Tag Archives: WebSite Traffic

Using Social Media to Grow

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One thing I’m always asked from potential clients is, “How can using Social Media help grow my business?”  Social media networks are a fantastic way to promote your business, connect with customers and drive traffic to your website.  Just like anything else, if you want results, you’re going to have to make an effort and it will require a bit of your time.

Many business owners just start using the networking sites without a strategy.  I can’t emphasize enough the importance of creating a strategy when starting out with Social Media.  Not only can a strategy keep your marketing efforts on track, it can keep you from wasting your precious hours.  When setting up a strategy there are some things to remember –

  • The whole team must work together (web guy or gal, graphic designer, writer, IT department, management, Virtual Assistant) as keeping everyone in the “loop” is the only way to go.
  • Don’t expect results overnight. A successful Social Media campaign takes time.
  • Know who you are.  Get them interested in your story and use the tools available to you through social media to pique your customer’s interest and make them invested in who you are.  This makes them want to share you/your business with others.

Figure out your expectations – know what you want out of using Social Media.  Knowing who you’re going after and where to market them, is key.  Is it to drive traffic to your website?  Or is it simply to get your company’s name out there?  Understand your audience and build goals that are realistic and possible.  All of this is fundamental in reaching your goals.

 The use of social media nowadays is very crucial to promote your business. So, determine where to build your communities- as in, find your customers and go wherever they are.

How is Your Business Measuring Up?

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As a small business owner, you must measure your successes, failures, and most importantly your progress. Even if you are getting reports from your web developer or social media consultant, it’s smart to know how to get some numbers of your own. Consultants and virtual assistants can bring so much value to your business! Make sure you can measure that value.

How much $$$ is your web presence and SEO worth?


  1. This WMtools link tells you what your website is worth based on Google page rank, backlinks, etc.

  2. Try SERP Analytics to see what keywords your website has and how much their worth! See this analysis of a website I was searching for when I first found this tool: http://www.serpanalytics.com/sites/www.softalize.com. You can simply delete the “www.softalize.com” and type in your own web address. (This really only works well for people who own their own domain.)

How much traffic is your message getting?

  1. Alexa Web InfoAlexa tells you where your website ranks on the traffic level. Many sites aren’t large enough to be given a graph, but the historical data will tell you if your business website is becoming more popular.
    *It also shows you some of your inbound links.

  2. For more on website traffic analytics, see this article: Histats, Google Analytics, and my favorite URL shortener- bit.ly. If you shorten all of your links with bit.ly, you will be able to keep track of how many hits your links are getting.


  3. Klout.com will measure your influence on twitter.

What is your grade? Graders by


  1. Measures a website’s marketing effectiveness and search engine optimization (SEO).


  2. Get the most out of your press releases.


  3. Measure your twitter network reach.


  4. I love this tool! It measures your personal reach with your Facebook profile and your professional reach with your Facebook fan page.


  5. Does your content have “goggledygook words?” Better check it out!

Numbers are so important. We number almost everything in our lives; just look at our clocks, calendars, price tags, and bathroom scales. Some numbers are easier to remember than others, like our favorite television channel, our favorite football players or our best friends’ phone numbers. Others are a little more forgettable, like the number of Hershey’s Kisses you’ve already indulged in (what’s one more?) or how many boxes you were actually carrying up the stairs when you tripped and twisted that ankle. Some can be scary like our credit score or the percentage of our population that’s unemployed. Regardless of what numbers you’re dealing with, it’s so important to make sure you are dealing with them.

Know your numbers and keep tabs on them constantly. You have to know what you need to work on and what actions you need to take to keep it up.

Next week I’ll bring together an article on backlinks. They are also so important and I’ll explain why. Don’t miss it!

Use Social Bookmarks to Your Business Site’s Advantage

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Social Bookmarking is a method for Internet users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks (locally stored web address) of web resources. Search engines crawl these sites to see how links are being tagged with keywords and to measure the popularity of each link. When signing up for your social bookmark, choose the same user id and passwords for these types of sites. It’s better and easier to have continuity and consistency. I wish I had done this when I first started. It’s not easy to change over, like I am trying to do on Delicious, as I now have 2 different profiles.

Delicious

On Delicious, most people add one bookmark per site, not really per article. I only added one bookmark to a direct page I liked or homepage. It doesn’t feed or present the bookmarks the same as on Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.

I don’t know if it will help your site’s SEO very much to take the time to go in and post even all of your favorite articles on the same site. It’s better to bookmark your site along with your clients’ websites once. However, make sure you DO bookmark them on delicious at least once.

*TAG TIP: Utilize the tags, but know it’s trickier because you only get one word for each tag. So, if you type in “virtual assistant” in the tag area, it will add two different tags: virtual and assistant, which aren’t very descriptive separately. Try other words like: business or entrepreneur for better results.

