The possibilities that social media sites such as Facebook offer internet marketers can indeed be great. As business or marketing orientated Facebook users, we can build networks  consisting of interested stakeholders.

We are able to communicate directly with our prospects, and we might receive valuable feedback on how we are doing our work.  As a result, we can adapt our internet marketing strategies, build better brands or maybe even increase sales.

With all these benefits, it’s no wonder that many businesses are starting to build a social media marketing plan as part of an integrated internet marketing strategy.

Keep that paragraph in mind while reading the next story :

A while ago, as I was checking my facebook page I noticed a friend request. It had a message attached to it.  So, I opened up the message and there’s this person introducing himself (I will not name him).  He seemed like a nice guy and aside from that I saw that he is the CEO of some kind of internet marketing related company. Something to do with increasing your conversions …

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Not too long ago Matt Cutts posted a blog entry named PageRank Sculpting. This article notifies search engine optimizers that the way PageRanks flows between web pages has changed.

Before the change, if a web page had a PageRank of 5 points and linked out to two other pages, this PageRank would be divided in two and parsed over to the other two pages. You can see this very clearly in the image of Matt’s article.

The rel=nofollow attribute is an HTML attribute which, when added to a link prevents the PageRank to flow over to the other pages. So a page with PageRank of 5 points that links out to two other pages which has two rel=nofollow attributes added to them will not parse PageRank to the other pages.

The result is that the PageRank of 5 points are deliberately kept on the original page, giving that specific page an advantage over the other pages in the web site when getting ranked by Google.  This is called PageRank sculpting and it’s one of the tricks that experienced search engine optimizers use in order influence rankings.

Truthfully, it was only a matter of time before Google would put a stop to this and Cutts even stated that they thought people would notice a change would be coming. The reason behind the change is of course because eventually, practices such as PageRank sculpting would influence how relative the search results are because ranking power is directed to certain pages and kept away of others deliberately.
The lesson here is not new. We’ve seen this time and time again.

If you want to keep being successful at SEO and keep your traffic coming you need to not only understand the search engines, but also need to think like the people behind the search engines.

Their aim is to provide users with relevant search engine results.  It means that any seo practice which eventually might influence the quality of their services will be dealt with in this way.

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I’ve been picking up on a rumor that’s circulating around the blogosphere that some people are starting to believe that SEO doesn’t ‘matter anymore’.  As you know, rumors can spread quickly around the web. Aside from that, bloggers often  write about topics while having no more than basic knowledge and experience on the subject. Not all bloggers are seo experts, so it’s  not unusual that information you read on blogs can be inaccurate.

SEO can become frustrating when in theory, you’re expecting to receive a  massive web traffic, but never see any results in practice.  There can be a number of reasons why a search engine optimization campaign is not working the way you expect.   It’s my believe though, and I say this not as an seo expert , but as a someone with both technical and commercial knowledge combined with years of experience, that the main reason so many people fail to be successful  at it, is  due to the fact that they don’t fully understand search engines and the SEO process as a whole.

Being successful at optimizing your web pages and attracting  traffic through SE’s  goes a little  further than performing basic and easy techniques. Long term SEO success needs insight, anticipation, understanding and most of all, dedication. This means that if you want to get a good position the SERPS (search engine results page) you’ll have to start thinking not only like the search engines and the web surfers using them, but like the people behind the search engines, as well. Once you start doing this, you’ll be thinking like most experts or professional seo companies do.

With that said,  let’s get back to what this post is about, increasing your chances of attracting more traffic with SEO.  In this article I’d like to explain why SEO will always matter, I’d like to touch upon some of the factors that are the reason why people can get so frustrated with optimization. I’d also like to emphasize a few ways of changing a limiting mind sets, which can keep you from being successful …

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It seems that most people I’ve been talking to within my social media network agree on at least one thing : the potential opportunity which this global economic recession provides in regard of establishing online brand.

The fact that businesses anticipate a hard time in the near future is illustrated by some already cutting in their budgets for internet marketing.  That said, social media marketing (SMM), with it’s potential value for building brand on the web not fully recognized yet,  could very well be one of the first things to be scrapped.

With established businesses having to cut costs and maybe choosing to do this in the area of internet marketing, it would mean that, if you have the possibility, now is the time to start working hard and try to build online brand through social media channels.

This theory is of course based on speculation (and anticipation), but nonetheless, If  you are a small business trying to get into a market or a starting web entrepreneur with enough time,  it might be a good idea to set up a social media marketing plan  and strategy, there’s nothing to loose in seeing where where it goes …

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Improving Search Engine Ranking by implementing basic seo techniques has always been fairly easy, so I’m not surprised that Google announced an SEO Starter Guide on November 12th. (Thanks to Michaela Lica for bringing that to my attention.)

In this downloadable .pdf file, Google provides the reader with information about the most basic Search Engine Ranking Factors which are easy to implement. Though this Google starter guide will not instantly make you an SEO expert, it can help you to get out of the starting blocks. Which is a good thing as well.

The guide for instance explains how to correctly use tags which are known to be important, such as the  TITLE & “Description”- META tags while also emphasizing some SEO best practices, including correct URL structuring, using a Site map and designing clean navigation.  Aside from these, there also are several tips about web site promotion which include social media, blogging and some links to Google’s own web master tools.

In my opinion, the information that Google has provided in this SEO Starters Guide is quite useful. However SEO doesn’t stop there. It actually starts here :

An effective long term Search Engine Optimization strategy has correlations with a number of other things, including as keyword research, competitor’s tactics and marketing strategy to name a few.  Also, in order to keep Search Engine Rankings High, continuous evaluation and adjustment is needed.

So, unless you’re a SEO newbie and have been ignoring Google optimization completely up untill now, I wouldn’t expect a drastic improvement in Search Engine Placement after reading this guide.  On the other hand, this is only a starters guide, and only time will tell if Google is planning to release a follow-up on it …

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