Twitter is expected to be one of the only social networking sites to have long term viability.  Twitter usage and name recognition has been growing in leaps and bounds.  Many are using Twitter not just to stay connected, but to market as well.  So how do you maximize your Twitter?

Get an active Twitter account.

Yes it sounds basic, and you may already have one, but don’t just breeze past this section.  We have some interesting tips to help you maximize your usage.

For those of you just getting started, open your account at http://twiter.com/signup. Once you have the registration form complete, connect with as many people as you can. They make it easy by allowing you to search your email lists (see below for more information).  Customize your profile to show your main website and your, or your company’s, bio information. Don’t forget to set your location, update preferences and how you want to be notified of friends who have joined the Twitter revolution.

Draw attention with a customized background.

Get creative here. Simply click on “Settings” and then “Design” to choose a premade background or upload your own image.  If you have a flair for design and a little Photoshop experience you can create a background that speaks volumes about you and your company.  Check out some great custom layouts like:

http://twitter.com/JetBlue

http://twitter.com/BBCClick

http://twitter.com/MarthaStewart

Gather friends and follow interesting people and organizations

Finding friends on Twitter is easy. Three options are available.

1.      Search Twitter.  Use the “Find People” function to search for anyone from your next door neighbor to celebrities to companies.

2.      Search other networks.  Connect to anyone in your email contact list. Twitter can search through your hotmail.com, Gmail, Yahoo mail or AOL mail contact lists and if your friends use Twitter they can be added to your list.

3.      Manual invites.  Have friends, co-workers or clients who are not on Twitter? Manually input their email addresses and invite them to be your friend.

Connect your blog to Twitter

One of the best tools to connect Twitter and your blog was created by Alex King.  This plug-in will automatically create micro blogs from your WordPress blog posts. Just follow this link for all the information

http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress

to download this plug-in click here

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/share-this/share-this.2.3.zip

If you blog regularly, be sure to review the instructions and support information.

Monitor your Twitter Rank

Twitter offers the Twitter Grader (http://twitter.grader.com) to show you where you rank against other Twitter members.  Once you enter your user name, you will see where you rank among a possible 100 points. 

Twitter Grading is based on overall rank, number of followers, your following and updates.  The more active you are the higher you will rank.

Link your Twitter account to social bookmarking sites.

If you are in the Twitter game, be in it to win it.  Build up your social networking account by bookmarking your Twitter account to sites such as Digg.com, Propeller.com, Dropjack.com and others.

Take advantage of advanced search features on Twitter

To really maximize your connection with people in your target market, go to http://search.twitter.com/advanced to use the Advanced Search features Twitter offers.  In Advanced Search you can search by keywords or phrases, location, names and more.

Resist the urge to connect with everyone you see.  Be choosy and select only the best people who actually have good information to share and are likely to accept your friend request.

As you take these steps to maximize your Twitter impact, you will see your social status rise.  As with any adventure, the more you keep at it the better the result

We’ve all done things in our lives we regret. Unfortunately, in today’s day and age, those things are often found on the internet, available to potential employers, schools and any other person who enters our life.  So can you protect your online reputation by having those pages removed from Google’s index?

Unfortunately, it is not as easy as you would hope for.  Google clearly states on their website that they do not own the internet. This means that in order to get the pages off of Google’s search results, the website that houses the undesirable information must be changed.  Your only hope of getting a change is to approach the webmaster of the offending site to request removal of the page or at least request they block the page from Google’s indexing.  Google’s response if you approach them first is a polite, but firm, “We are sorry, but we can’t do anything without action by the webmaster.”

Your only hope is if the information falls into one of the categories that Google is prepared to deal with.  They include:

·         Social security or credit information in results

·         Adult content in results, when SafeSearch has been turned on

·         Inappropriate images in video results

Beyond these points, you are pretty much on your own.  Once you understand that Google has no control over what is posted to the internet, it does seem to make a bit more sense.  Google’s job is to tell you what is out there, not to police what is already posted to the Web.

So what is the best way to protect yourself?  Be on your best behavior to keep your reputation intact, and well, if that doen’t work for you… than you’re in good company.  If you do have to approach someone to get a page removed, make nice and hope for the best.   If that does not work, just make sure you have lots of good stuff to make up for being less than perfect.  After all, nobodys perfect J  .

No one wants to see or hear a negative comment about their business. When you first read a negative blog post, you are likely to get a sinking feeling in your stomach. However, a negative blog post doesn’t have to mean impending doom. Instead of dreading seeing your company’s name, take this as an opportunity to spin a negative into a positive.
When a blogger mentions your business consider it an open invitation to respond. If a blogger criticizes a promotion you are running or pans your business based on their experience, it is your opportunity to craft a well thought out response.
You have every right to explain yourself. Address the specific issue raised in the blog; explain what your business is all about or the structure of your promotion in question. Be sure to take the high road and always be professional. Personal attacks are never appropriate; even if you were attacked first.
Opening a dialog with a blogger gives you the opportunity to provide an explanation, to correct misinformation and address misunderstandings. With a well thought out and timely response, showing your thought process and professionalism is likely to enhance your image.
Don’t forget that the blogger’s posting and your response is going to be viewed by all of the blog’s readers. Accuracy is a must. On a side note, a quick “Thank you for the kind words” post to a positive blog comment is always appreciated.

Integrating Telephone Leads and Live Chat for Increased Results

Get more from your marketing budget and increase ROI by combining the power of Google Analytics with telephone tracking and live chat interactions. Each of these powerful marketing tools, when combined with Google Analytics, can provide you with better results and more information about your customers.

