What Exactly is Social Media? SMO Basics

Social media is a new frontier and many business owners are discovering a need to understand it. If you have found yourself swimming in an ocean of marketing and search engine optimization jargon trying to figure it out, then you will probably benefit from this easy-to-understand tutorial.

Definition: Social media is referred to as "word of mouth" advertising. Although it isn't the actual "mouth" we're talking about, it basically is defined as what people are saying about you online or through mobile and hand-held devices.

What Social Media Does: Social discussions between actual human beings integrate you across boundaries of video, blogs, bookmarking, images, communities, etc. As people talk about you, discuss you, send links to your site or your blog, bookmark you and follow you, you become more and more "popular".

Why is Social Media Important for Search Engine Optimization?: Search engines highly value this popularity because it represents not how much you paid for your advertising, but how much current, quality, information you are providing. For example, if you never updated or provided any new information, then people would soon have nothing to talk about. So, by ranking you based on social media findings, search engines can keep their results fresh and relevant, reflecting the opinions of the users.

What does SEO do for Social Media? : Going through an organic search engine optimization company is a consistent way to keep up with social media demands. They should offer a huge range of services to keep your company in the eye of users that follow blogs and bookmark them, use discussion boards and forums, making you more visible to the internet community.

Why can't I just blog and be done? : Social media is beginning to include podcasts, video, images and mobile or hand-held device communications. SEO companies are evolving as the search engines do to keep you up to date with what's important. You also need your postings and your site to be search engine friendly. SEO's are aware of all the details and do extensive work beyond blogging. Concentration is put into social news, opinions, bookmarking, networking and blogging.

The bottom line is that Social Marketing utilizes the virtual community to make your site more popular with the search engines. If the search engines are weighing it heavily, then you should too. Your reputation can take a long time to build, so getting started with a competent search engine marketing company early in the game can help you to become more and more popular over time.

About the Author: Stacy Pessoney is a Project Manager for ArteWorks SEO, one of the top search engine marketing companies in the world. A graduate of the University of Alabama, she implements and manages comprehensive SEO strategies and serve as an organizational liaison among company executives, clients and colleagues.

SEO Strategies for a Down Market

With the recent market woes, companies are nervous about what their 2009 marketing strategies will look like. Some will, inevitably, need to cut their budgets. At the same time, they want to have the most visibility possible on the search engines to drive in the business that is out there to be had.
Many are cutting down on TV spots and big magazine and billboard advertising and vamping up their Search Engine Optimization efforts. After all, a lot of their target audience has TiVo or DVR, rendering your TV spots useless, and they flip right past magazine ads to get to the articles they want to read.
Internet strategies just make sense. Since most internet users utilize the major search engines to find you, it makes even more sense to spend your money on optimizing your site and building your online social reputation. Not only will it benefit you now, but in the long-run as well, relieving your stress about the next “bad year”.
Online marketing efforts not only make your site easier for search engines to crawl and index. Current SEO goes beyond that. A good Search Engine Optimization Company keeps up with the constantly changing rank criteria that the search engines dish out. SEO companies can keep your site up to date with these changes throughout the year, so you are not relying on one advertising strategy made in January to keep you going all year round.
SEO companies will give you the consistently updating blogs and links that help you build your reputation. Social media is so important, that sites without it will rank lower and lower over time. SEO facilitates discussions and bookmarking by producing relevant, quality information about your industry. Search engines value this type of marketing because it gives the searcher a clear picture of who is putting forth the most effort with the most relevant information out there.
Investing in Search Engine Optimization is more important now than ever. The sooner you start, the more intricate your online social “web” will be. Search engines are now the primary means for customers to find suppliers. Search engines constantly make their results more relevant to the searchers needs. It can take a long time to become the most relevant result, especially if your competitors have been at it longer than you. Make sure that you select a top search engine marketing company to keep your site up to snuff and ready for the future of marketing.

About the Author: Stacy Pessoney is a Project Manager for ArteWorks SEO, one of the top search engine marketing companies in the world. A graduate of the University of Alabama, she implements and manages comprehensive SEO strategies and serve as an organizational liaison among company executives, clients and colleagues.