That’s great because now you can use your LinkedIn account to optimize your website for the search engines! So how do you do it?

1. Use Anchor Text When You Post Links
2. Post Content Links To Your Linkedin Profile
3. Use Linkedin To Make Connections
4. Improve Your Profile to Leverage the SEO Advantage

Check out this post to find out how…

Affected pages included: it’s homepage (CTE Educational and Training Videos), Automotive (How to Become a Mechanic and ASE Test Prep), Carpentry (How to Become a Carpenter), and Basic Electricity (How to Become an Electrician) sections.

Sidebar was also cleaned up so that only three images appeared – Sign-up for a free preview, Sign-up for announcements, and Check out the catalog – either of which is one of the primary goals of the website.

Social media in small businesses doubled in 2009 and rose again in 2010. The adoption rate among INC 500 companies is strong, as well.

• 91% are using at least one social media tool
• 80% have a company page on a social networking site
• 79% post status updates or articles of interest on social media sites
• 57% build a network through a site such as LinkedIn
• 54% monitor feedback about the business
• 65% maintain a blog
• 52% are active on Twitter

With all this interest in social media, yet no formal strategy to back it up, what factors help to produce a successful social media marketing effort?

Success Factors

Despite most companies lack of a formal social media strategy, there are two important factors that weigh heavy on whether a company will be successful in their social media effort or not. They are -

• How you use it
• How actively you use it

As the name implies, social media is a social medium, meaning that it deals with a more engaged human interaction than traditional marketing channels. For companies and marketing purposes, it allows companies to more directly interact with their customers and to engage them on a more personal level. I like to compare social media and social media marketing to a conversation, because in many ways it works the same way.

Business or Personal?

There are many ways to use social media. As you know, many people use it for their own personal purposes and as a way to tell people about their lives and what happens in them (e.g., Facebook and Twitter). For businesses or even individual professionals looking to promote themselves, social networking and media marketing is a great way to get your message across to a vast number of people that you can connect with instantly (e.g., Facebook Fan Pages, LinkedIn).

Engaging Conversation

However, like a conversation, people don’t want to just hear you brag about all the sales or deals you have going on or have you just talk “at” them. Conversations are two-way dialogues, and it is important to treat social media as such. For example, many companies will post status updates or blog posts that have open ended questions that relate to their products or services,. This invites their followers to respond and engage in that topic. Sometimes companies or individuals will post articles or other blog posts that relate to their product, service, industry or something that relates to their company or person. You want to be relatable and interesting and relevant so that more people will want to follow you and listen to what you have to say.

Open Up!

As important as it is to engage your audience in those ways, it is also important to convey your message and tell them more about you, what you do and what’s going on with you. Social media is a great way to not only spread your message, but to let people know what is going on in a company and even provide special promotions and, yes, even special deals and sales.

“One-on-One” Connection

The trick that makes social media different than traditional media is, again, engaging the audience and allowing for that dual interaction and reinforced connection. For instance, here’s an example for the most recent X-Men movie and how they engaged their audience on Facebook. The audience were able to ask questions that were answered by the cast and crew of the movie. The more you reinforce that connection, the more brand loyalty you will have and the deeper it will run.

Stay Active

Finally, it is important to stay active and engaged as a company or professional as well. I have unfortunately seen many cases where comments go un-responded to and profiles go un-updated, which is like bad customer service. People will either lose interest or grow resentful and offended by the lack of either concern for their comments or because there is nothing new that holds their interest and will drift away.

No Social Media Strategy – Now What?

If you are serious about social media, treat it with the urgency of traditional marketing. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and now Google+ are the fundamental sites you should be familiar with plus any niche-specific authority site, if relevant.  Mashable is a very reliable source for industry news. But, most important, do not approach this medium haphazardly. As in traditional marketing, a well-thought out strategy is critical. Plan your social media marketing efforts…and back up the plan with a formal strategy.

That was then…this is now

Fast-forward to today and Google has changed the way they serve local listings. Although you may occasionally get remnants from the “Local Pack,” Google is also serving what is being referred to as “blended listings”  which combine local and traditional search engine results. And what’s interesting is that not only has the display changed, but the way in which results are ranked changed as well.

Instead of just showing information from the Places Page, Google is pulling Places information and combining it with data from the businesses’ websites. The headline for each business is from the title of the landing page (on the website), and the detailed description is pulled off the the website as well. The address/phone info and reviews are from Google Places.

