David Leonhardt’s SEO and Social Media Marketing

For the past week, I have been noticing three little icons beside certain entries in the search results.  One of them is the StumleUpon logo, and when hovering my cursor over the logo it says “read 4 reviews” , or whatever number applies to that listing.  The other two logos, stars and a word bubble, are attached to the same StumbleUpon reviews.

So what does this mean?  Well, for starters, it is one whopper of an endoresement of StumbleUpon.  Just for fun, I googled “Google buys StumbleUpon” to see if the obvious is true, and surprisingly the results show that Google actually bought a “competitor” to StumbleUpon not that long ago.  Perhaps that makes this an even stronger endorsement.

In any event, what this means for you and your websites:

1. Make sure you get your website reviewed.

2. Make sure you get your website positively rated.

I am certain that before long, stumbling client pages will become a standard tactic of all SEO specialists.  In fact, there might even one day be a StumbleUpon arms race, just as there has developed a link-exchange arms race these days.  If you don’t have your StumbleUpon account yet, it’s time to sign up. 

So if you like this blog or even just this post, please take a moment to click “I like it!” on your StumbleUpon toolbar and write a wonderfully glowing review. 

This is a great article by Chris Winfield, one of the top social media marketing specialists and a frequent collaborator with The Happy Guy Marketing: You’ve Made Digg - Now What?

As with so many business decisions, people tend to rush in without a long-range plan.  The script is usually the same…

Hey, let’s get the latest gadget. 

Cool gadget.

Now what?

I wrote about the same problem in this article about website planning, because so many companies still are rushing out to build a website without a clue what they want that website to do for them.

Chris offers a few good suggestions on what to do about a page that has benefited from a surge in popularity as the result of a home page Digg appearance, including reoptimizing the page, adding calls to action, advertising on it, or redirecting it to another page.  I would add that basically you can do pretty much anything you want with the page.  For example, you could simply add the page a related survey geared to building leads for your telemarketing operations.  Just keep in mind what people visiting it will be expecting.  If they come expecting a video on how to carve fruits for a New Year’s Eve party, don’t fill the page with wallpaper remover products. 

Announcing El Marcadorado - Spanish language social bookmarking script.   

This is a first in the world, a Spanish language social bookmarking aggregator script for webmasters.  Just like TheBookmarketer- English language social bookmarking script, Spanish webmasters can place the small El Marcadorado code snippet on their webpages  to encourage visitors to social bookmark their pages. 

In addition to the major English language social bookmarking sites, El Marcadorado supports the major Spanish language social bookmarking websites, such as Meneame, Blogmemes and Fresqui.

I posted earlier what the script can do and how webmasters can make use of it.  All that applies to the Spanish version, too.

If you know anyone with a Spanish website…let them know!

I have become fascinated how a website can jump from obscurity to temporary fame and with good hands at its wheel a head start to permanent success just by hitting the front page of Digg.com .

Here is a very comprehensive list of what it takes to get onto the front page of Digg:  50 Tips: How to get the best out of Digg? by Razid Ahmed. Some of it is pretty obvious, like take time to write a really good article.  Other tips are less obvious, like make sure your server can handle the extra traffic.  Six of the tips relate to crafting a title.  They all seem obvious to me, but I know from experience that there is nothing obvious about crafting a title.

The best tips relate to submission, promotion and participation.  For instance, get your blog and ezine readers to Digg your content.  More good advice: don’t be shy to Digg your own blog posts.  On the other hand, don’t submit all your content.  Surely you know when you have superb content and when it is just average. 

It goes without saying that if you participate in any community and make lots of contacts, you stand a better chance of getting your message heard.  But if you don’t have time to build a network, nor the money to rent one (yes, some people do this, much to the disgust of many Digg purists), you can at least do a good job of creating, submitting and promoting your content…and hoping that some of the established networks on Digg will pick up on it.

Razid suggests against forming groups dedicated to Digging each others’ work, but I have to disagree with that one.  I would avoid any group that commits you to Digging something you don’t think is superb, but it can come in handy to have, say, 50 other webmasters and bloggers who are willing to look at what you have and Digg it.  And it is not too much to ask for you to do the same.  The trouble comes if everyone in the group is always Digging all the same content “just because”.  That becomes spam and you will get bumped from the community.

And the most important piece of advice… if at first you do not succeed, try, try again.  Sooner or later, something you write will get picked up.

This SEO scam is so new that it hasn’t even begun yet, at least not to my knowledge.  I don’t want to give SEO scammers ideas, but I am 100% certain that this is coming and that there will be many, many, many (did I mention “many”?) unsuspecting webmasters who will fall for it, so let’s for once get the warnings about the scam out there before it begins. 

Google’s new personalized search has already begun, and within months it will start to skew Google’s rankings in two ways.  

First, data Google gathers about how people are searching will certainly start to be factored into the general algorithm.  This means that on-page relevancy and inbound links will have to share the stage with such factors as click-through rates, click-back rates (back to Google from the site), length of visit, number of pages viewed, repeat visits, etc.  In other words, Google will be better able to measure “good” content from trash.  

