right corner of their home page.

On the other hand, giving free stuff for subscription always works. Because the internet is all about information, you can use information as your leverage. For example, in order to get access to a free e-book or whitepaper, the reader must first subscribe to your newsletter. This has been proven to be effective time and again and in fact, I have been “forced” to subscribe to several newsletters myself because of this.

You can also explore offline methods such as joining conventions and exhibits. This will definitely give you a competitive edge because people generally trust blogs and websites that they have personally encountered offline as well.

Email marketing involves sending out bulk emails to subscribers. While this sound like a great concept, there are actually problems you will encounter in e-mail delivery. In the past, ISPs are the key factor because it scans the email for content but nowadays, reputation has become the most essential factor. Take note though that “reputation” is a combination of many factors including recipient reputation and ISP reputation.

·         Recipient reputation – this is your track record with the subscribers. You need to send out relevant and timely content at the right frequency to the identifiable subscriber.

·         ISP reputation – this is your tract record in sending emails to live and accurate email addresses. The “from” address as well as the IP address needs to be consistent; the content you send out should be also opened by the intended recipients. 

Here are some tips for you to improve the inbox delivery rate:

1. Send content that will build your reputation – that means you need to send out only information that are relevant to their needs because otherwise they will view your emails as irrelevant; this can damage your reputation.

2. Don’t send unnecessary emails – when subscribers get too many emails in a short period of time from your company, they will no longer open most of them. ISPs such as Gmail, Yahoo, and MSN can detect open rates as well as click-through rates; your ISP reputation can be damaged if these emails are not opened.

3. Use feedback loops – this will let you instantly unsubscribe the recipients who tagged your mails as spam messages.

4. Remove recipients with “hard bounces” – it hurts your ISP reputation if you frequently send emails to “bad” email addresses.

5. Woo back the subscribers – use attention-grabbing subject lines and offer special promotions or discounts. Your open and click-through rates will improve; likewise, your emails will no longer be tagged as spam.

There is no sure-fire formula to achieve online success. This is because one tactic that might work for one company may not necessarily work for yours. A lot of web owners find their luck through sheer trial and error because even though you might receive some great tips from internet marketing gurus, not everything will work. Success can come by testing different techniques and strategies until you find the formula that is perfect for your business. So here are some tactics that just might work out for you:

Offer several products on your home page – a lot of websites feature a single product on their websites; usually, this is their core product and their best-sellers. Focusing on one product may actually work but you might also want experiment by including several products on your main page with product descriptions and images. It is recommended for you to keep the products you display within a single product line to keep the visitor’s focus on your core business.

Hover Ads – pop-ups used to be the “in” thing several years ago. That is, until internet users began to thoroughly dislike them and a lot of pop-up blockers appeared on the market. However, no one can deny that pop-ups were actually effective promotional tool for some time. I won’t be recommending the use of pop-ups though; instead, you might want to try out hover ads. They look like pop-ups but actually isn’t; a lot of marketers already enjoyed increased subscription and sales because of its use.

Reposition the opt-in box – the position of your opt-in mailing list box is very important. You need to place this tool at a prominent space on your home page. It is recommended for you to put it somewhere on the top of your site if you haven’t done so already. It can lead to a substantial increase of subscribers which can translate into sales later on.