How Twitter Can Help Your SEO

Twitter is a useful tool for assisting with SEO efforts. Considered a micro blogging platform, Twitter is one of the most popular social media sites. With such a large network of Twitter members it is the perfect place to concentrate on SEO. Here are some ways that Twitter helps.


Social Signals

Twitter sends out social signals that become visible in the search algorithm for Google. The social signs can help a website rank higher than it may have otherwise. A greater number of social signs place a greater level of importance on a website, which sends it shooting to the top of Google search results. This goes a long way in helping a website's SEO efforts.

Tweeting in order to build up SEO involves doing a few specific things.


Memorable and Impressive Account Name

Every Twitter user has a profile on the website. If a company is trying to step up their SEO efforts they will want to make sure that the account name they choose is one that people will remember. A good rule of thumb is to choose some kind of variation of the company's name. This variation should be related to what people are most likely to type into a search engine bar when looking for a company.


Insert Backlinks Strategically

While not every tweet a company sends out should include a link back to their website, some of the tweets should. It is crucial to make sure a company is not including their link in their tweets either too often or not often enough. The tweets that do include a link to the company's website will almost always drive an increased amount of traffic to the website.


Include Useful Keywords

When a company sends out a tweet they should make every effort to include a relevant keyword or key phrase into the beginning of the tweet. Since tweets are limited to a maximum of 140 characters, users must choose their words carefully. The shorter a tweet, the more effective it is likely to be. Shorter tweets are also easier for others to respond to or to re-tweet. In many cases when someone re-tweets they want to include words of their own in the re-tweet. This means that the original tweet needs to leave enough room for characters for people to be able to add their own thoughts.


Interaction with Consumers

For companies to be successful it is helpful to interact with their followers on Twitter. Commenting on and re-tweeting the tweets a company's followers post makes them feel like the company cares about them. The more friendly and approachable a company appears to be, the more people will want to give the company their business. Tweeting new website content to a company's followers encourages them to keep visiting the website, which helps greatly with SEO efforts.

These are just some of the ways that Twitter can help companies with their SEO efforts. Twitter is a valuable tool to use.


About The Author: Simon Brisk is the head of manual outreach at Click Intelligence, a search marketing agency based in London, Bristol and Cheltenham. Simon writes about search marketing tips, step by step guides and his experience in the field of online marketing.

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It's A Dog Eat Dog World: Five Pieces Of Advice They Don't Teach You In Business School

Going to college to get a degree in business can help you tremendously in the future. Potential employers may look at your educational history and place importance on the school that you attended. However, business school isn't the only place that you'll learn valuable life lessons. Whether you are in the boardroom or on the sales floor, here are five pieces of advice that they don't teach you in business school, but that you'll probably end up using in the professional world.


Promise The World, and Do Your Best to Come Through

When you are in college, it can seem a bit scary to go out on a limb and over extend yourself and your promises. However, in the real world, it is important to make sure that people know you are confident in yourself and that you have lofty expectations. If you make plans for yourself that are over the top, other people will see your desire and commitment to be successful. And when you complete your task, people will be amazed by all of your work and effort.


Step Up to the Plate

With every profession in life, the people that succeed are those that are willing to step up and lead. In college, you may feel expected to play fair and give an equal amount of work to other students. But in the business world, it's important to put yourself ahead of others and be confident in yourself to get things done. If you want to set yourself apart, you need to do the things that others will not.


If You Can't Find the Problem, It May Be You

Have you ever been in a group project in college where you keep pointing fingers at someone who isn't pulling their weight, but they seem to be oblivious to their lack of contribution? Well, the same happens in the business world. If you keep finding issues or problems with something that you are doing, but you can't pinpoint the root of the problem, it may be time to evaluate yourself. Once you realize that you may be the reason for the problem, it's much easier to begin working towards a solution.


