I’m not sure what’s happened since 2012 started, but social networking use has exploded. I see it in Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Scoop.it and, yes, Google+. I don’t care what the news media is saying; regardless of how much Google skew’s their numbers, I can tell you as a user of all the above platforms that social media is huge.

Social Network Explosion

I now have over 2,800 Google followers. Twitter has exploded to 8K+ and Facebook, even though it’s never been our strongest platform, has over 500. The reason I’m telling you this is because it’s become apparent that a lot of new people are joining us in social.

As a business that offers an array of SEO services, our main objective is to listen, watch, learn and communicate. When a client comes to us and says, “Our social accounts aren’t doing very well,” we can, with accuracy, provide them with competent information.

You Talking To Me?

Here’s the problem. Although we look at our company as a full service SEO company, or even professional SEO specialists (in other words, something to do with SEO), we’ve been referred to as one of the ORM global specialists (remember how we talk about perception?). This lowers the amount of anonymity we might otherwise have.

So… although I’ve seen such an explosion of crap across social networks that I’m tempted to be publicly rude sometimes, I can’t. What I can do, instead, is write a guide:

The 12 Commandments of Twitter

Okay, so maybe the title is a little bit heavy, but I hope this just adds more weight to how important I think the following tips are.

1. If you want people to follow you on Twitter, you have to join the conversation.

You can’t just post your stuff all day long. If you do post things of your own making, make sure you mix it up with retweets, conversation and being yourself. Don’t be a self-proclaiming tweeter!

2. Fill out your profile with a picture and description.

Look – I’m not saying I have to see your face, but at the very least, please, not those freakin’ eggs. Give me a dog to look at, I’ll be happy with that, but I’m tired of looking at bird eggs. For the description, it doesn’t have to be an intense bio. It could just be something that speaks of who you are, like “loves black coffee, small puppies and Twilight”. I’m not looking for tons of info, but there has to be something that calls me to follow you. An egg, a user name and nothing else isn’t enough.

3. Unless you have a very, very good reason to, don’t set your stream to private.

This is like inviting people to a party and then telling them they aren’t welcome. Why would you do that? Some do it because they think it makes them “cool”, but it doesn’t impress anyone. Not only that, but I won’t follow you if I can’t easily RT your stuff, or read your feed prior to clicking “follow”. If you’re trying to promote yourself or business on Twitter, setting your stream to private won’t work.

4. Incorporate Twitter into your blog.

I don’t mean have your Twitter feed posted; I mean, include a Twitter share button. Add a link to your Twitter account that people can use to follow you if they want. I can’t tell you how many articles or posts I’ve seen people write about social networks, yet they don’t have a share button on their site. Seriously? And I’m supposed to believe you because… why… you’re such a shining example?

Look

Take the time to connect the dots across your website, marketing and social media efforts. It will pay off.

5. Be careful when you retweet compliments.

If someone sends you a compliment and it makes you feel warm and fuzzy, that’s great. That doesn’t mean the compliment will make those who follow you warm and fuzzy. If you aren’t careful, it can look cheesy, desperate and tawdry. Can you imagine if you gave a friend a compliment, they taped it, and played it every time someone looked in their direction?

We’ll find out how great you are. Instead, respond to the compliment with a “thank you” or variations thereof. If we’re interested, we can see what you’re responding to. If you absolutely can’t resist and MUST make sure others saw it, then at least include your thank you in the RT. “Thank you so much! @complimenter –’compliment’”

6. When you use #FF and #FollowFriday try to do it manually.

I can’t tell you how irritating it is to see that FFHelper picks the names for you. How can an automation – a machine or program – decide who you enjoy following?  It shows no forethought and a severe lack of connection. Worse yet, you’ve made it apparent to everyone. Even if you only give 5 #FF a week, those are important. You took the time to actually say in 140 words why that person is important to follow.

7. Do not start an argument on line.

Not only does it have a bad reflection on you, but also anyone you’re associated with – including your company. If you must make a point, take it into private (also known as a DM or Direct Message). If they’re not following you and you can’t let it go, quickly and succinctly state your case and then move on. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked away from my desk in order to avoid tearing into a creep.

