Social Media Can Help You Succeed in Life and Business

Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn –you’ve probably heard of these social/professional online networking tools, but what are they really all about and how can they help you in life and business? While statistics on the number of people using the Internet is skyrocketing, how people find what they are looking for online is evolving rapidly. To get to a specific website today, most people do not simply type in the URL (uniform resource locator or commonly referred to as internet address) for the company they are seeking. In fact 80% of online consumers use a search engine to find what they are looking for. Search engines like Google and Yahoo are popular avenues for navigating the World Wide Web, but there are lots of others available and new ones are being created all the time. Bing, a reincarnation of MSN’s search function, is the latest.

So, if people are using search engines to look for products and services, how can you ensure that your company ranks at the top of the list of search results, which can number in the tens of thousands? Here are two ways that can help you improve your search engine rankings...

One surefire way to guarantee high rankings in search engines for your business is to pay for it. The “pay-per-click,” method (also known as Search Engine Marketing, or SEM) is just as it sounds - you pay every time someone “clicks” on the link to your site. This doesn’t guarantee the consumers buy what you are selling, but it does guarantee that they see what you have to offer. The price you pay for each click depends on the keywords you bid on, and the number of other people “bidding” on the same clicks. In essence, you are paying to reach people who have searched for a particular set of keywords. If there is a lot of competition for the same keywords, the price goes up. These are called “sponsored links” and just about any company can afford to do this effectively, if they learn how to do it properly. In this world, the only difference between a small company and a large company is HOW MANY clicks they can buy.

The other way to land at the top of the search results is to become part of the “organic” results. These are the results that are listed just below the “sponsored results”, and are also based on, among other things, keywords. There are two ways to accomplish this effectively – be relevant and be popular.

Let’s discuss relevance first. When someone is searching for a specific topic, the search engine is looking for web sites with relevant content. To determine whether relevant content exists, it looks for specific things including:

o An appropriate amount of copy (approximately 200-600 words ideally)

o Photos with anchor text

o Internal links – links to other parts of your website or other relevant content

o Keywords that match the search request

Popularity is wear social media comes into play. Your goal is to create a large number of people linking to your site or inbound links. One way to accomplish this is by using online social media, such as Twitter, which is currently the number one social medium or Facebook. . Having other sites link back to your site is another means of accomplishing the same idea. These inbound links tell the search engines that other people think your site is relevant, and has content worth sharing. Strong performance here helps Google push you up the results list, improving your chance to get traffic to your website

There are 8 effective ways to enhance your inbound link-building:

1. Make sure you are listed in the right directories – Bing, Google, DMOZ, etc.
2. Use social book marking tools – write a blog and link it to Digg, post it on Facebook, etc.
3. Find out where your customers and prospects are socializing online and have a presence on those sites.
4. Participate in the blogosphere. Look for blogs about your line of work – there are sites that can help – Technologic, Delicious.
5. Keyword optimize press releases that you distribute electronically. Use keywords that people might use in an online search then link to your website from those keywords.
6. Post video content to YouTube and other video web sites.
7. Include a podcast on your web site. People are seven times more likely to link to a page with a podcast than to one without a podcast.
8. Join the micro-blogging conversation. Twitter is a great example of this, and helps create a following for your brand.

If you’ve never tried it, you shouldn’t jump into online social networking with both feet. First listen and watch to what other people with similar interests are doing, and then start slowly. Remember, when you post something online, it’s there forever!