A whole industry will sprout up to help webmasters take advantage of this, much of it black hat (like click fraud, perhaps?), some white hat, mostly to create more “sticky” content, improve click-through rates and encourage people to “vote” in some way for the site. On the white hat side, TheBookmarketer can help you move ahead right away, as I reported in this post on how to use social bookmarking to a website’s advantage. 

Second, the data it collects from each individual will be used to present more personalized results to that individual.  Exactly how this will work remains to be seen, as there are many ways that Google has hinted it can factor the information into a person’s individual results.  But one thing is for certain…as soon as SEO scammers get a sense of some of the factors that affect personalized results, the scamming will begin.  Here is exactly what the scammers will do:  

1. The scammer will tell the website owner to sign up for a Google account.  

2. The scammer will tell the webmaster to “visit your website every day” or “visit at least ten pages of your site in succession every day” or “Google bookmark your website” or “do the following ten searches and click on your site from the rankings every day”.  The precise instructions will depend on the factors that most influence personal search.  

3. The scammer will promise that the website owner will see his site move up in the rankings.  And he will see it move up in the rankings.  But only on his computer using his personalized search.  Even if his website shows up as #1 for “broken glass”, none of the broken-glass-buying market might even see his site in their results. 

This scam won’t fool everybody.  It is most likely to work on the little guy, who operates from one computer and would not think to compare results.  It might not work forever, but what scammer will stick around to argue the finer points once he’s sucked the money out of an unsuspecting website owner’s pockets? 

Google will surely take steps to reduce this in order to protect the integrity of its results (remember the searcher is whom Google must please), but like every game of locks and lock-pickers, there will be plenty of scams flying under Google’s radar or keeping one step ahead. 

The best protection a webmaster has against this sort of scam is to include mention of it in passing in every article posted on the Internet about personal search.  Hopefully not too many webmasters will miss it before hiring an SEO scammer.  And that’s why today I am outing the scammers before they even start!

I just took a look at the referral stats from one of my websites, and for the first time ever (did I mention “ever“?) Google is not the top referrer.  MySpace.com is sending more traffic than all of the Googles.  In fact, one-thrid of the top-30 referrers are from various MySpace pages.

I also notice that StumpleUpon is featuring in the website’s top-30 referrers.  Once you get in good with the “Stumblers”, it can be an excellent source of interested traffic. 

Not long after the offical launch of TheBookmarketer, we have already added some new social bookmarking sites. 

You will note that we have added Zaadz, Kaboodle, Jumpup, i89 and Searchles.  I can’t be certain, but for most of these we might be the only multi-site bookmarking service to offer them as an option. 

There will be more updates later, and soon I will provide some webmaster tips on social bookmarking propotion - the white hat way.

Just for the record, here are our pages at these websites:

• Zaadz
• Kaboodle
• Jumpup
• i89
• Searchles

I just stumbled upon Digg-Like Sites, a great little directory of social bookmarking websites in various languages.  I plan to do a Spanish and French version of my own social bookmarking script, TheBookmarketer, so this will be very helpful.  If you plan to do any multilingual online marketing, these can come in handy!

Most webmasters and website owners do not yet understand social bookmarking or how they can use it to increase their leads, their sales, their subscribers and even their repeat visitors.  This is a primer that every webmaster and blogger should read.

Everyone knows that a bookmark is a piece of paper that marks a page so you can find it easily again.  Most people know that a computer bookmark is a link on your computer that marks a web page so you can find it easily again. 

A social bookmark is link that marks a web page so you can find it easily again, but also so you can share it with others, usually by posting it to one of several dozen social-bookmarking websites.  For instance, I have accounts at del.icio.us, Simpy, Searchles and several others. 

If I was to post a bookmark to your web page at one of these sites, something magical would happen.

First, other members of the bookmarking site could view the link.  Then they could follow the link.  Then they could subscribe, view more, buy or whatever can be done at that page.  Then they could also bookmark the link.  Since many bookmarking people participate in several bookmarking sites. They might bookmark your page several times.  And they might even blog the link. 

The next magic happens when all this is amplified by the magic of search engines who see these very naturally-created (real votes, not phony link exchanges!) building up over time across numerous domains and in varying contexts.  The search engines are not stupid, and they are getting smarter every day at recognizing the difference between real and phony links.

The website which can attract social bookmarks has a clear advantage above those that don’t.

STOP THE PRESSES

Just last week, Google updated its algorithm, and webmasters should take note.  It’s new “personal search” algorithm includes social bookmarking even more specifically than in the ways I mentioned above.  Google can easily see which web pages have been bookmarked at — guess where? — Google Bookmarks! 

So you as a website owner or blogger have a very special interest in finding ways to encourage people to social bookmark your pages at Google Bookmarks and at public bookmarking websites.

HOW TO HARNESS SOCIAL BOOKMARKING OF YOUR WEBSITE

Bloggers have been doing this manually for some time, posting little icons for del.icio.us and Digg and ma.gnolia and others at the end of each post.  The idea is that users of each social bookmarking service will be prompted to bookmark the post, assuming the post has value. 