8. Don’t use the automated DM.

“Hello. Glad you followed me. Check out my Facebook, website and 50 other sites I’m involved in. Since you followed me here, I know you’ll want to follow me there, there, there and there.”

Um, no, dink. Believe it or not, most people (including myself) aren’t over-eager socialites. I followed you on Twitter because I wanted to follow you on Twitter, not because I wanted to be attacked with a list of your social networks. If I want to find you on other places, I’ll look for you in other places. But now, since you sent me this automated DM, I don’t want to follow you anywhere.

It’s intrusive. It’s like taking down someone’s phone number at a cocktail party. Once you get home, you have an email, snail mail letter and the person standing at your door talking about, “and here’s my address, my business, my business card, my license number, the phone number I had when I was a kid…”

Drama Queen...

Oy. Have some control.

9. Gracefully thank others for an RT.

If someone retweets your  link, of course you should thank them, but be graceful about it. If you have the pleasure of several RT’s, there’s nothing wrong with pairing those people up for a single “thank you” tweet. This establishes that people that your post was great, and it will allow the people who RT’d you the chance to follow each other. What a great way of helping people connect!

10. You don’t have to follow every Tom, Dick and Mary.

I know you’ve heard this before, and there’s a reason for that. -Because it’s true. Connections are not made by numbers, but by conversations. Communities aren’t built by the numbers, but by the people in the community. Always look at the person following you before you decide to follow them back. You never know – they may not be someone you really want to associate yourself with.

-And I can’t tell you how many times I’ll look and find out that they haven’t posted anything in months. I’m not sure what those people are even doing on Twitter.

11. Don’t schedule your tweets all at the same time.

If you’re scheduling, make sure you find yourself the perfect social networking platform for you; Hootsuite, RockMelt, TweetDeck, I don’t care, but something. Having all your tweets pushed across my feed at the same time is so irritating!

Look, I understand you have something to say, sweetheart. It’s okay… but 13 posts all at the same time? Spread that stuff throughout the day and, please, change the content up! Get creative. Post your tweets at different times. It can even be the same link a few times, but at least make each one original. Your Twitter posts have a shelf life of about 3 hours, depending on how many RT’s you get. Keep that in mind when you’re automating tweets.

12. Use your hash tags.

Hash tags are those words with # before them, like #FollowFriday. Like any other tags, they describe what a post is about. They’re very useful, especially when the title gives no clue. For example, although most of our titles clearly spell out what the topic of a post is, You Think You Can, But You Just Can’t, Nemo says absolutely nothing. Therefore, I might add hash tags such as #rant, #Google+, and #socialmedia.

Twitter Rules

Don’t just use hash tags on your own links, either. If you’re sharing a link from someone else, include the tags you think are relevant to the post (if they don’t include some of their own). In this way, you’re helping yourself and helping those writers you think provide content worth sharing. A word of caution don’t go #tag crazy either, that’s really irritating.

Thou Shalt Not Break the 12 Commandments of Twitter

Unlike the tablets Moses brought down, these things aren’t set in stone – but that doesn’t mean they should be ignored, either. I strongly suggest, if you’re just starting out, that you at least try to put them in practice before going off on your own. Use them as a guideline, and you just might see your community explode.

Fast Food SEO

Sometimes it seems like people think SEO is the fast food of online marketing…
Potential client pulls up to the order window. “Yeah, um, I’ll take first place ranking for that extremely competitive key term? But, uh, hold the long tail.”
The optimizer on the other end of the speaker starts calculating costs, time and manpower. “Of course – and you want that when?”
“Now, please.”
…….
Um.

SEO – Fast Food Style

Think about fast food for a moment. For many people, fast food smells good, looks good, tastes good, and it’s cheap. – But it’s not really good for you, is it? Tons of calories, lots of fat and not much nourishment. Well, fast food SEO is much the same, and it comes with a lot of fine print. So much for holding the fries…

• We’ll submit your site to thousands of search engines ¹
• We’ll get you on the front page of Google ²
• We’ll build you a sitemap so the search engines can see it ³
• We’ll do all this for $49.99 a month ⁴

Fine print:
If you don’t get results, it’s not our fault and you can’t blame us.