Be Clear

In business school, you will probably learn a lot of jargon that may sound good on paper, but that does not work when used in the business world. When working with a new group of people or advertising to the masses, make sure that everyone understands your message and that there is no confusion. Just remember, the real world isn't a thesis statement that is graded by your professor, it's a message that is being understood by your peers. For example, a dentist should not be using technical terms when describing their procedures, but they should use simple ideas and words that can be understood by everyone. This can be a difficult task; however, a dental advertising service can help with this process.


Always Come Through

In the real world, no matter what your profession is, your word is your reputation. In business school, you can get away with saying you are sick and need an extra day to complete a paper. In the real world, this simply will not work, since others will be relying on your work. If you promise something, or are simply expected to do something, be sure that you do it.

You are sure to learn a lot of great lessons in business school, but there are some things that you simply will need to discover on your own.


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How Pinterest Can Help Your Small Business

Pinterest being a relatively new social media platform, many small businesses are unaware of how they can make good use of it. One main reason people seem reluctant to try this social network is because it is quite different from some of the other major social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. In order to understand how you can make use of this tool, you must first understand how other small companies are using Pinterest in their business.

Pinterest can help you build your online presence. Develop a marketing plan that is well-thought out to make Pinterest work for you. You can make use of the following ideas to use Pinterest effectively in your business.


Conduct Market research

When you are well versed with how to use Pinterest you can even benefit by understanding the market trends and knowing the preferences of users on Pinterest. After you pin something, you can check if people actually like your pin and repining it. Also, make note whether you are getting any new followers for your pin. When you do, observe their profiles to know the kind of people interested in your product so that you can add more tailored content keeping them in mind.


Promote what you sell

For those businesses selling products, Pinterest can be a very good way to showcase products to users through pictures. Share images of your best products but a better approach would be to include pictures of customers using your products. You can also add pictures giving customers step-by-step instructions on how to use your product. You can assign a pin as a product by adding the price of the product in the product description. The price must be accompanied by the dollar sign or whichever currency you plan to use. By doing so, the product will also be added to the gifts section on Pinterest.


Share videos

You can share videos on Pinterest by embedding them into Pinterest itself. Small businesses can greatly benefit from sharing videos and so this feature should definitely be used to promote your business.


Feature blog posts

Pinterest is increasingly being used by bloggers in order to give emphasis to their blog posts and also to create visual representations of their content. To make this happen, you must add graphics like photos to your blog post so that when your post is pinned Pinterest will be able to pull the right image.


Share space with others

Pinterest is more effective when used as a group activity. You can involve your employees, customers and other Pinterest users. You can assign boards to your employees or loyal customers where they can share their ideas and have discussions. This can help you learn what your customers feel and help you learn from each other too.

You can also create boards that highlight useful information from sources other than yours. You can include images from your customers and clients that your target audience might find appealing. Also, include interesting images on your company website so that Pinterest users might be encouraged to pin those pictures on their boards.


About The Author: Jessica is a content strategy specialist with Godot Media. She has years of experience helping businesses with their content marketing strategy. Her other interests besides content marketing are finance, lifestyle and even, fashion.

Did you find this article helpful? Please let Jessica and myself know by leaving us your valued comments in the comments section below.

Would you like to guest post on the blog? Please use the Contact tab above to get in touch if you write business-related articles or articles on the topics of Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Social Media Marketing/Optimisation (SMO), Blogging, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Related articles:
3 Interesting Ways Brands Can Use Pinterest Board Covers
Bloggers And Pinterest

For more business tips plus helpful articles on marketing your business on social media, use the following links:
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Until my next post on Monday with five pieces of advice they don't teach you in business school, have a wonderful and relaxing weekend! See you back here on Monday!

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How To Survive Your First Two Years As A Start-Up

The Great Recession and subsequent recovery has been rough for just about everyone, unless you are fortunate enough to be one of the 1%. But for a lot of people, it provided the opportunity and the determination to begin their own businesses.

However, the recovery hasn't been all that kind to new business start-ups. While the failure rate for new businesses has always been quite high, the failure rate rose by 40% between 2007 and 2010.

