Last few weeks has seen som many changes in the search engine world. These includes the announcement of Google Wave, the replacement of Microsoft’s Live with Bing, the end of Yahoo’s Geocities and Yahoo 360. These all things sends a feeling that the search engine optimization field is changing somehow.
The search engines has been there for almost last 10 years and we have seen a lot of changes since then. In the early years we were new to the search engines and were amazed at the results that the search engine produced. But over the times, search engine have evolved to a higher level, with Google leading the way and remaining at the helm for over a decade. Whenever anyone things of searching something on the net, the first name that comes into the mind is ‘Google’.
In the earlier days people used search engines to search something on the net, or search for some informations. But now it has changed rapidly and apart from searching stuffs on the net, people are using search engine for even taking decisions and other calculations. The search engine efficiency and its algorithms has become more complex and major search engines are trying too harder to stay in the top search engine brackets. Till some time back no search engine were comfortably able to read and crawl the text on the flash files and certain Javasripts. But Google has somewhat broken that jinx and has thrown more challenges to its competitors.
These all facts have brought the Search Engine (SEO) Professionals to work harder and stay up to date with the changing algorithms and tools. But in my opnion even with these advancements of the Search Engine algorithms the basics of SEO has not changed. The basic of the search engine optimization still remains the same, but the style of doing it has changed. So every SEO professional should be well equipped to adapt to these technological advancements.
The basic of SEO is to build a search engine friendly website structure and a good keyword research, so that the website does not perform badly in the search engine results page (SERP). The process of link building is also the same and does not have changed too much. The main thing that differentiates the SEO of today form the SEO techniques that was implemented a few years back is the introduction of Social Media Optimization (SMO). Social Media Optimization includes the process of getting traffic from certain social media sites which works purely on Web 2.0 platform. SMO mainly focuses includes user participation and loyality, and is also a major source of link building.
So in a nutshell if you stick to your SEO basics and get updated with the latest techniques, you would not find too much changes in the process of SEO.
Social Media sites have become an integral part of online marketing and has made the online marketing process and traffic generation much more easier. Social Media sites includes social networking and social bookmarking sites, which are mainly based on Web 2.0 technologies. To have an excellent social media profile one must be hard working and would be willing to spare time on these sites, growing the network, reading and appreciating others stuffs. In social media sites, you are able to interact with the other users through sharing and participation. I am also a Social Media addict and is a member of various Social MEdia Sites. Here I would like to share a few Social Media sites that I find more important.
1)Digg
Digg is the most popular social bookmarking site where you are able to post interesting articles from the net. If the articles of news that you are posting is of great interest, it would be getting more votes. Once it gets a certain amount of vote (Diggs) in a particular period of time, you post would get into the most popular pages. Once you post gets on to the most popular pages, the site which contains the submitted article or news is bound to get a huge amount of traffic. Since Digg is too sensitive avoid doing spammy stuff and creating multiple accounts from the same domain, as your Digg account, your IP adress and even your website may get banned from Digg.
2) StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is another interesting social media sites, where you are able to submit interesting articles and get traffic based on the interest it generates among the other users. In Stumbleupon your post can get an upvote (Thumbs up) or a down vote (Thumbs Down) based on its quality. In StumbleUpon also you have to maintain a good network which contains users of similar interest as you. You can also Join certain groups, which suites your interest and requirements. StumbleUpon is said to derive quality traffic with lower bounce rate and is very popular among social media enthusiasts.
3)Twitter
Twitter is another famous social media site which is growing at a rapid pace. Twitter is actually a microblogging social media site, where you can share your stuffs with a character length which is limited to 140. Twitter has emerged as a powerful social media tool and is also know for generating high quality traffic. More and more users are registering for Twitter and many companies and Organization has found Twitter as an effective tool for marketing and lead generation.
4)Mixx
Another social bookmarking site, which is based on voting up / voting down, some what similar to Digg. Even though not as popular as Digg, it is soon carving a niche for itself in the social media world. It also has the popular section, where an article / news is displayed after it has attained a certain number of votes and user comments. Mixx has the options of creating and joining groups and communities, which helps in getting votes and traffic. This site also derives quality traffic to the site, but requires constant work and participation to build a reputable profile.
