It’s true, Spider Writers has enjoyed opportunities to mingle with the rich and famous. We’ve always been proud to count a bona fide Guinness record holder among our clientele. For years, Hampton Roads resident George Bell was known as America’s Tallest Man, yet today we have learned his title is now claimed by a man in Minneapolis. Igor Vovkovinskiy appeared on the Dr. Oz show to be measured for the official title.

Our friend George took the news in stride, saying he was happy for the opportunity to have been the country’s tallest man, and he congratulated Igor. If you’ve ever met George, you know that he’s truly a stand-up guy (no pun intended), and his friends in Hampton Roads will always look up to him (literally!).

Now, those of us who helped George with his website are wondering: what about his URL? We registered http://www.americastallestman.com for George for the purpose of promoting his record, but now that he’s officially off the Guinness books, what is the future for the website? Of course we would like to keep it live, since being the second tallest man in the US is quite a bragging point, too. To our knowledge, Igor hasn’t expressed interest in building a website, or registering a URL to define him. When George’s domain expires, should we let it go or re-up for another year?

When you think about, Igor is Ukrainian-born, but lives in the US. Technically, then, George is the tallest American-born man. If Igor moves back to the Ukraine, will George get his title back? One might think charting world records is simple, but there sure are a number of provisions!

Well, we haven’t decided what to do yet. For now, George’s site is still active at the same URL and you’re welcome to visit. This experience, in the meantime, has prompted other thoughts on domain naming issues, in particular for businesses and organizations that change scope and may require a new identity.

Let’s say when you launched your online presence, you specialized in writing services. You chose a domain that naturally represented your skills, and included “writer” in some form on the URL. You do a decent business, win a few clients here and there, but as you work you realize you’re doing more work directly with social media and networking. The writing component is still there, but not as prominent as, say, your freelance Facebook and Twitter work.

Suddenly the “writer” URL doesn’t really define your business. You can change the way your page looks easily, and maybe re-title it for search, but the URL sticks out like a sore thumb. What to do? Should you register a better domain, or keep what you have? There are a few schools of thought on this. For one, depending on how long you’ve had your URL, you may have established solid branding and recognition with it.  It may also be solidified within search…it’s not uncommon for some websites to lose that mojo when they move to a new domain. That’s something to think about.

If you are able to secure a more appropriate name for your business site, you can always point the URL to land at your current site. That way you don’t lose the momentum you built and you have a proper domain for print promotional items. Going to a site like Domize can help you determine a good name to register.

Until then, we’ll keep an eye on George. He could have a late growth spurt, you never know.

The decision to hire a firm specializing in social media marketing, over handling your network profiles in-house, can prove beneficial depending on your budget and available manpower. While you are apt to promote your products and services through traditional means (print, radio/TV, and even pay per click models), social media engagement requires a level of communication that doesn’t always come naturally.

Some who are just learning their way around Twitter and Facebook may not feel comfortable taking on the challenge of attracting fans and followers, and as one hires an agency to handle print and broadcast campaigns, it’s natural to hand over social networking to a firm that better understands how it works. That said, you want to be certain the agency you hire is the best one to represent you and your brand.

If you choose to outsource people to monitor and update your network profiles, don’t hand them the keys to all the castle’s minor forts and assume all is well. For every post, tweet, and video upload made, visitors see only you, not the firm working in the background. Take the time to study your profiles as any visitor would view them, and put your firm to the test.

Facing Negative Feedback: Watch your Facebook fan page closely. Are fans allowed to post to the wall, and add photos and reviews? Has your agency restricted fan participation in any way? Do they delete negative remarks rather than leave them up for you to address?

If you plan a Facebook page for your brand, it’s vital to establish the page within your company first before handing the reins over to an SMO firm. When you set up the page, you are listed as the primary admin, meaning you have the ability to add and remove administrators and cancel the page altogether. Do not give this control to somebody outside your company, and as your Facebook presence grows be sure to monitor how your agents react to posts and represent you in updates they share.

Test Response Time: One aspect of social media businesses and others with products/service to promote find valuable is the ability to offer real-time commentary. With most social networks, response time is key in keeping readers updated and interested. As you monitor your brand name in social search, you might find Twitter users especially address you with an “@” reply. Note the timestamp of each missive sent to your account, then track how quickly your agency responds. Do questions, comments, and complaints go ignored? Is that fact noticed by other social users?

As quickly as people can access their accounts – laptops, smart phones, etc. – the manner in which your SMO agency should respond must reflect a timely presence. Otherwise, visitors are likely to accept your social networks as another means of distributing press releases.

