Social Media Murdered SEO!

Has social media killed SEO?

Hmmm...interesting question because you see all these SEO companies out there, probably in the dozens of thousands now, all vying for their particular piece of the search engine optimization pie.

Well, just to make sure we are all on the same page here while analyzing the question, let's look at what these SEO companies actually do. Generally speaking, they help their clients achieve better search engine result page (SERP) rankings over time according to the relevant keywords under consideration. For example, these SEO gurus will make a Google search for "auto mechanic in Santa Monica" pop up on the first page of Google, perhaps as high up as the #1 spot, for a given URL. Awesome, huh?! Well, maybe not.

Let's briefly look at HOW they achieve these results WITHOUT going into all the technical Web speak they love to throw out at their clients. Great SERPs happen with solid external SEO efforts. Among other things, one of the major external SEO factors involves creating strong, permanent, relevant backlinks. When Google magically indexes and crawls through your website, it's algorithms LOVE to see these wonderful backlinks. These links inform Google that your site may just have something that everyone else needs to see, giving it a surefire increase in rankings for specific keywords.

So getting back to the initial question, "Has social media killed SEO?" By utlizing the most popular social media channels, implementing a solid strategy and utilizing some great new tools (applications) while applying good, fundamental SEO tactics, social media may not actually be killing SEO efforts completely, but the need for strong SEO results can increasingly be obtained through your own social media processes without the need for an SEO "guru" or company.

To learn more about some of the social media tools I use or just pick my brain in general about all this fun social media stuff, feel free to shoot me an email anytime.

Tim Wagner
Web Strategist & Social Media Expert
Google "Tim Dallas SEO"
info@TimothyDWagner.com

The Power of Social Media in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Efforts!

Recently, I had a client who needed SOME sort of Web exposure. They were not running any real search engine marketing (SEM), social media, integrated media or search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns. I educated them somewhat ont he potential power of social media with an example.

We were set up to meet on Thursday so 2 days prior I had started a simple Twitter profile for them. After doing a little SEM and SEO research on their company and competitors, I plugged in and tagged all their top 10 keywords into the Twitter profile. Within about 15 hours, they were showing up #3 on Google where they were approximately 5 millionth ranked before. They were impressed and I told them that this was basically the tip of the iceberg since they were ultimately planning on branding globally, which can lend to multiple social media routes per each local brand. The cross linking and search engine optimization (SEO) potential in this type of large scale campaign is truly staggering. Surely they will soon surpass all their competition and attain the global branding and awareness they have been needing.

Here is the image of their ranking...

Social Media = Power to Build In-Bound Links Easily!

You can use social media to build up your in-bound links easily. The great way to utilize this viral platform is to make and post videos (even if they are nothing more than simple slideshows). The KEY here is to allow your viral videos to help your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. You can do this by making sure you post all your videos to the top social networking and media websites. However, a huge factor you must not forget is to properly tag your videos, describe your content, links and seriously think about your video titles so they are relevant to you website (landing page) content, audience and SEO work.

Then go back and key an eye on your analytics to watch your traffic and trending numbers after you launch these. You can also check your in-bound links to make sure they are increasing with new social media traffic sources. : )

Social media can be an easy and very effective tool for SEO.

Best,
Tim Wagner
Web 2.0 Strategist and Digital Marketing Expert
Dallas, Fort Worth, TX
www.timothydwagner.com

Microsites are Good Friends of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Microsites are phenomenal for SEO linking building. So whart are these "microsite?" Simply put, they are just small (usually), secondary Web sites that are utilized to drive branding, digital exposur and traffic for a product or service.

I have a client that we are doing this with now. He owns a limo and personal driver service (www.MyPrivate Driver.com) and has a great website. We are now creating a secondary microsite to establish some new marketing channels for a specific service from his parent company. This will help with search engine optimization (SEO) significantly from link-building and also providing another avenue for keywords and tagging of course. You can set up additional analytics to this site as well and track your marketing progress and conversions.

Implement your microsite today and drive significant traffic to your parent site.

Happy micrositing!
Tim Wagner
Web 2.0 Design, SEO, SEM, Social Media Expert
www.TimothyDWagner.com

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tip of the Week

Recently an SEO guru friend of mine told me about a little trick he discovered that is particularly useful especially in Google's search engine with respect to search engine optimization (SEO).