On the bright side, there are a number of successful people who are more than willing to share their stories with newbies, and much can be learned from both their mistakes and their triumphs.


Don't Be Afraid to Fail

Sara Blakely, the founder and inventor of Spanx slimming shapewear, had this to say about advice her father gave her when she was growing up: "My dad encouraged us to fail. Growing up, he would ask us what we failed at that week. If we didn't have something, he would be disappointed. It changed my mindset at an early age that failure is not the outcome, failure is not trying."


A Handshake is Great, But Get it In Writing

Marcia Kilgore, the serial entrepreneur and creator of lifestyle and beauty brands, says a friendship in business can only take you so far. "Get everything in writing, especially with business partners. When you're starting out, things can be quite friendly and exciting, but people's memory can change due to money."


Let Your Customers Be Your Best Marketers

You might have the snazziest marketing campaign in the world, but it's a lot cheaper and frankly more convincing if you can get your customers to market for you. When you have a great product and you treat your customers well, they will tell other people about your company. Provide a good forum for feedback, do care about what your customers think, and they will not only come back for more, but they will bring others with them.


Better than the Competition

If you are not either better or cheaper, then you really have no reason to exist. Take it from Jim Koch of Sam Adams fame: "You have a viable business only if your product is either better or cheaper than the alternatives. If it's not one or the other, you might make some money at first, but it's not a sustainable business."

On a more concrete level, here are some specific things you can do to cut costs and make sure your business has a decent chance to grow:


Control Inventory

If you carry inventory, make sure you are not carrying far more than you need. Not only do you have to pay your suppliers for goods that are sitting around, you also have to shell out money for storage. Keep only enough on-hand to suffice until the next supplier delivery date.


Shorten Receivables

Make sure that your customers are paying as quickly as they should be. If your terms have been overly generous in the past, send a note to your clients that terms are changing, and be sure to BOLD the due date on invoices. Start collection efforts as soon as the payment is late.


Consult your tax accountant for any overlooked breaks

Deduct all equipment purchases as quickly as you can. If you are going to lose money this year, investigate carrying it back to a previous year. Make sure you are deducting health premiums and self-employment tax. And if you have not yet started up your new business venture, be sure to look into the tax atmosphere of the state where you plan to locate. Some states are friendlier than others.


Don't Spend Money Until You Have Money

And finally, from the founder of DailyCandy, Dana Vely: "When we used to put candy in our media kits, I would go to the Duane Reade store the day after Easter because the candy was on sale. Of course, it's important to spend on certain things in the beginning. You need good servers but you don't need Aeron desk chairs."


About The Author: The article was written by Audrey, who is working for Wallace & Associates, a Sherman Oaks CPA serving the Los Angeles area.

Did you find this article helpful? Please let Audrey and myself know by leaving us your valued comments in the comments section below.

Would you like to guest post on the blog? Please use the Contact tab above to get in touch if you write business-related articles or articles on the topics of Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Social Media Marketing/Optimisation (SMO), Blogging, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

For more business tips, use this link:
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Until my next post on Friday on how Pinterest can help your small business, enjoy the rest of the week! See you back here on Friday!

© 2013. This article is DMCA protected. Republication is prohibited.

7 Tips On How To Make Guest Blogging Work For You

Guest blogging, while it normally doesn't pay cash, gives you great returns in terms of SEO benefits and reputation as an author. You get a larger audience than you would from your own blog alone, and you get backlinks from high authority blogs (where you posted) to boost your own ranking. As with most everything else, you've got to know the tricks of the trade to make guest blogging work for you.

Here are 7 tips that you could begin with:


1. The Google gossip

Word is, Google is going to devalue links in the author bio. Since you can't argue with the Big G, it makes sense to somehow insert your link in the article body instead. This is easier said than done because blogs that accept guest posts have their own rules. Create a good portfolio (even if you have never published before) and write a great pitch. Comment on other posts on the blog and, in short, make yourself a known figure. Then, and only then, ask for favors like link in the article body, and you could be pleasantly surprised.


