SEO Affiliate Marketing - Partner Blog

Blogs have been an important part of the social online community since Al Gore invented the internet. Recently, marketing professionals have picked up on this trend and have began using it to their advantage. As blogging becomes a more popular part of online marketing, it has begun to replace many roles traditionally held by web pages. Not only is a blog cheaper (free!) and more manageable than a web page, but the effects on SEO have been huge. Here are 4 key points to reaping the SEO benefits of your blog:

1. Fresh Content- Google rewards sites with continuously updated content by ranking them higher in the SERPs. The addition of new content also means that your website will be crawled more frequently and your content will become searchable faster. A consistently updated site will also draw the attention of users and keep them coming back on a regular basis. Popular blogs such as The Huffington Post and Perez Hilton have kept the attention of millions by updating their posts almost hourly.

2. Relevant Content- It's very important to keep your blog focused on topics relevant to your company. The use of keywords during your blogging will help you clearly communicate what your site is about, thus raising your overall search visibility. Remember, write for your readers first, and then come back to sprinkle the keyword dust on your content.

3. Organized Content- A blog itself is simply content kept in chronological order. However, you can also organize blog content into other types of categories and themes. The Google likes well organized content because it's easier to figure out the main themes of your website if the content has been siloed properly. Users also appreciate a well structured blog where they can easily navigate to other pages of interest and gobble up all that yummy content you have.

4. Building Relationships- Loyal blog readers can also increase a sites visibility by advocacy through their own sites as well as commenting within your blog. Don't just turn on a setting to allow comments on your blog, encourage and challenge your readers to respond. If you take it a step further, and take the time to respond to their comments, the skies the limit. What better advertising is there than being able to directly connect with your target audience?

A great CMS like Drupal can easily get you started and allows for easy expansion as your blogging empire grows. Although constant blogging seems like a chore, it keeps search engines and users coming back to your site. Once your blog is up and running, relax and be patient. You may not see results immediately, but with hard work and a little elbow grease your site's SEO ranking will begin to reap the benefits.

A few months ago I did a presentation on running a successful twitter account. The 40 minute video can be seen here. If you've got a little less time on your hands, our wonderful intern, Marissa Reinert, put together a summary of the things I covered:

What is Twitter?

Twitter has become a popular staple in the social media scene. It's a site used for micro-blogging ( 140 characters or less). You can use your Twitter account to post at any time about absolutely anything, including your day, current events or business updates. Not only is Twitter extremely relevant and a great way of staying on top of current events, but it's also a fantastic tool for networking. You can find people in your local community, or half way around the world, to connect with. Despite its festive name Twitter can be difficult to learn and highly addictive once mastered. All in all, Twitter is an extremely useful and time consuming social media tool.

What Twitter is not...

Twitter is not a quick way to get rich. Although Twitter can connect you to thousands of people or "followers" in an instant, the connection is worthless unless they are actually listening to you. Developing connections with quality followers takes time and effort. Therefore, making money on Twitter also takes a lot of time and effort as it is directly connected to the type of relationships you develop.

Twitter is not a popularity contest. The amount of followers you have is not relevant to your success on Twitter. In fact, many Twitter accounts are actually "Twitter-bots". These "Twitter-bots" are simply programs created to follow users and interact with their posts in hopes users buy something from them.

Twitter is not a replacement for SEO. Although Twitter is useful, it cannot create a consistent stream of revenue for your business. With SEO you can optimize your site, achieve rankings and count on a consistent month to month income. However, Twitter can grow your community, create a large database of potential clients and help spread the word about your company.

Getting Started

The first step in creating your Twitter account is uploading a profile picture of the person actually using the account. A picture of the user will help others on Twitter recognize you are a real person and not a " Twitter-bot." When creating a company profile you can use the company logo especially if several company members are active on twitter as well.

Don't spend more than 10 minutes designing your background. Most followers will not bother to visit your actual homepage. A simple branding of the page with your company's logo will suffice.

While writing a quick blurb about your company in the "bio" section, be sure to include your company's phone number. Avoid certain words such as "guru" , "rockstar", " money" and "free." These words are associated with spam and scams, and they will drive users away.

How to Participate

Listen. Listen to your followers and those you follow. This is a great way to learn techniques for twitter as well as get a pulse on what engages your followers.

Participate. Be sure to re-tweet daily. By becoming more active and involved with others, your followers will become more interrsted and in turn listen to you as well. Make your Tweets count, talk with people, not at them.

Be Loud and Popular. Be engaging to your followers, if they find you interesting they will send more followers your way. If you want your thoughts and ideas to be heard, they have to be big and bold. They have to be heard above the noise.

Etiquette

Do not follow everyone that follows you. Look at their account and decide if they're "following the rules." If not, don't follow them.

Send a "thank you" message to new followers and include specific information from their profile or feed. This begins a genuine relationship with a potential quality follower.

No automatic DM's. These appear to be spam to other users.

Cool People to Follow

@volacci

@joshdward

@chrisbrogan

@lisabarone

@bestbuyCMO

@breakingnews

@rww

Useful Tools

Twitter has a plethora of tools to keep you connected to the community including Tweet Deck, Spaz, Search.Twitter.com, Tweetchat.com and Bud URL.

Early Tuesday morning, the alarm goes off at 6 am and reality hits me like a ton of bricks. It’s that time of year again when we stop humming Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall.” A time when moms and dads have to let their kids grow up just a little bit more. A time when college’s are flooded with eager students ready to recreate scenes from “Animal House.” School has begun again, and as I walked my first and fourth graders to class this year I thought, “What a cool community they get to be part of.”

When I finally stopped crying on my drive into work, I realized, “Hey! I get to be part of a really cool community too.” Over the last 8 months, Volacci has built a very extensive partner community of great Drupal people and companies. We have learned and benefited immensely from these relationships.

Like any good community member, we want to know what else we can do to benefit our partners. We’ve kicked a few ideas around the office, but we want to hear from you. Tell us what you want to see from Volacci and we’ll make it happen before the year’s out. Leave a comment, send an email, or pick up the phone and call. I always have time for our partners.

What if you could text, tweet or type a message to a robot, thousands of miles away, that graffitis your message on the floor of an international sporting event that millions of people watch everyday? Well, thanks to the Nike and the Livestrong Foundation now you can.

For Lance Armstrong's return to this year's Tour de France, Wieden + Kennedy, a Portland based agency, created a chalk printing robot that fans worldwide can submit inspirational messages to through Twitter , mobile texting, the campaign website , and online banner ads. The "chalkbot" then prints the message in Livestrong Yellow on the road that makes up the Tour de France course, approximately eight hours ahead of the Tour bikers. Fans who submit messages are sent a link to a photograph of their chalkbot message, as well as its GPS coordinates.

So far the results have been stunning. According to Widen + Kennedy over 90 percent of approved messages have come through Twitter. The chalkbot's 40 character limit has produced some of the most poignant and touching messages, primarily from individuals or family members of people who have battled cancer. For years, fans at the Tour de France have decorated the course with hand written chalk messages for their favorite biker. The Livestrong and the chalkbot have taken that tradition to the next level, allowing people all round the world to take an active part in the event and creating visually stunning text in an instant.

Continually, the capabilities and applications of social media sites like Twitter are being pushed to new and exciting frontiers - more and more we're seeing their application in the physical world. Utilizing tweet and live blogging at events is great, but it can also easily turn into just a bunch of white noise. Creating something interactive, relevant, and (if need be) flashy allows you to stand out from the crowd.

-Krista Miyashiro
@kmiya