1. Yes, we know this is useless, but you don’t
2. For noncompetitive, we-get-to-choose terms
3. Of course, you don’t need a sitemap if your site layout is clean, but we’re not going to tell you that
4. Anything extra will cost you an arm and a leg – and maybe your first born, but we’ll discuss that later

Can't Get A Star SEO

Can’t Get A Star SEO
Cost: Cheap

All right! We’ve moved up a notch in the SEO restaurants to serving a side salad with the specialty house dressing of unknown links. You get your search engine submissions, your sitemap, and your front-page ranking for ain’t-crap terms, but that’s not all! We’ll throw in a boatload of links just for you. This delightful package is yours for just $59.99 a month!

Looks good, smells good, tastes good, it’s cheap… and it has that magic word in it: links. Do you know where those links are coming from, though? Often, promises of thousands of links mean just that – thousands of links. In other words, you get quantity, not quality:

• Automated submissions
• Crappy directories
• Links buried so deep you wouldn’t find them in a million years

… but lots of them, so… bonus (notice the sarcasm).

★ One Star SEO
MICHELIN Guide meaning – Very good in its category
Average Cost: Fairly inexpensive

Now, the meaning of stars for restaurant ratings all depends on the place doing the rating. For instance, the Dallas Morning News says a single star is “fair”, but “the experience is generally disappointing”. The MICHELIN Guide, however, says a single star is “very good in its category”. Yeah… we’re going with that one.

One star SEO isn’t so craptastic as the above examples and it’s still cheap. These purveyors of optimizational (new word!) delights generally lay them out like a cost buffet. Each step of SEO has a price; you can choose what type of optimization you want done.

It might bring you traffic. It might even bring you a little bit of targeted traffic. Chances are, however, that the traffic won’t continue to build and your site will be hungry again. This isn’t a statement against the one star SEO firms; they do what they can, but you can only do so much with a little here and a little there.

Choosing a one star SEO firm isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s like eating at a family restaurant – it depends on what you’re looking for. One star firms are for those who a) have a tight budget or b) aren’t serious about optimization.

★★ Two Star SEO
MICHELIN Guide meaning – Excellent and worth a detour
Average Cost: Expensive

If you’re looking at two star SEO companies, you’ve become serious about feeding your website good traffic. You also have to have a strong marketing budget; it doesn’t come cheap.

Your two star SEO company will start asking intrusive questions like, “What goals do you want to reach with this campaign,” and “what kind of SEO have you done in the past”. These questions are equivalent to “Would you like a glass of wine with your meal?”

They lay out three course meals, each necessary for a great dining experience. SEO becomes a set of “phases”, starting with the first course, or the SEO audit. They hand over an in depth benchmark metrics report with all the flair of an experienced maître d’, along with recommendations of what wine would go well with your main course (the campaign).

Specialists in their field – professional, technological maître d’s – two star SEO companies provide a long lasting meal of nutritious traffic for your website. Hormone-free, non-genetically modified, organic SEO.

★★★Three Star SEO
MICHELIN Guide meaning – Exceptional and worth the journey
Cost: If you have to ask how much, you can’t afford it

There aren’t many restaurants that warrant the MICHELIN three star rating; there aren’t many SEO companies, either. Vibrant ambiance, gracious service, delectable menu and an award-winning chef are all part and partial for this type of company.

The guiding rule for those wondering if they should hire a three star SEO company is, “If you have to ask how much it costs, you can’t afford it.” Gone are the monthly or quarterly reports; the chef is doing his job, it’s reflected in your company bank account, and if you want to know whether your traffic is up, you know how to get into your analytics.

