Matt Cutts, the head of “web spam” at Google, says that you should focus on creating great content, and that people will naturally link to your website over time, which will eventually help your search engine rankings. That’s nice, and I would like to believe him, but there is a mountain of data compiled by SEO experts that suggest otherwise. Off-page SEO – the solicited acquisition of links pointing back to your website – still works and is big business. There are ways to not only increase your link-ability, but to increase your online influence by leveraging major social networks.
Examples of Social Network Marketing for SEO
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January 4th, 2010 | by Jeff Mills Why People Share Links More on Twitter Than Facebook
January 3rd, 2010 | by Jeff Mills 
Consider a random, non-specific piece of content. It could be a blog post, an article, a picture, video, song or any other piece of digital information you can fathom. The content of the content is not important for what I am about to discuss. This post is concerned with why people share links more on a social network like Twitter than they do on a network like Facebook.
“Facebook is for friends,” is what you’re probably thinking. Good. Facebook is for friends, and you are interested in social media optimization. Your friends aren’t. They are your friends, probably in spite of your interest in things like social media optimization, and since they aren’t interested in this very specific topic, you may not feel compelled to share something so arbitrary to them.
The Future of the Internet – 2010 and Beyond the Mobile Web
January 2nd, 2010 | by Jeff Mills 
Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, has made some bold predictions that the internet will undergo radical transformation over the next five years. He was right about the marketing value search engines would have and as the dominant online player, Google’s decisions directly affect the future of the internet, but Google’s success may have given Schmidt slightly less than prophetic delusions.
His prediction that mobile web usage – internet use via web-capable cell phones – will surpass internet use via desktop is based upon some misplaced presumptions:
- Cell phones are fully capable of displaying the internet.
- Proper cell phone design can provide robust navigation and adequately sized keyboards.
- Increase in cell phone quality equates to increase in utility.
Technorati – The Transitionally Anti-Social Web 2.0 Blog Search Engine
December 22nd, 2009 | by Jeff Mills 
Technorati, the second most popular blog search engine next to Google Blog Search and 5th largest social media space, recently underwent a “web 2.0″ face-lift. Some changes were for the better, some for better business and some are a work in progress. A few cool new additions are Twittorati – a Twitter API, the Technorati Blog, and a few more Technorati properties. However, it seems that for the time being, Technorati is a bit anti-social.
The Technorati profile, once a way for bloggers to connect with fellow bloggers and subscribe to blogs, has been crippled for a couple months. Currently, members cannot subscribe to blogs and blog reactions have been reserved for “authoritative” sources. Meanwhile, Blog Catalog offers a few features Technorati does not – it is not only a blog directory and blog search engine, but a social network, community, blog activity stream and blog subscription service.
Twitter vs Facebook – The More Effective Social RSS
December 6th, 2009 | by Jeff Mills 
Twitter and Facebook are about to go head to head in a grueling evaluation of their effectiveness as blog syndication channels. At the end of three standard paragraphs there will be only one declared winner, one declared loser and ultimately two options that aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, but for comparison sake: the following is brought to you by Smobot – “the social media optimization guide.”
First, we have to assume a level playing field. Let’s examine a situation where you’ve got an equal number of Facebook fans and Twitter followers, and both options will each only receive one status update per blog post, the content of which shall be, again, assumed equal. Facebook enables users to comment, “like this” or something, share content, and invite friends to “fan” that Facebook page (fan: v. – the act of becoming a fan of a person, place or thing’s Facebook page). Twitter enables users to @reply and retweet content. Overall, retweeting occurs more frequently than Facebook sharing (refer to Mashable’s home page), but Facebook enables users to easily suggest the Facebook Page to their entire network of friends. Round one is a draw.
Why User Mindset is the Critical to Website Monetization
December 1st, 2009 | by Jeff Mills 
What are your visitors thinking? Ideally, they are thinking what you tell them to, and if you’re in the online game to make money, it is in your best interest to encourage them to buy something. Regardless of the type of site you run, converting visitors to do the thing that you want them to do – the thing that you’ve been working so hard to get them to do – is what makes your website successful.
Many websites are designed for the user first, and profitability second, which is perfectly acceptable if you aren’t in it for profit. Twitter remains unmonetized, Bing still isn’t turning a profit, and Digg just recently took serious action to levy their regular losses. Facebook… poor Facebook… isn’t monetized very well, in my opinion, despite their millions of users. I, a small time blogger, certainly have no place telling these well-funded, well-managed organizations how to model their businesses, but if it were me, I’d pay more attention to my typical user’s mindset.
Facebook & Blogging – The Path of Least Resistance to Gaining Blog Followers
December 1st, 2009 | by Jeff Mills 
Networked Blogs, the almost official blog directory & syndication application on Facebook, offers users the ability to subscribe to, rate, comment and share blogs with their friends. I would advise any blogger to add their blog to the directory, but I would not suggest that you funnel all of your Facebook friends to it. While Networked Blogs offers some nice features and indexation in a fairly high-traffic blog search engine (2 million visitors / month with close to 1 million users), the application is too many degrees removed from both your blog and Facebook.