Here is the tasty little SEO nugget:

Optimization SEO Tip: Using an underscore ("_") is the same as using NO space when it's crawled by Google. You should instead use a hyphen ("-") or period (".") instead for your keywords in your title and header tags.

Google's tricky but if you keep up with the latest SEO trends, you will be go to go and your Web clients will thank you. : )

Cheers,
Tim Wagner
Web 2.0 Design, SEO, SEM, Social Media Expert!
www.TimothyDWagner.com

Is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - Good Bad or Ugly?

Is SEO Good or Bad? @ Yahoo! Video

Search Engine Optimization (or SEO for short) is generally a very good thing. Just as there are white hat hackers and black hat hackers, there can also be black and white SEO's.

http://www.timothydwagner.com/
Tim Wagner - Dallas Fort Worth SEO, SEM, Social Media, Web 2.0 Strategist
info@timothydwagner.com

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 101

I wanted to recap some of the BIGGEST search engine optimization (SEO) factors. Here is a list of some SEO factors that affect your site position with Google, Yahoo and Live. Some SEO factors have more importance than others. You will want to maximize all of these factors and many others in order to take your site to the top of the search engine results pages.

Some of the factors are explanation here:

Keywords
Keywords in window title This is one of the most important SEO factors. The title tag must be short and focused on the purpose of the page.

The headers ‹H1›, ‹H2›, ‹H3› are the titles of your page
text. Headers have high importance. Like the window title, they should be short
and focused. Use your site keywords as titles.

Keyword density in document text The text must be related to the title and
headers. Make sure your keywords appear in the text. Please note that keyword
density of over 10% looks suspicious and unnatural.

Keywords in text anchors One of the most important SEO factors is link text.
Make sure your keywords appear in the text of the link (text anchor).
Keywords in navigation bar You navigation bar appears in every page of your site.
It includes links. Make sure some of the links contain your keywords.

Internal links The user should be able to get to any page in your site by clicking
no more than 3 times.

External links External links are the most important factor for Google. External
links, known also as inbound links, have many factors: quality of the linking site,
the text anchor, the location of the link, the relevance of the site that link to
your site, the quantity and many others.

Unique content Your site should include unique and relevant content which is
different from the content on other sites. Create as much unique and quality
content as you can.

Fresh content An active site with frequent updates is more popular than a static
site. Add new content regularly and update the existing content.

URL structure Search engines prefer static URL without query string than dynamic
URL. Adding your keywords to the site address may improve your ranking in some
of the search engines.

Keywords in meta tags Your HTML code contains some text which only the
search engines see, such as site description and site keywords. For each page,
use short and content-focused keywords.

OK, SEO class is now dismissed. Your homework is to go implement some of these SEO factors in your website and watch your rankings sore!

Tim Wagner
Web Strategist and Digital Marketing Expert
www.TimothyDWagner.com
info@TimothyDWagner.com
www.DFWsearchengineGURU.com
www.LinkedIn.com/In/TimothyDWagner
www.MySpace.com/TimothyDWagner
www.Twitter.com/txSEOpro
Google "Tim SEO Dallas"

Integrated Marketing with Social Media and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Marketing (SEM)

Integrated Media - Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Marketing (SEM) + Social Media + Traditional Marketing = BIG returns!

With all the corporate down-sizing and cutbacks during this terrible economy, marketing budgets are definitely NOT immune. Businesses, from small to corporate level, are looking at ways to reduce marketing budgets (especially digital online marketing) while still bringing in the website branding, traffic, leads and surely conversions.

Integrated media marketing is becoming popular as companies are able to reduce some of their search engine marketing (SEM) and pay per click campaigns to dedicate more resources to Web 2.0 and social media avenues, such as Twitter, Facebook, Flkr, MySpace, YouTube, Digg, etc.

For the biggest returns of your marketing investments, be sure to consider new digital avenues and trends and incorporate them into your existing marketing methods for big returns.