Socializing Outside the Box: Thanks to RSS capability, one can integrate social profiles into a number of places. A good SMO agency is always abreast of new developments in social media. You need to ask yourself: how proactive is my agency in getting my brand out there? Are they looking into new networks for possible integration, or are they wasting time signing you up for things you don’t really need? When it comes to analytics, is your agency more concerned about cramming as many bodies into a box as possible rather than concentrating on an audience that is actually interested in your services? It’s easy to get thousands of Twitter followers, if you track down people who auto-follow just for the purpose of being seen, but if you want to maintain genuine interest it’s better to grow an audience naturally. A reputable SMO firm will know this.

As you invest the time in building your social presence, spend some of it watching those who tweet and post on your behalf. The face you present to the world is one that can be shared easily and quickly now, make it a good one.

Kathryn Lively is a social media specialist assisting clients with social media optimization and travel social media services. Clients include Gainesville hotels, European hotels, and Virginia web design firms.

Writing for the Web

It is argued that for Web sites to appear on the first page of search results, the HTML code must be clean, the content relevant, and the keywords plentiful. Unlike traditional journalism – which covers the who, what, where, when and why of an event in a concise, easy to read manner – the purpose of SEO writing is to combine strong writing elements with the right balance of words and phrases to catch the attention of search engines without appearing forced. As search engine spiders become more sophisticated in their mining for online data, they do better to weed out Web sites with an abundance of keywords stuffed arbitrarily in text. This practice, similar to spamming, can penalize a site when it comes time to index.

Let’s say your Web site is set up to sell baseball collectibles, and your best-selling items are baseball cards. You want to promote these items in your writing, so you blog a series of short articles on buying baseball cards. As you browse article databases for examples of SEO writing, you may notice that articles tend to run about 300-400 words and tend to stick to one subject. As you write your piece on baseball cards, however, it’s important not to repeat the term too often in your work. One rule of thumb in SEO writing is to limit your key phrases to a single occurrence every hundred words or so, and using a variety of related words to pick up on secondary searches.

So if you want to write an article extolling the benefits of collecting baseball cards, you’ll want to consider these and other phrases that may be used in search for your products: baseball cards, trading cars, sports memorabilia, baseball collectibles, rare baseball items.

If your site is set up for a different purpose, make a list of the ten most probable phrases used in search to find a site like yours, then work to use them in an informative on-site article or blog post for advertising your services. Link relevant terms to pages within your site to create a strong association to your site with the terms. The more you write and add to your site, the more search engines will note your authority on the subject at hand.

If you are unable to keep up with the volume needed to maintain high visibility on the Web, consider hiring the service of a professional SEO writer service to enhance the relevancy of your site. You’ll find the work will pay off as you gain the trust of new customers.

Need quality SEO writing to boost your site’s search rankings? Contact Spider Writers today!

In creating a website for the purpose of selling products or services, content is the key to high search rankings. Your text must be concise and precise as far as keywords and phrases go, and with clear links to supplemental information and a working contact form. When using social media to promote your site and encourage click-through traffic, you are allowed to be more verbose, as you must create searchable content that encourages third-party sites to use your content – and in turn display the obligatory links to your main site. The rise of social media and SEO writing as a means of promotion can help establish relevance for your website.

As you create content to point to your site, you will find several options for promotion, many of which interlink to create a steady routine one should follow. It is said the best way to sell products or advertise services is to be an expert on said subject. As you write, it is necessary to become an expert on social networks and social bookmarking, so you will know the best avenues for distributing your information.

What do you plan to achieve with your website? Do you sell clothing, promote real estate for sale, or offer accounting services? Think of an article you could write that is relevant to your site’s content – 250 to 300 words on average is a good length, but be careful not to overload on one particular keyword as that may trigger spam filters of some sites where you plan to submit. Once your article is written and the necessary keywords and links to your site are in place, here is a suggested plan of attack. As this schedule of submissions becomes routine, take note to check your site’s stats and referral links as they relate to your SMO efforts.

Submit the article to an article bank – Hosts of content-driven websites tend to look for supplement writings to their sites in order to draw traffic. When a site owner uses such content, they are obliged to link back to the author. As you write articles, find a reputable online article database and submit your content. As others use your work, you gain the opportunity to have your site links from several third-party sources.

Blog your articles – Create a weblog for the purpose of archiving your expert articles. Because Google and other engines hold blog content with high relevance in search, you increase the chances of click-throughs to your main site. Set up a simple blog account through Blogger or WordPress or another source, and link your articles to your main site. If the blog has an RSS feed, take advantage of it. Apply the RSS feed to any social networks that allow implementation. Facebook, Squidoo, and Twitter are just three networks that can feed such content into their respective profiles.