Telephone Leads and Google Analytics

Combining telephone calls and Google Analytics allows you to track each phone call made by your customers to your company resulting in new valuable information about you customers. All of this is easily accomplished when you work with a company like Mongoose Metrics. Purchasing bulk toll free numbers from Mongoose Metrics, allows you to use unique phone numbers for individual marketing campaigns or product lines at a very reasonable price. By assigning each number to a hidden web page on your site including the Google Analytics tracking code, each phone call will trigger a visit to the hidden web page. This will then trigger Google Analytics to register the phone call as an event in its tracking system. By combining the numbers being tracked with your account in Google Analytics, you can see results including the phone number called, duration and date of the call. All of this information can help you to refine your marketing and increase ROI.

Live Chat and Google Analytics

Having the capability to chat with your customers while they are on your website is invaluable. Aside from the personal touch this provide, it allows you to get a better handle on what is working or not working on your site, with your marketing and how your customers are responding to your company. Using the services of a company like LivePerson, allows you this real time interaction. Combining LivePerson’s services with Google Analytics gets you a wealth of knowledge not before available. Some of the information available to you includes:

* volume and quality of live chats by geographic area
* the source and keywords that lead to the chat
* navigation paths that drive chats

The more you know about your clients the more successful you will be. By garnering this type of detailed information from telephone and live chat interactions, you will be able to modify your future messages and increase ROI.

Blogging has become a standard way for getting all types of information from daily news and commentary to “features” about raising children and what to cook for dinner.  Having a blog is an excellent way to get your opinion to the masses, but finding the best blog host can be a problem.

Wordpress is a superior blog hosting site.  The Wordpress structure allows for excellent search engine results.  To enhance Wordpress’ already excellent search engine results, try these simple SEO tips.

    * Google Sitemap Plug-in.  The Google Sitemap Plug-in automatically submits your blog postings to Google.  Doesn’t get easier than that…anything you post to your blog automatically goes to Google for indexing.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/

    * Keyword Rich Titles.  As with any SEO writing, all posts to your blog should be keyword enhanced.  The typical 5-6% keyword density goal would apply. However, don’t forget to include a title when writing keyword rich content.  Your title should have the keyword for the article in it. Putting the keyword in the title will also help to draw new readers to your blog by increasing your search ranking.
  

   * Permalink Structure.  Regardless of which permalink structure you choose, the key is to use your keyword in the URL.  The only way for your SEO to be truly effective is to have a strong permalink structure.  In other words, keep the keyword in the URL for best performance results.
    * All-In-One SEO Plug-in.  This plug-in allows for full optimization of your blog postings.  With the All-In-One plug-in you can list tags and keywords, arrange title and meta descriptions and set “no follow” on pages of your blog.  Tag each post individually for the best results.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
    * Backlinks.  Creating backlinks for your site allows your blog to compete for the most popular keywords.  The use of onpage and offpage SEO techniques will help to establish you as one of the most popular blogs on Wordpress and on the internet.

There are over 3000 plug-ins for Wordpress.  You can read about them all here: 
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

Link building can greatly help your business increase ranking within the search engines and cover any bad press about your business online. Here are some ideas that you can use to build links in the search engines:

1. Use social media. Social media sites such as FaceBook and MySpace are not just for the kids. You can create as many pages as you want that are SEO friendly and watch links build.

2. Use forums. Posting search engine optimized content in forums can end up drawing people to your website, especially if you learn how to use HTML.

3. Use RSS feeds on social media pages. This will allow your sites to be updated continuously.

4. If you have multiple sites, link your sites to each other.

5. Use social bookmarking pages.

6. Learn to use Meta Tags on your posts.

7. Take advantage of free press release distribution with SEO content.

8. Write reviews about your website on forums, blogs and especially on your site!

9. Encourage others to visit your site and spread links around.

10. Use a link exchange site.

11. Write articles for Ezine and have them posted containing SEO rich material.

12. Submit links to all search engines.

13. Distribute free articles on sites that will allow SEO content.

14. Use hyper links to your articles in your various websites.

15. Get a sub domain site in addition to your website and build on that.

16. Link all articles as an RSS feed on your website.

17. Write a blog at a free blogging site that contains SEO material.

18. Use a good Meta description for your articles that contains your keywords.

19. Blog on your social media sites.

20. Learn how to use SEO resources.

21. Use Video for your site.

22. Post videos used on your site to other video sharing sites.

23. Learn how to understand and use web analytics to improve your content.

24. Use question sites as a way to post about your site and for link building.

25. Use question sites to answer questions posting a link to your site.

26. Encourage comments about articles as these will also help build links. Even if you have to comment on your own article, this will help with link building.

27. Add content to all sites periodically to keep building links.

28. Join groups where you can post in forums.

So I know it’s been quite some time since my last post, no worries, as I think this blog is going to come to a grinding halt.

There are soo many great seo blogs out there already, and in order to be a well-read blog, one needs to be on top of events as they happen.

I just can’t maintain that pace with everything else that is going on. So, this will probably be one of the last posts, but it’s still a goodie – it’s a Google Cheat Sheet PDF – it’s free so go get it now!

-To your online success!

www.SEOforGoogle.com

Cool little tool that lets you tack blogs and how many links each post averages. Check it out here: BlogStorm

-To your online success!
www.SEOforGoogle.com

 Just a quick one today -

Google is looking to partner up with major businesses at a cost of $10,000 – this is said by Google to keep their costs down, and in return Google will index and sort all of your companies sensitive information!

WOOT!

-To your online success!
www.SEOforGoogle.com