Tim Wagner
Web Strategist and Digital Marketing Expert
www.TimothyDWagner.com
info@TimothyDWagner.com
www.DFWsearchengineGURU.com
www.LinkedIn.com/In/TimothyDWagner
www.MySpace.com/TimothyDWagner
www.Twitter.com/txSEOpro

Get the Most Out of Your Adwords Investment

Although I'm a huge proponent for marketing via Web 2.0, social media and search engine optimization (SEO), I also realize the instant traffic value from running strong Pay Per Click (ie Adwords) campaigns. This is why I wanted to address some key points to consider and implement with your next search engine marketing (SEM) campaign.

The current economy has been tough on businesses and customers alike, and it can be a lot harder these days to connect with more price-concious customers. To reach these customers, our internal team of AdWords optimizers has come up with 6 tactics that will help your AdWords campaigns be more relevant to your customers.

1. Focus your ads on low prices and savings
2. Use value-related keywords
3. Make sure your ad groups are targeted and relevant
4. Don't waste money on irrelevant clicks
5. Make it easy for customers to buy
6. Focus your money on your high-performers

These may seem like common sense, but the problem often lies with running an SEM or PPC campaign with a wide-defined scope. These can be daunting to manage so make sure you have an SEM pro helping you. It will be off big in the end while also extending your digital marketing budget.

Regards,
TDW

Social Media Marketing = MLM 2.0

For the first time in many years, I had the misfortune to be tormented by a Multi-Level Marketing presentation. There are many obvious reasons why I have a strong disdain for MLM…probably no different than anyone else´s. Fortunately as time moves on, the rising popularity of social media should greatly reduce the effectiveness of MLM 1.0 as a business process, hopefully causing its practitioners to abandon its use. From the ashes of MLM 1.0 should arise a much more pleasant methodology of leveraging relationships via social media to make sales (aka MLM 2.0).

“Each time a user adds a new (Facebook or Twitter) application, their friends are notified. If more than one user adds it, the notification may even appear a little bit bigger with headshots of the users who added it. Never underestimate the power of peer pressure or how quickly things can go viral.” Lisa Barone

Marketing via MLM 2.0 will have none of the unsavory aspects of MLM 1.0. A marketer will introduce their product to people with whom he/she already has preexisting relationships, with the hope that the recipients will think enough of it that they will share it with folks in each of their social networks. People who value their standing amongst their peers generally won´t recommend products they don´t actually like for their integrity as a member of a trusted group goes along with the recommendation. Ideally, if the product is well received, it will go viral through a large number of diverse networks.

MLM 2.0 will be more efficient, much faster, more lucrative, and stigma-free. Trusted, unbiased relationships will drive MLM 2.0 revenue and the sales process will be much more comfortable for the marketer and the prospect.

Also, Social Media will greatly reduce the effectiveness of MLM 1.0 techniques. If a social network participant were to bring up the content of an MLM sales pitch in their group, fellow members will likely set them straight.

How likely will the person fall prey to the MLM marketer? Not too likely.
MLM 1.0 thrived in a pre-internet environment. The omnipotence of search engines severely crimped the ability to sell via MLM since a person could research any and all claims made in the presentation. However, the MLM marketer could still rely on the “relationship” with the prospect to potentially counter the information found in the search engines. Social media renders such a defense useless because the prospect is now empowered with information gathered from people with whom the prospect shares a trusted connection. As social media becomes much more universal, MLM 1.0 will die a well-deserved death.

Happy MLM'ing!
TDW

Site Maps - Do not over look as an SEO MUST!

I always run across clients needing site maps added on to an existing site. Site maps are crucial yet often overlooked from developers and designers especially during the creation of a new website. Google LOVES site maps and actively seeks and crawls these. Not only that, but they can be great for intra link building since you are cross linkng to all your other internal web pages. Furthermore, this give you yet another FREE page for all your internal (and some external) SEO work, such as description, alt text, meta tags, keywords, links, etc. All of this just means more of a chance for your website to get ranked higher in Google and other major search engines.

Happy SEO'ing,
TDW

SEO Meta Tags - Are They Worth It?

While SEO - primarily talking about the internal SEO here - can be a unbelievably important to driving traffic to your website as your organic search engine rankings climb higher and higher, the actual Meta Tags themselves may or may not be all that important. This all depends on how you define what your Meta Tags will consist of.

