The Social network revolution heralded by Facebook, Twitter and now Google+ have made it essential for businesses and brands to put in place a well thought out of Social media marketing (SMM) Plan. A well thought out SMM plan not only helps businesses and brands build a network of customers who are interested in your products and services and consume it but it also helps develop that elusive ‘Customer Stickiness’. And every business owner knows ‘Customer Stickiness’ or customer loyalty is worth achieving and investing in!

However an effective SMM plan is not everyone’s cup of tea! The high caliber Social Media Marketing team at Your SEO Lab has considerable experience in conceptualizing, managing and executing an effective SMM plan / strategy for our clients. Let us take a look at what, in our opinion are essential elements of an effective Social Media Marketing plan / strategy

1. Updates with authentic and customer relevant content

Simple building a Facebook or Google + page and having a presence on Social media platforms is not enough! To attract and retain potential customers who are interested in your brand / service/ product and to build an effective social network presence you must focus on sending quality updates with customer relevant content. Relevant content would include all that you think your potential customers would like to know about the products / services that you offer. This could include your blog posts, links to your video, pictures etc. It is also important to offer authentic content by way of posts / updates that your customers value. Failure to adhere could result in loss of engagement with your social network

2. Making Use of ‘Real’ World events

Always bear in mind that while your social network is being built online or in the virtual world, the people or personalities who comprise your social network live in the real world. Thus all the daily dynamics of the ‘real’ world applies to your online social network as well. Your social network will be excited about festivals, holidays, events that occur in your part of the world and it is important to leverage this excitement by creative updates, special offers, advertising etc.

3. Timing of updates

It is important to time your social media updates correctly and not burden your social network with too frequent or constant updates. Too frequent updates can overwhelm your social network and induce fatigue in your network leading to loss of interest.  Be sure to spread out your updates and make each one count for quality, not quantity

4. Having an interactive social network

One of the key reasons for the success of Social Media platforms has been its ability to allow for interaction amongst its users. An effective social media plan must include ways to engage, encourage and interact with your social network. This would help build a personal rapport with your network and develop loyalty amongst your followers for your brand/ product/ service. Keep your interactions fun and simple!

5. Statistical Analysis

One of the most important elements to a successful social media campaign is to analyze the statistics that your social network offers. One must recognize the trends that emerge from your network. This could be in form of assessing the comparative views of your posts / updates, the website visits that emanate from your specific posts / updates, the sale conversions that can be attributed to your posts / updates, the sharing/ reposting / retweets emanating from your posts / updates etc. These metrics/ statistics must be analyzed to continuously build upon, strengthen and streamline your social media efforts!

Organic Search Engine Market Share

By Chris Boggs, Director, and Bryan Cox, Analytics and Optimization

How many organic search visitors come from Google™, Yahoo!®, and Bing®?  Rosetta recently (Jan to May 2011) measured the percentage of organic-referred visits coming to client sites, and divided it by industry vertical.  The data we pulled showed considerable deviation from the traffic reports we see on a monthly basis from Experian Hitwise™ and comScore™. comScore’s “Explicit Core Search” report from May 2011 shows that of all search engine visits, 65% occurred at Google, with 14% and 16% happening at Bing and Yahoo sites, respectively.(http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/6/comScore_Releases_May_2011_U.S._Search_Engine_Rankings)  Hitwise reports nearly the same percentages, and combines “Bing-powered search” (which includes Yahoo) at 30%.  (http://www.hitwise.com/us/press-center/press-releases/experian-hitwise-reports-bing-powered-share-of-s/)

Our report shows that although all industries and verticals can benefit from focusing on Google to increase their share of organic search engine traffic, marketers shouldn’t forget about Bing and Yahoo search results as a great source of leads or conversions. The Rosetta Organic Search Market Share Report differs from Hitwise and comScore because we focus on the actual organic (natural, non-paid) traffic delivered to client sites from each of the “big three,” and split it by industry vertical.

Summary of findings:

Our Retail clients pulled the largest percentage of non-Google traffic from Yahoo, with nearly a quarter of the organic traffic coming from the Bing powered Yahoo results.Below is the data we collected from a sample of at least 5 sites per vertical. This represents over 10 million organic-referred visits from January through May 2011. We plan to produce this report at least three times per year, so stay tuned as Rosetta continues to measure this behavior, and for when we can start to measure trends.

The dawn of the new decade has brought along the need to refine age old SEO strategies. Most SEO companies continue to hold on to redundant SEO techniques and thus continue to waste their client’s time and money. Whereas we, at YOUR SEO LAB, keep ourselves updated with the latest developments in SEO strategies. SEO 2.0, as the fresh SEO startegies are commonly known, is here to stay and Your SEO Lab is at the fore front of this evolution. For the benefit of our client’s and the SEO community, we are sharing some of this gained knowledge as under:

1. Link Building : Old School SEO strategy on link buildig was to manually add or exchage links, submitting static websites to directories and / or buy links. However SEO 2.0 demands that link are gained through blogging, socializing and commenting. New link building strategies include focusing on a few high quality directories eg. DMOA or Yahoo, writing pillar content, creative link baiting, using Google Analytics to get relevant links. Also it is important  to ensure that all your links get indexed and that Google is counting all your links.

