How use Twitter to Promote Website in SMO

You may already be on Twitter, but are you using it for promoting your website - and to get targeted visitors to your site? Twitter is a real powerhouse of traffic if you take a little time to learn how to do it.

How Does Twitter Work?

Twitter allows users to post messages up to a total of 140 characters, which includes punctuation and spaces. Not only can you tweet via your computer but also through your mobile telephone networks as well. And given that most telephone services limits texting on your cell phones to 160 characters, Twitter opted to limit it to 140 leaving you with 20 characters for your username. The messages that you post are public and can be read by anyone who signs up to “follow” your twits.

Get to know Twitter a bit first  – Be sure to read through the Twitter Rules and Terms of Service to stay out of trouble.

Create your company profile – Go to twitter.com and click sign up now. Enter your company name just as you want it to appear in the “Full Name” field. This is your user name or “handle” by which you will be known on Twitter. Use the shortest name that describes your company. Preferably your company or website name (without the .com) if its available and not over 20 characters.

Learn the Twitter lingo – Although Twitter seems easy enough, understanding the special terms used to communicate will make using this social network much more effective. Read Twitter 101 ( http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/learning) to learn about each of the terms used in with your Twitter account.

Personalize your profile - Go into Settings and give your company or website a face. Upload a picture, such as your logo or homepage screenshot. Then add the names of those who will be tweeting on the account. Its especially important to pay attention to to bio section. It is limited to 160 characters so you need to determine the best way to describe your website and/or what you do. Use some of your most important keywords. Space is limited to one line in the bio section, but you can go to the design tab and utilize the background image on your profile to post additional information.

Begin tweeting - Remember Twitter allows you to post messages only up to 140 characters long, including punctuation and spaces. Its also best to use a casual, friendly tone, or even some humor to keep your tweets from being too dry or boring. a good idea is to make your followers feel like insiders with behind the scenes looks at your company. Write tweets about breaking business news, post links to your website, as well as to other sites or articles you think your followers may be interested in.

Retweet Posts - especially tweets by others that you feel will be of interest to your followers. Always make sure your retweets provide value to your followers. This will eventually make you more visible to others who may not have found you otherwise.

Make Connections- Twitter isn’t just an advertising medium, its a Social Medium. Get out and communicate. Use the search box on your Twitter homepage to search for other professionals in your field. Use key terms, specific to your website such to search for mentions of these keywords by other websites,
your visitors and potential visitors. When you find interesting tweets you can choose to follow those individuals who posted the tweets. Say hello to be personable. Twitter also has a Find People section to search for specific people, companies or websites by name.

Find out what people are saying about you - Type your company name, website name or products into the search box on your Twitter home page and discover where your company and products are mentioned.

Building Relationships – Respond immediately to any complaints posted and send thank you notes to those who give praise. Offer helpful hints and quickly answer any questions or issues about your site or services.

Promote your Twitter account – Promote your twitter account wherever you can. Post a Twitter badge on your website, connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts. Add your Twitter URL to your signature line for your email.

Tips to help you get the most out of Twitter : Be sure your posts are interesting! – Its just as easy to choose to un- follow you as to follow you.

1. Follow others – The more people you follow, the more people will follow you.
2. Know your goals – Knowing your goals helps you determine what to post and when to post it.
3. Use shortened URL’s - You only have 140 characters, and can often use more than the allotted space for the URL alone. Use the Bit.ly (http://bit.ly) to shorten the links you post..
4. Use DMs (Direct Messages) to send private messages to other
5. Twitterers who are following you to personally address concerns.
6. Retweet Often, but make it good stuff! Retweeting is a common form of communicating on Twitter.
7. Pay attention to the Trending Topics on your Twitter search page.
8. These most mentioned terms show you what most people are paying attention to right now and can be used for topics on your own Tweets.
9. Don’t spam people by sending unsolicited @messages or DM’s.
10. Don’t post the same messages to a multitude of accounts, or tweet the same things over and over, or to a multitude of accounts.
11. Do not “follow churn” or follow and unfollow the same people over and over.
12. Ask for feedback – ask friends and followers to give you feedback on your website or products/services.
13. Put a Twitter icon on your homepage.

How write good Meta Tags keywords & Description for seo

How long should a meta description be, what should it say about a page and are meta descriptions important for SEO? It is really a challenging matter for every website owner to make a unique and powerful Meta description. Writing a good meta description involves a bit of skill. This is where the “art” part of SEO comes into play.

Adhere to character limits 

Title tags are critical because search engines not only use them when deciding what a web page is about, but they also appear in search results as the first line “Title” of your listing. Think of title tags more as a "Title Keyword Tag" and include keywords that users would likely search for to find the content on that page. Keep them short and sweet. They are the first thing people searching for your site will see, and can never be more than Google’s limit of 69 characters, including spaces.