For instance, to get real value out of these particular tags, you should try to associate your website's keywords here. Keywords can be EXTREMELY important and drive tons of traffic your way with a good, comprehensive SEO campaign. An important point to remember is that your keywords, alt text, title headers and especially web page content all needs to have the same keywords.

More SEO tid bits soon.

Cheers,
TDW

SEO Link Building: Part Art, Part Science

Arguably, one of the most time-consuming and toughest aspects of SEO work involved link building. Be weary of SEO services that say they can build hundreds of links for your site each month. Often these involve link exchanges, whch can actually get you penalized by major search engines like Google. Search engine algorithyms are constantly changing to keep up with these so-called "Black" or "Grey Hat" SEO techniques.

True link building really is part art and part science. It takes lots of time to find key, relevant links that will actually benefit your SEO goals and organic rankings, but once done can be critically helpful.

Regards,
TDW

Follow me on Twitter at Twitter.com/DFWmarketingGOD

MLM & Direct Marketing Mixes Well With Web 2.0!

As a Web strategy and marketing consultant, I typically find clients knowing the value of certain digital marketing strategies, but lack the knowledge to actually make it work. Or perhaps they know what they need, just don't know how to implement. These are usually great clients because they truly see the potential in having a great digital strategy so there isn't the normal "training my client" barrier before getting into the guts of their project(s).

For instance, I'm currently consulting with a client who has a novel MLM concept. The goal of course is to produce heavy traffic to their site, but also increase exposure and generate qualified leads. There are LOTS of ways we will be doing this, but basically it involves the art & science of SEO work, as well as social media and PPC campaigns. Other ancillary campaigns will also come into play here for branding and awareness as supplemental marketing routes.

To get the absolute most out of your campaigns it involves putting in the hours, but it can definitely be well worth it down the road when your traffic picks up and/or your site goes viral.

Cheers,
Tim

Paid Search Campaigns Declining. Really!?

Why is paid search traffic in the doldrums?

Comscore noted in a blog post last week that paid search clicks are not growing as fast as the queries are. So what gives here? Is is due to the economy in general?

Actually, the favored explanation for this is that Google and other engines have sought to improve the search experience by serving fewer ads per query. Comscore also speculates that people are smarter searchers now, resulting in longer query strings, which could reduce the number of available ads per query "due to paid search advertising strategies that limit ad coverage, such as Exact Match, Negative Match, and bid management software campaign optimization."

Thus, just like your search engine optimmization (SEO) work, you have to stay on top of the algorithms and your game. People (and these darn engines) are getting much more savvy in the searching and posting of these queries. Again, stay on your game and you will capture the leads and traffic you want!

Regards,
Timothy D. Wagner
www.LinkedIn.com/timothydwagner
www.twitter.com/DFWmarketingGOD
http://www.timothydwagner.com/
http://www.codegodz.com/
http://www.dfwsearchengineguru.com/
info@timothydwagner.com

What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a process by which websites are optimized for high search engine positioning and page ranking. In contrast to Pay Per Click, or PPC, search engine optimization is a time-consuming process that may take weeks or months to achieve desired results. This is because search algorithms look to many technical and contextual facets of a website including inbound link count, optimized content, and relevancy, in order to formulate page rankings and positioning.

It is also important to note that search algorithms change relevancy formulas on a regular basis, and your site’s optimization must be continually adjusted and maintained to keep it’s rankings across top search engines like Google and Yahoo. This is why I offer a search engine optimization plan based on initial setup and monthly maintenance, to ensure your site’s rankings do not negatively slide.

Check back often for my updates for getting the most bang for your SEO buck! Also, be sure to give me a shout if you would like your website to be fully optimized so the traffic starts coming to you organically!

http://www.timothydwagner.com/
http://www.codegodz.com/
http://www.dfwsearchengineguru.com/
info@timothydwagner.com
214.394.2398

Welcome to DFW Search Engine Guru

Welcome to where you will find news, updates and the latest on online and digital marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing (SEM), pay per click and paid inclusion campaigns, as well as social media (Twitter, Fecbook, MySpace, YouTube, Flkr, Google, Yahoo, Digg, etc) and micro site development strategies.

Again, WELCOME!
Tim Wagner