Here at Web Gnomes, we stay on top of the ever-changing world of Internet Marketing so you don’t have to. We enjoy learning new tricks of the trade and putting them to practice in the work that we do for our esteemed clients. Here is some of the most helpful Internet marketing info we came across this week:
Social Link Building: The Latest Fashion in SEO
Oh boy! Everybody is writing about social media and its impact on SEO (both global and local). This great article from GetElastic provides five key strategies for building links with social media. (And you know external links are important!)
- Add sharing buttons to your web pages and emails: Take a look at the top of this blog post. See the row of sharing buttons? That’s what this first strategy is all about. When a visitor clicks one of those buttons, the URL of our blog post is posted on the selected social media site. (You should try it!)
- Use your own social media accounts: It’s OK to share your content on your own social media accounts. The author suggests adding hashtags and other relevant content when posting. E.g. #camera or #organic.
- Sponsored Tweets: We’ve mentioned these before. A sponsored tweet is an ad on Twitter. And should be treated as such.
- PR (Public Relations): According to the author, most bloggers and journalists that you reach out to for PR are more likely to tweet than to write a full-fledged article. And that isn’t a bad thing.
- Customer Campaigns: “Call-to-action” is one of the most important concepts of Internet marketing in general. Taking it to the social sphere, it means asking your customers to “like” you. And it’s OK to display the call-to-action prominently in your content.
Using Social Media to Build Site Authority
According to this Search Engine Watch article by Kaila Strong, “the days of traditional website authority building are long gone,” and we agree. Social media can be a really useful tool to help build your site’s authority.
The author suggests the following strategies:
- Get Real: This one is pretty obvious. If you’re not really passionate or knowledgeable about your area of expertise, it’s going to show and people are not going to “like” you.
- Know Your Audience: You definitely want to be active in the social media networks where your audience is hanging out. Makes sense!
- Share and Share-alike: One of the best aspects of the Internet is the generous sharing of knowledge. You’re not going to be able to build site authority if you hog all the information. People want free knowledge. Give it to them!
- Participation Is Key: The author’s point here is that just tweeting and posting interesting articles is not enough. It’s important to be part of the community.
- Grow Your Network: This is all about giving first. Link to great content, comment on blog posts (if you have something useful to say), and just pass the love. It will come back to you.
- Quality: It goes without saying that quality wins over quantity. People will leave your network if you shower them with useless information.
- Offer Your Help: Keep an eye out for questions popping up in forums or places like LinkedIn Answers. If you can provide help, you’ve just improved your authority.
What Is Google AdWords? How the AdWords Auction Works
AdWords is Google’s advertising platform. You may know this type of advertising as PPC (Pay-Per-Click). Ever wondered how the AdWords auction works? Here’s a great infographic from WordStream that explains it all:
![What is Google AdWords? [ infographic ]](http://www.wordstream.com/images/what-is-google-adwords.jpg)
© 2011 WordStream – a certified AdWords partner.
Nice “demystifying” graphic! I wonder if the exact “quality score” algorithm is considered proprietary.
Hi Katie!
There is definitely some mystery around the quality score. However, some aspects are known such as the ad should relate to the keyword and the landing page. Also, AdWords does take historical Click-Through-Rate (CTR) into consideration. In fact, there’s a whole list here. Of course, the last factor is the ominous “Other relevance factors…” Gotta keep the mystique alive!