2.  Content: Old school SEO focused on churning content that could be used  to generate links and eventually raise your SERP. The focus was to increase rankings of targeted keywords / phrases on Search Engine results. However SEO 2.0 requires creation of highly relevant and contextual content to draw traffic to your website. The focus is not just to increase just the search engine ranking,  but to really increase the relevant traffic on your website that would result in increase conversion and more revenues. SEO 2.0 places a higher importance on User Generated Content. Search engines are treat User Generated Content as contributor in when ranking sites Some strategies for UGC is to have a system that allows your customers to leave reviews, allow them to upload pictures or videos of their items, gives incentives to your customers when they do so etc.

3. Greater integration with Business strategy and your Regular PR: Old school SEO would function as an independent campaign aimed at specific key word rankings. However SEO 2.0 demands a much higher level of integration with your over all business strategy and become more connected with your regular PR. This inturn requires that all your business stakeholders are aware of the custom SEO campaign being designed so that they can contribute in real time. Combining and timing regular PR with your SEO 2.0 campaign can bring much faster results

While the above is not an exhaustive list of our learnings, however we hope that the above will prove useful to you when you are thinking in devising an SEO campain for yourself or your client.

Social media is a collective term used to describe Internet- and mobile-based tools that integrate technology, communication, and social interaction. Social media allows word-of-mouth to spread rapidly and exponentially as consumers post opinions and experiences to web sites and social networks. Marketers have realized that a vast majority of their targetted customers are increasingly active on social networking sites and have developed sophisticated Social media marketing strategies to utilize these Internet technologies and platforms to engage customers, drive the purchase of products, increase brand awareness, and facilitate customer support.

Social networking sites have emerged as a sophisticated and powerful marketing tool that allow marketers to seek out new customers through referrals from other customers, and to create positive and rapid word-of-mouth publicity for new products and services. The virtual environment of the Internet also allows marketers to target specific types of customers or target groups, and to make changes to marketing initiatives in real time. The digital nature of internet marketing allows companies to respond quickly to changes in the marketplace.

‘Hypertargeting’ is a widely prevalent Social media martketing technique where Ads and information are targeted to customers using demographic and sociographic information gathered from user profiles. For example, users that have pets are targeted for local veterinary services. Users that change their relationship status to “engaged” may be targeted by photographers and wedding planners.

We at Your SEO Lab have the capability to devise a custom social media marketing plan for you. Please write to us now and we would be happy to be of assistance.

#1: Predicting Exact Timelines on Keyword Ranking

We are certain that our proficiency in organic SEO techniques WILL deliver the desired results. However SEO being a very dynamic process involving various influencing factors, the exact timelines for achieving these results is nearly impossible to predict. This is not to say that timelines are irrelevant. If this was the case, businesses would pump in big money into achieving the desired keyword ranking in the first month itself!

Having said that, our experience over the years does enable us to give a broad indication of the timelines involved. While our entire efforts are dedicated towards achieving these results in the indicated timelines, it would be reasonable to expect that the results may take a little longer than anticipated or may even be achieved sooner than you thought!

#2: Keyword rich content should be written or reviewed by you for your websites

We understand that to improve search engine ranking and to attract copious amount of targeted traffic to your website, it is important that keyword rich content relevant to your business are written. So it would be reasonable to expect we would optimize such keyword rich content by distributing them online. Such Keyword rich content would enable your website to convey their information and content to the Number of Keywords Targeted. While we have a very competent content writing team, however it is always preferred that such keyword rich content if written by you yourself as nobody understands your business better than you. At the very list, we always advise our client to review the content themselves so as to avoid any communication problems.

# 3: Too many Keywords

Most of our clients want to target rank for the maximum number of keywords for their websites, even when their budget does not allow it. In these scenarios it is best to understand that too many keywords can dilute the amount of work being done on each keyword and that a focused approach is better. We always advise our client to follow the KISS (Keep it Simple, Simon) principle!

However the good news is that the distant dream is not so distant and is actually achievable! Using the right strategies, understanding google search algorithms, exploiting its loopholes and understanding what is allowed and not allowed can get your website on the top of Google searches before you even know it. This is how and what www.yourseolab.com does to help its clients in achieving ever higher SERPs!

Now what would top 10 Google Ranking mean to Your Business?

A higher google ranking will result in more traffic to your site. More traffic will result in more sales or higher visibilty and awareness of your website offerings. This in turn results in your website being considered more relevant for the particular search queries and thus drawing in even more traffic. Before you know it, your small business website will potential have a global audience and your local business will potentially go global! Now such result is surely worth investing in, is it not?

So contact www.yourseolab.com immidiately to achieve the top 10 google ranking you have been dreaming and aspiring for!