Search Engine Optimization and Social Networking

By Joel Black on 07/1/2009

Social networking, social bookmarking, blogging and web design has to be the most exciting field to be in today.  Every morning I look at my screen and wonder, what the heck do I do today?  Where do I start?  Do I jump on Twitter, or do I start on Facebook, make a tutorial for YouTube, update my status on MySpace or Digg a recently submitted news article?

Well, the truth is, in my case, I just do what I feel like doing today.  If you do what you feel like doing, it will come out much better than trying to force it.  And with everything out there, there is a very large pool to swim in.  So here are my two cents on what social networks to use and how to use them.

1. Twitter has proven to be a great social networking tool for me.  I actually manage multiple accounts for our clients that are on our SEO package.  We also create custom Twitter backgrounds to help set our accounts and clients apart from the crowd, although a lot of Twitter users use desktop applications and will miss the design all together.  I have seen immediate results from using Twitter, doubling one of my clients web traffic within one week.

2. Facebook Pages has also been another great tool for our businesses.  I have seen some great interaction between some of our clients and their customers, and I have seen the interaction take place within days of opening the account.  This is a great opportunity to get feedback from your clients, and promote a personal connection with them.

3. Online press releases has also proven a great way to generate traffic, and the all important link back to your site.  If you were to Google Black Bear Design, you would see we have 7 out of the top 10 spaces on the home page.  One of those spots is a press release, and there are even more on the second page.  So make some news for yourself, write up a press release, and post it to an online source such as PRlog.org.

4.  Blogs are free, and you can link back to your site with anchor text, such as this: Atlanta Web Design.  Blogs are indexed quickly and easily by the search engines, and if they are interesting enough, people will actually read them.  Don’t write a bunch of junk, and link everything back to your site.  But if a link is appropriate, and will add something to the overall story line, make the link count.  Use relative anchor text to what you are linking to.

5. Links from relevant websites are hard to achieve, but all so important.  You could email other website owners and ask to trade a link, but owning many websites myself, I have never traded a link.  I feel the best way is to join online blogs or user support sites that are relative to your site and your business.  Our specialty programming language is ColdFusion, so I joined a ColdFusion user site where members are allowed to post questions and answers.  I post both questions and answers, and my signature has our web address.   So not only do I learn and help others, but I also get SEO credit from having a link on that site.

I hope these five SEO tips will help you in gain credibility with the search engines.  SEO is a time intensive process, but using the methods above, hopefully you can have a little fun with it as well.  At Black Bear Design, we love working with social networks and search engine optimization.  If you need help, or want someone to handle it for you, I would love to have some more FUN!  Visit our website www.blackbeardesign.com or give us a call at 678.534.1143

Tags: Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Social Networking