Delicious IconOur Profiles on Delicious

Jennifer Gallaher

Kena Roth

Amber Whitener – My New Profile

Digg

Digg your own stuff sparingly. Do not bookmark every single page or article of your own. It will be terribly obvious and a turn off for people who want to follow your stuff. People will go to your bookmark site and see that you are just using your profile to show off your own site.

If you only Stumble or Digg your favorites into your lists and make sure you include some others’ bookmarks, you will begin to make friends, keep track of some great information, and get the word out about your stuff too.

*TAG TIP: Digg is has fewer categories available to add your “diggs” to. Be as accurate as possible when choosing a category so that people looking up diggs in their favorite topic find your new submission.

Our Profiles on Digg

Jennifer Gallaher

Kena Roth

Amber Whitener

Reddit

I do have a profile on Reddit; however, I use this profile less than any other bookmarking site. It seems kind of generic to me. Recently they have added pictures, etc., which makes it better, but I only use this maybe twice a month, really. It does accumulate traffic though, if you follow some of these rules in this somewhat offbeat article – From The Oatmeal:

How to get on the Reddit homepage

You may also add me, darkbluesun on Reddit as a friend here, and I will add you back.

*Vote Tip: DO NOT try to up-vote your own submissions. The reddit administrators will dock you for it (and they have every right to). I’ve seen this a lot from new people. Let the votes be organic.

StumbleUpon

At StumbleUpon, you can see who’s visited you, see what kind of bookmarks they have and then possibly subscribe to their bookmarks if it looks like they are into similar things. I get more traffic from StumbleUpon than any other social bookmarking site.

1. The more bookmarks you add, the better. I suggest adding 3 to 5 (one of yours or your client’s, then 2-4 bookmarks of other people’s stuff) bookmarks per work day until you have about 30 – 40 bookmarks.
2. If someone subscribes to you, you don’t necessarily have to subscribe back, but I do. Regularly check and see who has visited your bookmark profile and consider subscribing to them.
3. You can subscribe to me, FindingAnswers at StumbleUpon, and I’ll subscribe back to you.
4. Utilize the tags that are in the drop down list. These tags are the tags that every other stumbler uses. Don’t make up your own, or it will be more difficult for your links to be found. And remember what I’ve said about tags and keywords for SEO, use them as accurately as possible so you become a valuable contributor and help people find what they are really looking for.

More Resources for Social Bookmarking

7 things you should know about… Social Bookmarking – An older article, but still current info about social bookmarking.

Which are your favorite social bookmarking sites? Which ones do you think are a waste of time?

Sharing Can Be Easy and Fun

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The Share Icon

In kindergarten, we are taught that sharing is polite. Being polite usually results in positive feedback. Now, as a blogger, you are quickly learning that making your message easier to share often will exponentially increase the potential for your message to reach more and more people.

Why?

A Blog Sharing Scenario

A web surfer happens upon your blog post. They like what you’ve written and deem it newsworthy enough to share with their friends or followers. They see this tweet or retweet button:

They click on it and share your message with their 5000 followers. Then, 25 of the 5000 retweet your message, and then their followers do and so on. By the next day, you have 50,000 people “happen” by your website because you have 2 of the most important ingredients of any popular blog:

1. You have great content.

&

2. You make it easy for people to pass it on.

People enjoy sharing news with their network, it makes them important among their social networks when it’s done in context and with a measure of quality. Make sure your messages aren’t being silenced due to a lack of convenience.

How?

Easy Sharing Tools

Tweetmeme is the service you can use to create those tweet/retweet buttons.  Skill level: Beginner – Intermediate if you are new to web developing and you try to sign up for tweetmeme, it can seem confusing and you may even end up paying for a subscription that may not be necessary. Tweetmeme is a great tool; however you don’t have to pay for the analytics to have a retweet button on your posts.  Analytics are valuable, but probably not as much to someone who is still learning the ropes.  Work on analytics after you have a site with a good base foundation of content (I consider that being around 50+ posts).  When your blog is new, your traffic will most likely be inconsistent until you have established your focus/purpose with supporting content.

AddThis.com provides you with a very easy web service that allows you to include a comprehensive option to offer easy sharing and bookmarking of your blog posts and web pages.  Also, if you register a free login to their site, you receive emails tracking the number of times your posts have been shared and bookmarked!  Skill level: Beginner
Bookmark and Share

WordPress Plugins for Simplifying Shares & Bookmarks

Sociable

Tweetmeme

The more simply you setup your site for surfing, sharing, and commenting, the more interaction will happen as you grow.

*** Next week, I will write more about how and why bookmarking your best work extends your message’s reach as well.