If you’ve signed up with a three star SEO company, you get the full treatment – the tasting menu and a matching glass of wine with each small, savory course. Here, you don’t tell the chef, “Wait a minute, I don’t need all this. I need…” It is assumed that, since you came to them, you obviously don’t know what you need – that is, after all, why you came to the professionals. You have a job to do, and that job is to enjoy the meal, as it’s served. Including the petit four between meals & a sommelier for your 1998 Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

Now, this description may sound forceful and a little rude. However, by the end of the meal, your site is full of traffic – good, quality, tasty traffic. It smells good, it looks good, it tastes good… and it’s wonderfully nutritious.

Conclusion

Why the analogy of the restaurants? Your website is a traffic-guzzling machine with a bottomless pit for a stomach. It’s always going to be hungry for more visitors; to be more succinct, you’re always going to be hungry for more visitors.

You may be looking at how many unique visitors you’re getting and think, “Gee, it’d be nice to get up to 1,000 per month.” However, once you get there, you won’t celebrate for long. In a couple of days, you’ll be looking longingly at that 2,000 a month mark, or 4,000 and so on.

The thing to remember is, you won’t get there with fast food SEO or can’t-get-a-star SEO. Look at what you need to accomplish, how much you’re willing to spend, and how important increased traffic is to you… before you ever go shopping for an optimization company.

Promoting Harmony

I have a secret you may not know. The Article Archive is based on the idea of promoting the Level343 website, gaining more clients and enticing to visitors to engage with us. I mean, we’re a company that actually sells SEO services. We want people to RT our conversations on Twitter, fan us on Facebook, talk about us to others (in a good way, of course) and happily refer us to all their friends without even thinking about it.

It’s a beautiful dream, isn’t it? It’s not just our dream, either. And yet, even those who achieve this dream still complain. They moan, mumble, grumble and whine. Why?

“I can’t get anybody to comment on my blog!”

The amazing thing to me is that commenting seems to be one of the ways you “know” a blog is hip. People drop by and say, “ooo, good point”, or even, “if you say so”, and all of a sudden your blog is “in”.

It Takes Time for the Word to Circulate, But…

Look. I don’t care if you’re staring at a blog you’ve had for four years without a single comment. It takes time. However, if you just posted the articles and figured people would find their way, you figured wrong. IF the purpose of your blog is to build an actual community and create relationships, you have to be the one to start the conversation.

In the process of researching, we’ve come across several blogs that held the potential of being thriving communities. For many, there was an air of expectation and breathless waiting, but crickets chirped in the background. Why? Because nothing was actually happening – yet.

In one in particular, the content was great. After talking to the site owner, I found out that the blog was getting plenty of visitors, but had no comments. It turns out that the site owner never tried to engage – anybody, anywhere. She simply figured that somebody would comment eventually.

You Have to Engage…

Will quality content bring out visitors? Yes. Will it bring out comments? Not necessarily. Quality content will only bring out the initial comments if you manage to write something in just the right tone so the individual feels they simply must respond.

Are you going to do that with keyword stuffed articles? We all know the answer is no, and I’m sure I’ve beaten that topic into the ground often enough. For the sake of those who may never have read here before, let me rinse and repeat. Keyword stuffing doesn’t help your SEO, and it certainly doesn’t help your visitors. It sucks to read, is difficult to understand and doesn’t even entice the reader to try to understand. Don’t do it.

I digress. If you haven’t been lucky enough to hit that tone, you’ll have to take a deep breath, step into the masses and engage. Meet with people online through blog commenting and social networking. Answer questions willingly and freely (it’s the nice thing to do). Don’t spam people (it’s the annoying thing to do). Commit to building relationships instead of numbers (it’s the right thing to do).

Because Visitors Are People Too

It all boils down to the fact that visitors aren’t numbers – I don’t care what your web analyst or optimizer says. Visitors are living, breathing people who like or dislike your writing, blog, personality, services and/or website. They have feelings and are more than willing to share them with anyone and everyone willing to listen – on at least three or more social media sites.

If they don’t like you, don’t know you or feel like you’re a sociopath with no care for the world, doom on you. However, if you manage to create a bridge of information and trust between you and the community you’re building, the people in that community can become your personal cheerleaders.