5)Twine
Twine is the latest Social Media site that I have started using and have found it to be extremely good for quality traffic generation. Twine also requires you to build a good network and regular participation to stay afloat in the competition. If you have a good network you would be able to share and bookmark good stuffs among your network. In Twine you have the facility to create and Join groups, which would prove to be a major source of traffic generation.
Twitter is one of the most popular micro blogging and social media site, which is growing at a rapid pace. A lot of individuals and organizations are using Twitter in order to enhance their sales and marketing. It is also effective in brand building. Twitter is a social media site where you can express your views and thoughts in 140 characters. You can also share links along with your thoughts. A lot of tools are available which makes the usage of Twitter more smooth. I have been trying a lot of tools and each day many new tools emerge, which are simply superb. I would like to share some important Twitter tools that I have found useful in managing Twitter accounts.
1. Twitturly
Twitturly is another tool for managing Twitter account and has some similarity with the famous social bookmarking site Digg. Twitturly actually tracks the URLs around Twitter and provides a quick real time view of what people are talking on Twitter. Each time when someone tweets a URL in Twitter, Twitturly takes note of this URL and gives a vote for each Tweet that URL receives by different users. The more votes a URLs get in the last 24 hours, the higher the chances of ranking higher on to the top 100 of Twitturly.
2. TweetDeck
TweetDeck is a desktop softare which helps in managing your Twitter profile efficiently. Tweetdeck displays all your Twitter network activities such as the Tweet made by your friends, direct messages and Replies. It also helps in performing advance searches on the overall Twitter networs, your friend’s tweet etc. This tool is one of the best Twitter tool that I have found out. TweetDeck help in customizing your Twitter experience with columns, groups, saved searches and automatic updates helping you to effortlessly stay updated with the people and topics you care about.
3. Twhirl
Twhirl is also another Desktop software for Twitter, which is based on Adobe Air Platform. It connects to your Twitter account and sends notification for new messages and tweets. It also provides you with options such as retweet, reply etc. Twhirl helps in improving your Twitter experience and offers various configuration options to enhance your Twitter management.
4. Splitweet
Splittweet is aimed at offering Tweet services for those who needs to use multiple Twitter account at the same time and send Tweets through them. This is an online tool and free to regsiter. Once registered you can add your multiple Twitter accounts and send Tweets Via them together with one single step.
5. Huitter
Huitter is auseful Twitter tool which helps in the mass unfollowing of those people who are not following you back. It is an online tool and is free to use. Huitter helps in cleaning your Twitter account by removing unwanted users in your list and make your Twitter account more effective.
6. Twellow
Twellow is an online Yellow page for Twitter account, which helps you to categorize and find usrs based on located, profession or subjects of interest. It is free and easy to register and is very helpful when you need to find users belonging to a particular section, group or geographical location.
7. JustTweetit
Justtweetit is an online directory of Twitter profiles, which helps you to find users of having similar interests, and to find and connect with them on Twitter. YOu just have to register and enter your Twitter details so that other users can find you easily. This tool is very much handy when it comes to selecting friend/followers based on religion, country, occupation, language etc.
8. TwtrFrnd
This interesting tool helps to find out the common followers between any two Twitter accounts. This is also helpful when you need to find out the followers of a strong Twitter profile. Just enter the two Twitter usernames into TwtrFrnd. This is also an online tool and you just need to register for free and avail the options to enhance your Twitter profile.
9. RetweetRank
Retweetrank is another online Twitter tool which lets you find the Tweet rank of any twitter user. With the rank, latest retweets of the user are shown and an RSS feed can also be grabbed for the same. Monitoring retweets can provide you with a better understanding of audience to the originator while others can see the most interesting tweets of a user. The top ranked twitter users, who have been most retweeted recently, are listed in the leaderboard. You can know more about this tool at Retweetrank.
10. Twittangle
TwitTangle is a free service that helps reduce the mess of having too many friends on twitter. Twittangle allows you to rate and tag your friends and then filter your timeline to help you easily find the tweets that are most important to you. You can also create custom groups of your followers and filter you timeline by that group. So get ready to use Twittange
