Online Social Networking

Surging Ahead in the Search Engines

Extensive keyword research and long-term persistence are starting to pay off in a very big way.

Last month, in Blogging and Search Engine Marketing, I patted myself on the back for my SEO progress during my first six months publishing this blog.

I didn’t at all expect that in May I would receive more visitors from search engines than in all previous months since my introduction to the world of blogs.

These visits were above and beyond the 2,000+ visits that I received from my subscriber lists and from online social networking at Entrecard, MyBlogLog and social networking sites.

Furthermore, slightly more than 30% of those search engine visitors stayed on my site long enough to read something.

Of the 787 search engine visits to my blog in May, 239 “stuck”.

Why so much growth in one month?

My keyword research helped me choose search terms that were ambitious yet realistic. And my persistence helped me to establish PageRank and credibility with Google and the other search engines.

I continue to add lots of content to my blog and bookmark all my content on major social media sites.

Do you think I might top 1,000 visitors from SEO in June?

SEO Training

The good news is that what I’m doing here with search engine optimization is duplicable, and I hope to empower you through our Blog Marketing and SEO Training series to develop a massive web presence and achieve great success in your particular niche.

Whether you’re starting a small business, growing an established business, or building a network marketing business, I can’t think of a better way to increase website traffic.

Are you ready to receive thousands of search engine visitors to your site?

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Your web presence is an asset not unlike real estate.

You’ve probably heard about the three most important factors in real estate.

They are:

1. Location
2. Location
3. Location

A little exaggerated, perhaps, but not much. Properties can always be fixed up, but they can never be moved. If you buy a lovely house in a bad location, you’re stuck in that location.

What are the three most important factors in a web presence?

1. Content
2. Content
3. Content

Or are they?

Location is an important factor in the value of an Internet property too.

When you set up your blog in a blogging community such as Blogger.com or Wordpress.com, you benefit in several ways:

• You get free rent; you don’t have to pay for hosting
• You’re up and running very quickly; no WordPress.org set up and no upgrades to struggle with
• You might get indexed right away — no big deal — but you might also get page ranked quickly, and in the short run perhaps that helps you
• Your community might work a like a social networking site and give you extra exposure

The main thing you give up is control.

If you accidentally — or intentionally — violate the community’s terms of service, they may very well terminate your blog. It happens, and it’s painful.

After all your hard work, you discover that you built your house on a mushy landfill.

Certain widgets or other site customizations may not be as straightforward either compared to marking up a Wordpress.org blog.

Look at it this way. You’re building a site for long term use. Do you really want to be under the thumb of a capricious landlord who can put you and your belongings out into the street on a cold winter night?

Having said all this, it’s still your personal call. The advantages of a Blogger.com site may outweigh the disadvantages as far as you are concerned, especially if you’re funds are tight right now.

And that’s fine. As long as you’re making a well though out determination for yourself.

My personal choice was and still isWordPress.org. I use a variety of Wordpress plug-ins which I will list and discuss seperately.

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My First Effort

I launched my Online Social Networking blog on November 6, 2007 with my first post, Here We Are.

I was a blogging and search engine optimization newbie.

You might remember my earlier post, “You don’t have to get it right. You just have to get it going!” I made a plan and got started.

My strategy was to attract readers at social networking sites such as MySpace and Yuwie, and at the same time build a strong presence in the search engines.

I chose to write about social networking because of the large amount of experience I had with online social networking and social networking sites, and I selected the name of this blog and its principal keywords accordingly.

My blog took form over a period of several months with a few false starts and reversals. I kept writing week after week and networking and strategizing while waiting for my search engine marketing to kick in.

I joined MyBloglog and Entrecard to connect with other bloggers and entice them to visit my site. At Entrecard I made new friends.

One, a gentleman named Marcus Hochstadt, has helped me enormously. Not only has Marcus given me lots of encouragement, but through a contest he organized and ran on his Internet Business Guide blog, he also helped me gain more than fifty good inbound links to my blog. This helped my Google Page Rank.

Moving Up in Google

Page rank is Google’s measure of a site’s authority. It’s a major factor in Google’s determination of a site’s position in search results.

Having your site shown by Google and other search engines on page one of the results when people search for your targeted keywords is highly desirable and is the primary goal of search engine optimization.

As my credibility increased, and my page rank went from zero to one and from one to two I moved up in the search engine results and saw large increments in the number of visitors Google was sending my way each day.

I started tracking my blog’s traffic late January using Google Analytics. At that time Google was already providing me with a couple of visitors per day. The following chart shows how my results improved over time. Click on the chart to view a larger much larger version.

On a good day now I receive about 30 visitors. This will continue to grow over time, and I’ll keep you posted.

You Can Do It Too

I’m teaching a free course on blogging, search engine optimization and social media marketing. You’ll learn all the techniques I’ve discovered and how you can apply them yourself.

A wide range of social media marketing training courses is available at My Private Classroom for Marketers.

Subscribe to my newsletter at my free social media training site.

If you’re interesed in harnessing the synergy of blogging, social networking sites and search engine optimization, visit my Blog Marketing and SEO Training.

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