You might think that Google is just grabbing some info from the website to create more detailed listings. However, it’s more than that. Before, a local business’ website had little influence in helping it rank. Yet now with the new blended results, Google uses website attributes to help determine rankings.

What Does It Mean?

Not too long ago you could rank well in many local markets with a Places Page and a bunch of business listings; a website wasn’t even needed. But now traditional SEO factors are playing a bigger role in local search engine results, which means a website for your business will probably be needed. No worries, this doesn’t mean a huge, expensive endeavor for your business, but it does mean a 1-3 page locally-optimized website.

• Page 1 Google listings for 5 major keyword phrases for the website
• Multiple Page 1 Google rankings for video pointing to the website
• Local Market Domination in home theater installation for Philadelphia PA and Wilmington DE

Automated Digital Homes offers you Smart homes style state-of-the-art equipment in electronics from Home Theaters and Lighting controls to Security Systems and Distributed Audio.

EyeJot Video Email – our Favorite!

There are a number of firms offering video email but the one that we like the best is EyeJot. Why? Because it’s easy – you don’t have to be technically savvy at all to be up and running with EyeJot in minutes. They have a free version that you can play around with, but even the ProPlus version is a bargain at $99 a year. We bought the ProPlus annual subscription because it allows for personal or business branding and keeps the emails that you created indefinitely (or until you delete them).

On the sidebar of this blog, I included a link to my profile. This is an excellent way for you to reach out to your market and extend a personal touch…let them know the person behind the name. And then just start to use it.

Resist the temptation to over-produce “salesy” videos that drag on. Send a couple of those out and you’ll kill the inherent value of the video email…people will dread getting them and you’ll be back to where you started originally. Just get started with some emails under a minute…maybe a follow-up to a customer meeting or just to “touch base.” Maybe you have a proposal or something other item that you need to send to a customer…just attach it to a short personable video email that tells them you’ve attach the paperwork they’ve been expecting. This is also a great way to announce to a customer or a prospect list the details of the next conference you’re attending with an invitation to get together.

The possibilities are endless. Go ahead and check EyeJot out. Let me know what you think.

btw – here’s a link to a client’s profile whose template I just customized.

Enjoy!

As this post points out -

• Because WordPress is such a popular blogging platform, it’s easy to find developers to work on it. If you need something customized for your particular website, you’ll have a broad choice of developers to pick from on eLance.com or Rent-a-coder.com, all for a very competitive fee.
• You can easily make your WordPress website interesting and interactive through the use of plugins of widgets. Thousands of these snippets of code exist already, andit’s very easy to learn how to install them, even if you know nothing about programming.

But I think the most valuable benefit of the WordPress platform is that an individual without any programming skills or vast Internet knowledge, is able to add to and maintain their own website with very little help. Unlike the websites of old, no special software is needed to access the website. It’s as simple as using your browser, clicking on the Login link, entering your userid and password, and voila, you’re in!

Within minutes, after accessing the multitude of WordPress tutorial materials, you’ll be composing your first article or post. And, if you ever get hung up and can’t figure show to do something, just go to Youtube and search through all of the helpful WordPress video tutorials people have created to help you solve a particular problem.

Also, important is the amount of “professional” WordPress themes that are available for free or a nominal charge. As blogs and blogging have matured, they have gone from just the “cutesy, cuddly” templates to a more business-like “look and feel.”

Although you can still get the whimsical themes that you might use for a personal blog, you now have a large choice of business, magazine, or media blog themes that are more suitable for a business. Just use your favorite search engine and type in “business blog theme”, “WordPress business blog template”, “magazine blog template for WordPress”, you get where I’m going.

With the popularity, ease of use, and accessibility that the WordPress blog platform has provided to the average person who is not a computer expert, it is a great solution for building a professional online presence, especially for small businesses and budding entrepreneurs.

Just take a look at a WordPress blog that I created for one of my small business customers. Since 1999, the Lawrence Group’s website was a traditional, static website, really no more than an online brochure. Besides a few minor edits each year, it was virtually the same website since it’s creation. Now?! Each week valuable content is being added to the website and its web traffic numbers are exploding.

Talk to me! Are you a small business? Do you have a blog, a traditional website, any online presence at all? What questions do you have?