One Person You Engage…

I’m not kidding; you’d be amazed what the power of one person who really likes and trusts you as a business individual can do for your business. Think about it. If that one person is active in social media and feels like you’re an important part of his or her online world, they’ll start to RT and pass your links around… let’s imagine with a math equation, shall we?

Your personal cheerleader, who is actively engaging in social media, is being followed by 2,000 people. They send out a link from your blog to their 2,000 people. Maybe 10% will look at the link:     2000 * 10% = 200

Let’s say those who open the link average 30 followers each; they forward the link to their Twitter feed. Maybe 5% of those open the link:

2000 * 10% = 200 * 30 = 6,000 * 5% = 300

Now, that 5% also averages 30 followers each and they forward the link. Their followers may not know your cheerleader at all, so maybe 2% open the link:

2000 * 10% = 200 * 30 = 6,000 * 5% = 300 * 30 = 9,000 * 2% = 180

Cheerleader + First Open + Second Open + Third Open = (1 + 200 + 300 + 180) = 680

Can Turn Your Blog Into an Active, Ranking Community

Your one cheerleader brought you 680 visits because they trust and like you. How does that transfer into SEO and better ranking? Bloggers who like you and like your content will blog about you. They might just add a link, write a blurb or write a review. They might mention you in passing: “My friend, Gabriella, over at Level343 (link) told me once…”

As well, they will comment on your blog. All it takes is a few articles with comments on them before more comments will come rolling in. Now, you may not be bombarded, but you will get enough to say, “Yeah, I’m getting comments”.

As you continue to build relationships, you will also build links. The wonderful thing is that these links happen naturally, organically; you don’t have to force them. While it takes time, a few cheerleaders for you and/or your services can turn your blog into a ranking, active community.

Can you do it? Can you engage and encourage others? Can you step into the online community with rings on your fingers and bells on your toes? Yes. Now that these questions have been answered by an expert, it’s time to ask yourself a question: will I?

Will it stick?

Have you ever seen a site or blog that always seems to get tons of readers and traffic? Everything they touch turns to gold, doesn’t it? Did you ever wonder if they’ve SEO’d or not?

Well, in the industry, it’s easy to see if someone’s been optimizing and how much they actually know vs. guessing. Usually, the answer is yes, they’ve optimized. However, the real question comes down to, how did they build up that traffic base? For most, it’s called “creating a sticky site”. People like the site, they like the info, and they want to pass it around.

Do you want a sticky site? You have to start with the content. Now, writing SEO content is more than just pushing specific keywords into your sentence; it’s about knowing your audience, listening to them and making adjustments as you move forward. Traffic is ultimately the Holy Grail of Truth and there are three ways to get it: you pay for it, you optimize for it or your site is as old as the hills.

Paying for traffic is never “the best solution”, no matter what the landing page tells you. You aren’t getting the traffic you need i.e. the converting, interested kind. As well, you can’t do anything about the age of your site. Assuming that you decide to optimize for it, here are some tips to get you started.

Remember, having a website or blog is not just about SEO; it’s the whole experience. Whether you’re selling a service or product, you have to bring all the elements together:

• Fast loading site
• No meaningless splash page
• No annoying web gimmicks
• A clear message
• A coordinated site/blog design (i.e no wild colors “just ‘cause”)
• Easy navigation

Now, as an SEO copywriter and marketing aficionado, I have to say that any SEO should be built in during the creative process. This doesn’t mean after you’ve designed the site, but while you’re constructing the site; building the principals of organic search into the design will ultimately give you a better architecture and foundation.

Let’s bring the rest of the elements together:

• Relevant topics (and thus, relevant keywords)
• Informative, interesting, entertaining content
• Worthwhile links (vs. link farms and crap links)
• Actionable content on the site (are you telling them what to do next?)

In short, a sticky site is a site that people enjoy visiting. Take, for example, The Onion. You just might have heard of it. The Onion has an Alexa traffic ranking of 2,234 worldwide. Out of all the websites in the world, it ranks 2,234. Why? Because people enjoy reading the articles on the site.

