The Top 10 Twitter SEO Tips

1. Choose a good handle

Be sure to pick an optimal handle that’s relevant to your brand or campaign and easy to remember. Your handle (also known as your Username) then becomes part of your customized Twitter URL such as twitter.com/yoursite or twitter.com/yourtopic. Doing this creates a static address for future search indexing, which also helps usability for other cross-channel promotions. So choose wisely! The fun challenge: doing all this while keeping your name short and succinct so it’s easily tweetable.

2. Select an account name wisely

Optimize the Twitter account name to best reflect your brand. Your name is what appears next to your profile, which can be different than your handle/URL. You obviously want an account name that promotes yourself, your company or your brand. You should also consider which variation of you brand name has the most search frequency every month.

3. Make your bio count

Optimize your Twitter page’s “Bio” line so it includes the most important, mission-critical phrases for your brand. Take advantage of all 160 characters! (Yep, that’s right: They give you 20 more characters than a normal tweet.) Your bio is consistently indexed so its contents are what provide your Twitter page with its core relevance.

4. Spread the word

Now think about ways to build the link reputation of this newfound social web address. For example, you can integrate your Twitter URL into your website by placing a call to action on the site for your customers to follow you on Twitter. You could also integrate your Twitter URL within your site’s Global Footer, which appears at the bottom of every page of your site. Both of these options offer usability to your site visitors and help drive your Twitter URL up in the search engines.

5. Remember your URL

In the account settings, be sure to add your website’s URL or perhaps use it to promote your presence on another social platform, for example, yoursite.com. This is a great way to drive traffic back to your destination of choice; although, truth be told, the link does not provide any offsite reputation – a.k.a. SEO link juice – due to a “Nofollow” attribute that Twitter has in place. (Sorry Twitter spammers!)

More Twitter Seo Tips

Google Opens Up Digital-Education Portal

Google has spent a lot of time in the past few years trying to quell fears it's out to disintermediate advertising agencies. Now it's undertaking a major effort trying to educate them on all things digital.

Enter AgencyLand. It may sound like an amusement park, but it's actually an online educational portal Google is developing for ad shops, one that likely will help the search giant deeper entrench itself in an ad-agency community that's often been wary of it.

The AgencyLand platform, now in beta with select agencies, houses a ton of Google-centric content created for agency staff. Naturally, much of it is focused on digital topics. There are webinars, a searchable library with more than 200 marketing case studies and short, on-demand video segments featuring Google leaders such as Chief Economist Hal Varian. It also aggregates Google's array of ad tools, such as a media-planning tool that connects advertisers and publishers and a website optimizer, which helps measure user behavior on web pages.

Google maintains it has altruistic intentions of bettering everyone's digital knowhow, but the program surely doubles as a marketing effort. Given that Google offers advertisers the chance to essentially help themselves create highly measurable and relevant, if unflashy, ads, agencies have been wary that Google could one day get between them and clients. Many shops -- perhaps realizing the search giant simply cannot be ignored -- have opted to work with Google rather than against it. Most publicly, French holding company Publicis Groupe has publicly touted partnerships with Google to work on digital ad technology. But there have also been moments of friction, such as when Martin Sorrell, chief of holding company WPP, took to calling Google a "frenemy" (which he later amended to "froe").

So could AgencyLand just be the latest PR flourish in a Google-Madison Ave. history that's seen plenty of them? That depends on where you sit. "We're not going to deal with an agency that doesn't know Google," said one digital expert at a blue-chip marketer. "It's a barrier to entry."Getting schooled
Asked whether Google's intention is to use AgencyLand for marketing purposes, Spencer Spinnell, director-agency development and strategy, said: "Our objective is really that it's an educational tool. ... I think it's good for digital media at large."

While there are some reasons for skepticism, Google, which needs agency buy-in for a host of reasons, has big ambitions for AgencyLand. Earlier this year it asked 10 shops across different holding companies, including Ogilvy, Initiative, Starcom and Carat, to serve as its guinea pigs while it works out the kinks. It's in the process of rolling the platform out to a second batch of shops for testing (DraftFCB, Martin Agency, DDB, Digitas, Group M, BBDO, 360i and Razorfish) and estimates it will make AgencyLand widely available to agencies late this year or early next.

Usage of the portal is free. The search giant said it had received requests from the agency community for training that would help employees stay ahead of the digital curve. The timing of the platform's release is ideal, Google said, because it enables agencies to continue boosting their digital chops even at a time when most are cash-strapped.

"In a down economy, training is one of the first things to get cut" Mr. Spinnell said. He said he believes AgencyLand offers a way for agencies to "take their knowledge workers and make them smarter."

The biggest piece of feedback from agency users so far has been a recommendation to make the training sessions shorter and more digestible. Google went back to the drawing board and created a series of 15-minute graphical seminars with voice-over instructions. "The idea is that a planner or creative can [complete segments] while eating lunch at their desk," Mr. Spinnell said.