Bookmark your articles – Once your articles are live, use social bookmark sites to promote your work. Sites like Digg and Delicious are constructed to collect links of relevant content. As you create accounts, save the various blog links and article links to these sites, and as people search the social bookmarks for this content they just may find you.

The more content you create and distribute, the better the opportunity for exposure. Considering the millions of people who use the Internet daily, the more sources available to you for placing content can help bring more awareness to your main website, and in turn drive traffic directly to you.

Kathryn Lively freelances articles on several topics within search engine optimization, including Virginia web design and regional PPC programs.

Need quality SEO writing to boost your site’s search rankings? Contact Spider Writers today!

While waiting to speak at a regional science fiction and fantasy convention this past weekend, I sat in on the panel preceding mine. The topic, using social media in promotion, is one that always holds my interest, as social media optimization is more a part of my job than ever before. I took away from the discussion a better sense of using networks like Facebook and Twitter with regards to promoting products and services. What I learned at this panel could be applied to anybody new to SMO and SEO writing who is not sure how to use these networks to their advantage.

Avoiding the Hustle

So let’s say you set up a Twitter account, and slowly but surely people are following what you have to say. That’s great, that’s what you want to happen. Once you establish this captive audience, however, you want to keep them in place and perhaps get them to “re-tweet” your posts and spread the love. It’s important to do this in a way that doesn’t lead followers to think you are constantly trying to sell to them. If every tweet you post implores people to buy this or buy that or hire me, you risk losing followers. The point of social media networks like Twitter and Facebook is the social aspect of them. To keep people tuned into you, you must engage them directly.

So what does this mean? Well, if you’re an author and readers follow your social profiles, talk to them via the medium. If you receive a note complimenting your work, return with a thank you but don’t feel pressured to deliver a hard sell of your other works. You would be amazed with how your name or brand can stick in someone’s mind just by being yourself. In talking to some authors this past weekend, I discovered how well this tactic could work. One author trading tweets with a reader found that person bought his entire backlist, while another author noted that hits to her website spike when she posts about a new book cover or pictures from a con, not necessarily a new book release. You may think this is not productive, but visitors come to the site. They just might return to buy.

Maybe you operate a business catering to local markets – talk about the weather, what is going on in the city. Reply to a follower’s remarks about favorite television shows and music…let people know there is an actual human being behind the social avatars, lest anyone suspect the profiles are there merely to regurgitate sales copy. If a follower enjoys your content enough to click through to your site, your profile has served its purpose and may just attract new followers through word of mouth.

Give it a try. You just might find you can build trust among your online following…and customers.

Kathryn Lively is a freelance writer specializing in articles on search engine optimization and local PPC services.

In the realm of search engine and social media optimization, you’ll find people and companies utilizing practically every tool available. News corporations use Twitter to update readers on breaking exclusives, companies set up fan pages on Facebook and sponsor contests and chats, and the tried and true blog is used more than ever given how timely content is more attractive to search engines than static pages. Yet, for all the “tweeting” and blogging and “Digging” going on, one must ask if using all of these profiles and platforms to relay the same messages over and over is doing more harm than good.

In short, if you blog, does it make sense to feed the blog’s RSS into Twitter and Facebook, and anywhere else it may fit? Is there the risk that somebody who follows all three of your profiles will become bored or irritated by the repetition and drop you altogether?

The answer is hard to determine, as one can’t truly determine how social media optimization will work for everybody. What works for Company A could backfire for Company B. However, there are pros and cons to repetitive content that can be explored and considered by those interested in getting the most out of their social media profiles.

Duplicating Content: Advantages

Tools exist that allow you to feed your blog posts into your Facebook profile and your Twitter account. Though there is no discernible way to feed a blog into MySpace’s blog, widgets can be set up to present an RSS version on your material on your profile. The main advantage to having everything connected is that you can create content at one source and distribute it easily to several places with the click of a mouse. There’s no need to log into several profiles. With the addition of bookmarking tools on your browser menu bars – for social bookmarking sites like Delicious and Digg – you can reach diverse audiences with your content.

Also, optimizing specific keywords to link back to your main site can be helpful in boosting your search rank.

Duplicating Content: Disadvantages

If you spend enough time in the Twitter and Facebook worlds, you may tend to read from other users of their dissatisfaction of some profiles. While it’s a given that anybody who sets up a social profile is advertising to some degree, to simply set something up as a droning feed may be a turnoff to some users. “Social” is optimal word in social media, so if you do have these profile it is encourage to use them beyond their RSS functionality and converse with the people who choose to follow your exploits.

It may take some experimentation to find the perfect balance between your content and the way it is presented. Study how you use social media, and learn what works and what doesn’t.

Kathryn Lively is a freelance writer specializing in articles on Virginia web design and local PPC advertising.