Description tags are right behind title tags in importance. Each search engine allows for a specific number of characters (including spaces) to be shown beneath your page title in search results listings. These bits of your web page that appear in search results are known as “snippets.” Description tags will often be the text search engines choose to display as your snippet, and can have a big impact your search traffic. Writing your description tag to be completely within Google’s limits means you have control over what appears. Aim for one that is between 100 and 156 characters- so that it both reads well, and fits well.

 Use Your Keywords 

The keywords used in your title and description tells your targeted audience this page is what they are looking for. Users searching for particular words will naturally first examine page titles, but if they still cannot determine which site best addresses their needs, they then turn to the most relevant page descriptions. By placing 1 to 3 keywords into both your title and description (which will appear in bold in the description tag if they match the search term), you’re assuring search users that your site isn’t in their results by mistake, but because it’s what they are searching for. You should always write them, and the page they are on, with 1 to 3 very specific keywords or key phrases that are also used within the content of that page.

The title and description tags should always be specific to the page they are on and contain key words or phrases also found in the page heading, and the first one or two paragraphs of that page. Google compares words and phrases in your title tag and description tag with page content to be sure they are “relevant.” It will ignore your tags if they are not.

Write with flair, but be accurate 

Your primary goal is to write something that will entice people to click thru to your website from your listing in Google. Your tags need to be attention getting, as well as an accurate description of what users can expect to find on that particular page. One easy way to do this is to have your title and description tags mirror the opening paragraph of the page they are on, but be shorter: more concise and more dramatic.

Google webmaster Guidelines

Google Webmaster Guidelines

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

Following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site.

Even if you choose not to implement any of these suggestions, we strongly encourage you to pay very close attention to the "Quality Guidelines," which outline some of the illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the Google index or otherwise penalized.

When your site is ready:

•   Submit a XML Sitemap. Google uses your Sitemap to learn about the structure of your
      site and to increase our coverage of your webpages.

•   Make sure all the sites that should know about your pages are aware your site is online.

Design and content guidelines

•   Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at
      least one static text link.

•   Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the
      site map has an extremely large number of links, you may want to break the site map into
      multiple pages.

•   Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number.

•   Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately
      describe your content.

•   Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site
      actually includes those words within it.

•   Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The

Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images. If you must use images for
textual content, consider using the "ALT" attribute to include a few words of descriptive
text.

•   Make sure that your <title> elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.

•   Check for broken links and correct HTML.

•   If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware
      that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It
      helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.

•   Review our image guidelines for best practices on publishing images.

Technical Guidelines

•      Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most search engine

spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text
browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.

•      Allow search bots to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track their

path through the site. These techniques are useful for tracking individual user behavior, but the access pattern of bots is entirely different. Using these techniques may result in incomplete indexing of your site, as bots may not be able to eliminate URLs that look different but actually point to the same page.

•      Make sure your web server supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. This feature

allows your web server to tell Google whether your content has changed since we last crawled your site. Supporting this feature saves you bandwidth and overhead.

•      Make use of the robots.txt file on your web server. This file tells crawlers which

directories can or cannot be crawled. Make sure it's current for your site so that you don't accidentally block the Googlebot crawler.

•      If your company buys a content management system, make sure that the system creates

pages and links that search engines can crawl.

•      Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages

that don't add much value for users coming from search engines.

•      Test your site to make sure that it appears correctly in different browsers.

•      Monitor your site's performance and optimize load times. Google's goal is to provide

users with the most relevant results and a great user experience. Fast sites increase user satisfaction and improve the overall quality of the web (especially for those users with slow Internet connections), and we hope that as webmasters improve their sites, the
overall speed of the web will improve.

Quality Guidelines

These quality guidelines cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative

behavior, but Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed

here (e.g. tricking users by registering misspellings of well-known websites). It's not safe
to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique isn't included on this page,
Google approves of it. Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the
basic principles will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better
ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit.

Quality guidelines - basic principles

•      Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users or

present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as "cloaking."

•      Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether

you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you.
Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines
didn't exist?"

•      Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank.

In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

Link schemes:

Your site's ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that
link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The
sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can
indicate its quality and popularity. However, some webmasters engage in link exchange
schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding
the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites.
This is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your

site's ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:

•   Links intended to manipulate PageRank

•   Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web

•   Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging ("Link to me and I'll link
      to you.")

•   Buying or selling links that pass PageRank

The best way to get other sites to create relevant links to yours is to create unique,

relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community. The more

useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content

valuable to their readers and link to it. Before making any single decision, you should ask yourself the question: Is this going to be beneficial for my page's visitors?