Certification
AgencyLand is tailored to each agency, co-branded with each company's logo, and dotted with pictures of agency heads and customized content. Agency management tracks individual employees' progress, and quizzes are offered at the end of each course.

The user interface as it stands now is Google-esque -- simple, tons of white space, no bells and whistles -- and the content is very Google-centric. Courses suggested for TV media buyers and planners, for example, are "How YouTube complements Television Advertising" and "Getting the Most Out of Google TV." For search specialists, "Google Maps and Ads" and "AdWords on the Go: Mobile Activation." Google is working toward embedding a certification program.

"There's no question the content is largely skewed to our platforms, today, but that's because we are in early stages," Mr. Spinnell said. "AgencyLand ... will expand and include the agency's own training materials and competitive materials."

"Google really has turned around; they really want to help agencies," said Amy Auerbach, senior VP-director of digital at Interpublic Group of Cos.' Initiative, New York. "One of the challenges that agencies face on a daily basis is training staff. Some agencies have established programs and some do not, and that was something that we in the digital space were kind of clamoring for."

Initiative has historically offered a mix of training programs that are informal, such as its "lunch and learn" sessions, where experts give presentations, or more formal, such as a mandatory, nationwide digital training session the shop held earlier this year. "The good thing about AgencyLand is that it's a technology platform, so it was very turnkey for us," Ms. Auerbach said.

Internal affairs
Still, agency leaders are quick to note that Google's agency training program doesn't trump internal ones, and should be used only in tandem with existing training programs.

Last fall, WPP-owned Group M introduced its first major online training program, dubbed Mspace -- a play on the name and style of News Corp.'s MySpace. More than half of the agency's staff -- some 1,700 staffers -- has already gone through the program, and "75% of those people have been people outside of digital," said John Montgomery, chief operating officer-North America at Group M Interaction.

Group M, one of AgencyLand's select test agencies, is in the midst of assembling teams that will work on the platform in beta and report back to the search giant.

"Even something like Mspace has to be used as an adjunct to a formal digital training program, for digital and for nondigital people," Mr. Montgomery said. "If it was their only training I would be worried, and the same would be true about AgencyLand."

Microsoft is launching its own agency-targeted training program this summer, called Digital Academy. It's not an online training tool like Google's but rather in-person educational sessions, expected to push the three-screen approach (web, TV and mobile) that Microsoft evangelizes.

Official Source

Social Networking: 10 Steps to Finding Your Target Market in Facebook

How do you find your target market in Facebook? Whether you're an experienced social networker or just a newbie, here are 10 secrets to growing your target market network in Facebook:

1. Update-to-date profile and/or Fan page: Before you begin a "friending" (i.e. request to become another's friend), be sure that your profile is up-to-date with an accurate description of what you do, your interests, and your contact info, including your web site URLs. If you have multiple businesses, invite people in your appropriate target market to become fans of your niche-specific fan page.

2. Follow the gurus. Follow leaders in your field/industry and "friend" them. Anytime you make a friend request, include a personal note, as that will improve the likelihood that they will accept your request. Say something like, "I'm a big fan and have been on your ezine/blog list for several years. I'd love to have you in my network in Facebook." Once they have accepted your invitation, make comments about their status updates to help you get on their radar and in front of their networks.

3. Friends of friends. Take a look at the people in the network of your industry leaders, as they are probably part of your target market as well, and send friend requests to those of interest to you. When you friend someone that you only know by association, send a personal note as well, like "I discovered your profile in 's network and would like to get to know you better by adding you to my network."

4. Use groups. Look for groups that may contain your target market. In your search for groups, use keywords that describe your niche, your industry, your geographic area, the interests of your target market, or whatever other terms you might use to find members of your target market. Join and begin to participate in the group so that they begin to get to know you. Then peruse the member lists for good prospects, sic as the members you've connected with or have gotten to know. Since you won't be able to view the profiles of the group members because they aren't in your network, much of your decision-making about whom to friend may be based upon appearance or how you might be connected to them via other friends in your network.

Read more about: 10 Steps to Finding Your Target Market in Facebook

Ten Tips For Google Image Search

Google Image Search could be used in many ways.

1. If you want to know if a person is a man or a woman and the name doesn't help, do a search for the name.

2. If you don't know the meaning of a word, the pictures may help you.

3. A better search for Flickr. Google uses information from other sites that link to Flickr photos, so you may find Google search better.

4. Find what's interesting about a site, by looking at the pictures included. For example: wired.com.

5. Find a new wallpaper for your desktop by restricting your search to large images. You can automate this using an application.

6. Find random personal pictures, using standard file names from digital cameras.

7. Type the name of a painter and you can take an art class.

8. Install a Greasemonkey script so you can view the original version of the image directly by clicking on the thumbnail.

9. Find the color of a word. "Word Color is a windows program that uses Google Image Search to determine the color of a word or string of words. It goes out there, retrieves the top 9 images and loops through all pixels, calculating the average hue, which is later converted to a color."