Now, we can’t all be The Onion. They found a niche, filled it, and filled it well. It’s smart, sarcastic, witty and sometimes downright rude. If you can’t handle this type of news, don’t follow the link; it’s your choice. However, we can take lessons in site stickiness.

As you go about trying to create a sticky site, remember The Onion; it’s an eye-opening lesson on engaging the masses. You can use any tone you want, as long as it’s the right tone to reach out to your readers and pull them back.

As well, you have to have the type of design that speaks about your company and gives visitors an initial, positive reaction. People will often forgive after a positive first impression, but hardly ever forgive a negative first impression.

Having a sticky site isn’t just about SEO; it’s about the people that visit. Take a chance, whether you run an online business or are just blogging for fun, to really reach out. Stretch the boundaries a little – heck, stretch them a lot!

Buried under SEO

You’re buried under paperwork, you barely have time for a snack lunch if that, and some salesperson comes along with a smile on their face to say, “You know you need SEO to make it in the online world, right?” They then add, “Since SEO is a long-term endeavor and takes a lot of time, your best bet is to hire someone.” Wow – what a sales gimmick.

Well, if you’ve been reading the Article Archive, you already know it’s not a gimmick. That salesperson is telling the truth. However, what they don’t tell you is that you can do your own SEO, in your own time, without sacrificing your business.

Let me shine a little light on small SEO companies like Level 343. Like many small companies, we only have a few employees. We’re busy, everybody has a job or three to do, and lunch breaks are short if not skipped all together. Does this sound familiar? Well, like many SEO companies, we also keep our optimization in house. How, if everybody is busy with client work?

Tip #1: Remember that SEO is a continual endeavor.

I don’t want to use the word “long-term”, because that implies there’s an end in sight. There isn’t; it’s a continual process. By remembering this tip, you feel less pressure to “reach the finish line”. There is no finish line, which brings me to tip number two.

Tip #2: SEO campaigns consist of steps; take one step at a time.

Many doing their own optimization try to do everything at once. They write content, build links, build their social networks, research keywords and everything else without really thinking about any one part of the campaign. What they end up with is a mess – an SEO campaign that really isn’t thought out and rushed implementation.

As a busy company owner, you’d have to take time out of your business hours to do it all. Not only does your SEO campaign suffer, but your business suffers as well. Optimization is supposed to help your business succeed, not drag it down. Follow your campaign steps one at a time; it’ll take longer to see results, but it’s healthier for your business.

Tip #3: Delegate your SEO where you can.

For instance, if you have someone in the company that’s better than others are at writing, let them do the content creation. If someone’s quicker at coding, let him or her do the onsite optimization. You shouldn’t be trying to do it all yourself if you can help it, which brings us to tip number four.

Tip #4: Use SEO consultants and content editors if possible.

As a rule, SEO consultants are less costly than having an agency do the whole campaign. Likewise, it usually costs less to hire a content editor than it does to hire someone to write an entire piece of copy. In this way, you make sure that your efforts aren’t wasted, you have “cost compromise”, and the SEO consultants keep your campaign on track.

Tip #5: Make your company your client.

This is the hard part, but a necessary part of doing your own SEO. You have to set some time aside, and the easiest way to do this is by adding your own company to your client list. How ever much time you can reasonably dedicate to your campaign, do so.

Maybe you’ll have to work an extra hour a day, set aside for the company, or maybe you’ll have to make up the work on your day off. However, this is one tip you can’t compromise on. Whatever time you set, use it on your company! Otherwise, you’ll never quite get the onsite optimization done that you planned, you’ll never quite get the content written, or… you get the idea.

Whether you create your own SEO campaign or have an agency build you one, you’ll have a set goal: a six-month campaign, for instance. However, as we tell our clients with our DIY SEO Campaign: take one step at a time and only do what you can reasonably afford to do without compromising your business. If your six-month campaign takes eight months, don’t worry – you’ll still reap the harvest of benefits.