It is not only the number of links you have pointing to your site that matters, but also the quality and relevance of those links. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the buzzing blogger community can be an excellent place to generate interest.

•   Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such
      programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does
      not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or
      programmatic queries to Google.

Quality guidelines - specific guidelines

•   Avoid hidden text or hidden links.

•   Don't use cloaking or sneaky redirects.

•   Don't send automated queries to Google.

•   Don't load pages with irrelevant keywords.

•   Don't create multiple pages, sub domains, or domains with substantially duplicate
      content.

•   Don't create pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans,
      or other badware.

•   Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter"
      approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

•   If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds

value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site
first.

If you determine that your site doesn't meet these guidelines, you can modify your site so that it does and then submit your site for reconsideration.

Importance of Search Engine Optimization ( SEO )

If you are newer to the concept of SEO (short for Search Engine Optimization) you might be wondering what all the fuss is about. However if you have been running a website for a while you have probably noticed the necessity for this practice which is essentially the fine art of making your website easier to find for people searching it using “niche language.”

Niche language simply means using terms and phrases in your website or blog copy that are most commonly used by people when they type what they are looking for into a search engine. These phrases are also noted and collected by the search engine bots and spiders that belong to the search engines. The more friendly the copy in your web site is to the search engine spiders, the more likely people are to find you (which of course increases your sales.) In addition, the more hits you get from people searching for your products or services the higher your web site will be indexed on the search engine pages.

Remember how web pages work! It is basically one big popularity contest. Essentially the more hits you have, the higher your ranking is in the search engines. This leads to more business and more hits and a website that is the equivalent of a wealthy rising cyber star!

To use a metaphor – let’s say that the launching of your web site is like a launch party. Launching a website without any type of SEO is like throwing a party and forgetting to invite people.

Or you can also compare it to a party where the invitations are sent out in a language that is not recognized by the guests.

Launching your website should be an exciting event. The reasons events (and the launches of new web sites) often fail is because:

1. You fail to list your website’s URL properly in search engines or when you completely ignore the section in URL submission sites that ask you to fill out keywords.

2.Your customers can’t find the party. This can happen when you decide to go the cheap route and opt for a free hosted domain instead of your own domain name. This is a case where customers can’t find your address. A good example is the person who opts for a split domain, which very often leads a visitor to your host’s site and not to yours. The free bravenet.com and freeserver.com sites are notorious examples of free websites that offer split domain names for nothing.

3. They have found your website address but are greeted with 404 message that that informs you that a site has mysteriously disappeared or been removed. This can also happen because you opted for a free domain name or a host with limited bandwidth.

In a nutshell, Search Engine Optimization is the process of making your web site as identifiable as possible to both people and search engines. If this sounds like it might be difficult and schizophrenic thing to accomplish it is.

This is because having a people-friendly web site is not the same as having a search engine friendly web site. A search engine friendly web site is one that appeals to tiny robots called “spiders” that search the World Wide Web for your site every time some one types in a search for information. The idea is to have copy on your website that is a combination of both.

The intention of SEO copy-writing is to elevate your site’s ranking in the search engines by including what are called targeted keywords and keyword descriptions right in the body of the text. These keywords are obtained by finding out how people phrase their requests when they input a request into the search engines.

Most people obtain their keywords by doing a bit of market research. The keyword content is located by using a keyword search tool such as the Overture keyword search tool. Once the top ten to twenty most-searched-for keywords are found, articles are then created around each of these key phrases and posted to the web site. Each of these new search engine optimized articles creates new pages or the search engines to spider when people type in those key phrases during a search. So in essence the search engine optimized article, and other search engine optimization services, is mainly a way to increase sales or membership conversions by increasing your visibility in the search engines.

Being savvy about SEO is not rocket science. However it does means knowing a bit about html and keyword optimization. It entails knowing how to phrase things so that computers understand the language of what it is you are trying to convey or sell when you submit your site to the search engines.

Practicing effective SEO techniques can involve using simple market research skills but it is not as technical as it sounds. Some of the best marketers in fact would say that to some extent it also involves using your intuition to second-guess what your customers might be looking for every time they use a search engine such as Google or Yahoo to search for a product.

Over here, we are going to take you through the basics of how to create a search engine friendly site including how to create a search engine friendly web-page, (or blog page) how to submit your URL to the search engines and how to optimize your site using search engine friendly content.

The reason it is so important for you to know how to talk to robots is because it is an aspect of web site and e commerce marketing that is vital to the branding and marketing of your product or service. By doing just a few simple things, you can give your web site an edge over the competition’s by making your business recognizable to both spiders and potential visitors alike.