But doing this manually leaves a lot to be desired, consuming time and effort to set it up and stay current, as well as limitations.

So a few clever people came out with scripts to help automate the process (not the bookmarking itself, just the bookmarking links on the website).  The latest entry into this market is the free TheBookmarketer, which is better than the other “similar” scripts in five ways, as I outlined near the bottom of my previous blog post.

When you place a social bookmarking script on your website or blog, make sure to use it yourself.  Ask friends and family to, as well. Ask your newsletter subscribers and satisfied customers to social bookmark your pages, too. 

Remember, placing the simple snippet of code on your website might be an easy set-it-and-forget-it marketing tool, but it is not some automated “0 to 60 in 5.2″ magic wand.  It is just one tool in your arsenal, and it works best when you have something worthwhile for your visitors to bookmark.  It does not make your website great, but it does prompt your visitors to let other surfers, shoppers and the search engines know just how great your website is.

As ever day passes, social bookmarking becomes a more important factor in how people find the websites of interest to them.  Social bookmarking is both replacing and enhancing typical search engine activity, and no webmaster can afford to lose out on the incredible amount of traffic that social bookmarking sends, both directly and through the search engines. 

This is the official launch of TheBookmarketer.  It is tempting to call this a revolution in website marketing, to use the typical hype of online marketing gurus…but it’s not.  It’s not about hype, it is about substance.  It’s not a revolution, it is a big step forward in the Web 2.0 revolution that is already under way.  And it is an extraordinarily handy and easy tool to give website owners and bloggers a competitive edge. TheBookmarketer is a social bookmarking tool.  In my next post, I will give a complete rundown of social marketing, why it is important to webmasters and bloggers and how you can harness its awesome power.  In this post, I will simply explain what TheBookmarketer is, what it is not, who should use it, how it is better than several “similar” tools, and why I have gone to the effort and expense to make it so good and give it to you for free. 

WHAT THEBOOKMARKETER IS… 

• TheBookmarketer helps your visitors promote your site in many ways.  

• TheBookmarketer is a set-it-and-forget tool, a free snippet of code you have to add to your SSI or include file only once. Ever.  

• TheBookmarketer helps you win with Google’s 2007 algorithm changes.  

• TheBookmarketer helps build valuable one-way links to your website.  

• TheBookmarketer helps create “natural linking” patterns that impress search engines.  

• TheBookmarketer  helps build deep links that tell the search engines that your website has depth.  

• TheBookmarketer draws other interested social bookmark users to your site (targeted traffic).  

WHAT THEBOOKMARKETER IS NOT…  

• TheBookmarketer is not an “automated traffic machine”.  Those don’t generally give you quality traffic.  

• TheBookmarketer is not a 0 to 60 in 5.2 link-builder.  It builds links at a speed that reflects a) the number of visitors to a page, and b) the value they get out of the content of the page.  

• TheBookmarketer is not a guarantee of success on its own; you need quality content that others will feel is worth bookmarking for later use or for sharing with friends or colleagues.  

WHO SHOULD USE THEBOOKMARKETER… 

TheBookmarketer can help any website get wider exposure and higher search engine rankings.  However, certain types of sites stand the most to gain:   

• Content-rich portals and information sites, including directories and article directories.  

• Ezines with online archives.  

• Blogs and online forums with always new and useful information.  

• Ecommerce stores with descriptions of products that people might want to save for later use of share with others.  

• Photo- or video-sharing websites.  

• News websites, general or niche  

• Any website with either new or useful information  

HOW THEBOOKMARKETER IS BETTER THAN “SIMILAR” TOOLS… 

Technically, you do not need a tool to prompt your visitors to social bookmark your pages.  You could add code for each social bookmarking site by hand.  The disadvantage to that is that it is a lot of work…a lot of work getting started and a lot of work keeping up-to-date when in a fast-changing field.  And you won’t be able to cover as many social bookmarking websites.  There are a handful of social bookmarking tools for webmasters around, but we made TheBookmarketer better in 5 ways:  

• At this point, only TheBookmarketer has the Google Bookmarks submit link.  

• Only TheBookmarketer allows you to check your stats (see the email form at the top of http://www.seo-writer.com/tools/bookmarker.php.  

• The Bookmarkerter has the largest list of social bookmarking sites, offering the best reach of potential visitors and the best breadth of incoming links (and we plan to add to the list).  

• TheBookmarketer makes the most popular sites easy to access by floating them to the top.  

• I am committed to keeping TheBookmarketer very current so you don’t have to think about it.   

WHY I INVESTED THE EFFORT AND MONEY TO DEVELOP THEBOOKMARKETER JUST TO GIVE IT AWAY FOR FREE… 

Marketing.  It’s that simple.  We are a website marketing company and what better way to introduce ourselves to you and to those people who will be bookmarking your pages than by demonstrating our ability to help you market your website.  That is the same reason why we are committed to keeping it current for you and ensuring that it remains the very best tool possible.  See it in action at the bottom of this post…