2. Where does the link lead to?

This is weird: very few guest bloggers think of leading visitors to a landing page let alone one that is specialized to suit visitors from the parent site where the guest article was posted. Linking to your home page may guarantee a certain percentage of visitors, but it normally does nothing to convert them to subscribers as well.

Consider this: you are writing Article A on Site B. Create a landing page that says something like "Hi there! You just read A on B, didn't ya? Well, welcome to my site..." and put in the subscription form along with a freebie to "thank" your visitors for reading your article. Regarding the freebie (gift, actually), say something like "Tell us where to send it" and you'll have quite a few emails already.


3. How do you link?

Anchor texts are fine; ones with keywords are great; catchy ones with keywords that entice visitors to follow the link to your site are even better. However, there is something called "co-occurrence". This would be the keywords found around, not in, your anchor text. This is something like LSI (latent semantic indexing) keywords; only the keywords that you use here are going to be top-class main keyword types and are best utilized when you can use them to tell the search engines what your site is all about.


4. Focus on the page, not the site

Reputation of the site is not immaterial, but you gain as much authority as the page you are going to be on. Make yourself familiar with the site and its audience, and the kind of post that gets most comments and write accordingly to figure on a high authority/PR page.

Check out also the site owner's social media profiles. See if they have enough followers or subscribers. You want to reach a wider audience; unless the person is well connected, that may not happen.


5. Cross linking

Create profiles on different social media sites (several of the same, real profile, not creepy ones that change your mugshot or distort your name). Link your guest article to other guest posts of yours and your profiles and vice versa - leave no stone unturned to create a mesh of links around your web-presence. Since you are not creating the mesh with dime a dozen autoblogs or article directories, your links will count.


6. Sometimes, promote your guest posts, not your site

This is not missing the point at all. What you are aiming at here is author reputation. Google +1, Facebook likes, etc, actually lead to social endorsement that Google values. So, what actually happens is that when you are promoting your post, the parent site being high authority (why else would you guest post there?) lends credence to your reputation as an author. And when people try to find out more about you, voila! - they get to know of your site! This is actually as simple as it sounds. When it begins to work for you, remember we told you first.


7. Get organized

You will be able to make use of the earlier points only when you know where you guest-posted, what your subjects were, if you are going to post again, if you got a better idea over one you had last year on a given topic and so on. Have all the data regarding your activities in a spread sheet so that you don't end up sending duplicate posts to a number of blog owners. It will also put things in perspective for you; show you your progress or the lack of it.

Apart from these 7 tips, it helps to find a niche along your own to guest post. However, this is not absolutely necessary, since you can be naturally interested in and expert in several different topics and since the reputation factor is viewed separately by Google even though it is ultimately going to give you SEO benefits.


About The Author: Jason Smith is an online consultant for ABWE. Jason likes blogging about online strategies that are related to SEO, Content, PPC and Lead generation. In his free time he likes to study about web designing and practice Jiu Jitsu.

Did you find this article helpful? Please let Jason and myself know by leaving us your valued comments in the comments section below.

Would you like to guest post on the blog? Please use the Contact tab above to get in touch if you write business-related articles or articles on the topics of Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Social Media Marketing/Optimisation (SMO), Blogging, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Related articles:
How To Use Guest Blogging To Build Your Online Reputation
Strategies For Finding Guest Posting Opportunities
How You Can Get Started With Accepting Guest Posts On Your Website
A Guide To Guest Blogging For SEO In 2012


If you found this or any of my other posts helpful, don't forget to share the posts to your favourite networks using the toolbar below or by using the "+1" and "Share" buttons located at the bottom of each post.

As ever, if you want to stay up to date with the latest blog posts, don't forget to follow via Google Friend Connect (button on sidebar), on NetworkedBlogs, via Email (maximum of one email per day), on Facebook and Google+ or by subscribing to our blog feed at:
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Until my next post on Wednesday on how to survive your first two years as a start-up, have a great and productive week ahead! See you back here on Wednesday!

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