10. If you want to grab search results, GoogleGrab is a tool that downloads images from Google Image Search. It even supports batch search.

Official Source

Bing to be Integrated into Search Engine Reports

Recently Microsoft released a new search engine called Bing, which has begun sending traffic to websites with Google Analytics installed. Bing currently shows up as a referring site in the Traffic Sources reports. We are actively working on an update that will include Bing under the default list of search engines in Google Analytics.

If you absolutely can't wait for the upgrade, you can add the following line to your Google Analytics tracking code as a temporary solution. Note, this workaround is recommended for advanced users only. For more information on adding custom configurations to the Google Analytics tracking code, read this article.

pageTracker._addOrganic("bing", "q");

Official Source

SEO And SEM: What’s The Difference?

If you haven’t been around Internet marketers very long then you might get a little confused about how terminology is used. Even the veterans sometimes disagree on the labels and get confused between the blurring lies. But I thought I’d take a little time to explain the difference between search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). They’re not the same thing.
Essentially, SEM is a broader term and includes SEO. Here’s the distinction:

SEO is the process of using content, links, keywords, and meta tags to improve a web page’s search engine rankings. Search engine optimizers tend to get a little tunnel vision where rankings are concerned and make that the No. 1 priority.
SEM involves any task of marketing a web page through a search engine and may not necessarily be concerned with organic rankings. Typically, SEM refers to organic SEO as well as paid search models like pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Some marketers also include display advertising because Yahoo! and MSN both offer display advertising on their search pages. I think you could also include some aspects of social media since many social media marketing campaigns can have search implications attached to them, intentional or not.

6 tactics for maximing your AdWords investment

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.

You can read more about each of these tips including examples and instructions at www.google.com/adwords/tactics and you can also view these tactics in a pdf format at www.google.com/adwords/tactics/top_tactics.pdf. We hope these tactics will help you continue to see good returns from your AdWords investment.

Keyword Density - How Much is Too Much?

When you're evaluating keyword density, you need to decide on your keyword phrase and then write your page. Once you've chosen a keyword phrase for your Web page, you need to start using it. As you probably already know, you should use your keyword phrase in:

• the meta title
• meta keywords
• meta description
• h1, h2, and h3 headlines (and h4-h6, if you have them)
• the first paragraph of text in the HTML
• in link text
• in alternate text for images
• scattered throughout the rest of the text on the page

But if there isn't a lot of text on the page, repeating your keyword phrase that many times could end up with a page that is too keyword heavy. In other words, your keyword density is too high.

Your First Rule Must Be Readability Not Keyword Density

And not readability by search engines, but by your customers. If your customers find the text annoying to read they won't be your customers very long, no matter how dense or sparsely you've repeated your keyword phrase. So the first thing I do, especially if I think I've written a page that is too keyword dense is have someone else read the article. Once they're done I'll ask them to sum up what they thought the article was about in 2 or 3 words. I also ask them about the writing - did they find it repetitive? Most of the time, if your test audience doesn't mind the repetitions of your keyword phrase, then you probably haven't included it too often.

Strive for a Keyword Density of No More than 5%

This means that out of the entire Web page content, your keyword phrase should be no more than 5% of the total words. If it is more than that, you risk appearing like a keyword spammer to search engines or annoying your customers with hard-to-read pages.

I aim for a keyword density of 3-4% for my target phrases. I've found that this works to get the keyword phrase into the mind of my reader without screaming at them "I'm targeting ________ as my keyword phrase". I've found that if I ask my test readers what they think the keyword phrase is, if they can get it right away, it's probably too dense. But if they can come close without being 100% I'm hitting the mark.

Official Source of Keyword Density

Use Google’s Brain To Find Keywords

I like this trick and use it each time in my keyword research. I came up with it after discovering the great AutoPagerize user script for Greasemonkey. It stimulates a lot of ideas quickly. In keyword research, where creativity is still a key ingredient, this trick not only makes for a great “jump in” point but also provides a bunch of terms that have a higher probability for success.

Take one keyword or keyword phrase and enter it into Google like this: allintitle: ~coffee products where coffee products would be the term you’re looking to expand upon. By using the tilde (~), you’re asking Google to display synonyms and related terms that Google may be using in their algorithm.

The above guest tip is provided by Bill Sebald

New Google search features important for SEO and online marketing

New search features being unveiled by Google could have an impact on search engine optimisation (SEO) and internet marketing strategies.

In an official blog post, the search engine said it was launching a new package called Search Options, which lets users refine their results.

They can choose to filter out results according to time, or run a search for forums, videos or reviews only, for example.

Users can also see various views of their results, with some showing more information about each entry and others including more images.

"We think of the Search Options panel as a tool belt that gives you new ways to interact with Google Search and we plan to fill it with more innovative and useful features in the future," the post read.

Research carried out recently by Guava and Econsultancy revealed that 55 per cent of companies intend to spend more on SEO this year, while 45 per cent plan to increase their pay per click marketing budgets.

More about these Google search features .