If you’ve been submitting your blog posts to places like Digg, Netscape, ShoutWire and the like, you know how time consuming it can be.

Now the same guys who wrote Authority Black Book have come up with a tool that drastically reduces the amount of time it takes to do Web 2.0 promotion.

Here’s what it does:

* Saves and automatically processes logins for several of the most high-traffic Web 2.0 news sites on the internet.

* Easily archive your stories (blog post) to make every submission extremely easy and gives you the ability to recall it later.

* With the push of a button, the software fills the forms on these sites so all you have to do is review and submit your story.

* Enter the content of your latest blog post one-time and submit to all of the sites individually for maximum efficiency.

The reason I’m even recommending it is because it’s completely white-hat, and will save you loads of time in syndicating your blog articles.

Check out the demo of the Web 2.0 Submitter here.

Via WebProNews I learned that the guys at SEOmoz interviewed 37 leaders in the world of organic search engine optimization (SEO) on the various factors that are estimated to comprise Google’s ranking algorithm, and came up with an awesome summary representing “90-95% of the knowledge required about Google’s algorithm”.

Personally, although I keep up with the search engines’ changing algorithms, I never build sites solely around these factors. I’d rather focus on creating authority sites with unique content, using a mix of both, online and offline marketing and PR tactics. Unique content ensures that your Pagerank doesn’t fall, and is more likely to attract inbound, one-way links. It’s worth spending good money on creating unique content. On the other hand, the PLR content and article mashers that everyone is using, are a huge waste of time and money.

Keep in mind that websites that are user-friendly, easy to navigate, and provide the user with relevant and useful information, are also likely to be bookmarked more often by users. All the experts agree that social bookmarking is going to become even more important to your rankings in 2008.

I also think that repeat traffic will become more important (given that Google most likely has access to your user’s cache), so having a subscriber database, to which you can email updates and newsletters that bring visitors back to your site regularly, should always be part of your marketing mix. Despite the inroads made by RSS, email is still one of the most important ways of sending out updates.

It’s important to keep building links slowly and consistently, using press releases and article marketing, with some blogging and social marketing thrown into the mix. If you’re into video and podcasting, they can be valuable tools to build traffic, too.

I’m currently reviewing Mike Cheney’s Traffic Videos, and they’re an excellent resource that cover a wide range of marketing techniques - which really, is the best way to build consistent and repeat traffic to your website. Though there’s something in there for everyone, white-hat and black-hat, I’d avoid the black-hat if I were you.

But if you’re a serious search marketing expert, the SEO Report on Google’s Search EngineRanking Factors is available here and is essential reading.

Just came across two nice articles on social marketing, both by Helen Leggatt, I thought I’d share here.

The first titled “User-generated product reviews increase conversion” notes that

User-generated product reviews are being recognized as a powerful tool in converting browsers into buyers. Around 40 percent of online shoppers are advocates, says Yahoo’s Diane Rinaldo, and they influence purchases two-to-one over non-advocates.

The second, titled “More marketers to use social networking tactics in 2007” notes that

The number of marketers using online social networking tactics could increase by around 10 percent in 2007, suggests a new report, and marketers need to learn how to get the best out of these environments. In 2006, around 38 percent of marketers used social marketing tactics and, according to a new report from JupiterResearch, 48 percent plan to utilise social marketing sites during 2007. eMarketer estimates that ad spending on social networks will hit $865 million this year.

Happy New Year, folks! I’m back from Goa and I’ll soon be posting some photos of my vacation on my Goa Beach site. This time I just visited my family so that my daughter could meet her cousins and be pampered by all my aunts. Also pigged out on Goan food so much that I HAD to make a New Year’s resolution to join the gym and work off all the holiday pounds.

I came back to this nice, insightful article by Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, in which he take a stab at predicting the Top 7 Marketing Trends for 2007. I’ve paraphrased his points to reflect my own take on these predictions.

1. Corporates become more human: We’ll continue to see more “corporate bloggers” and more touch points for customers to interact with the true personality of a brand. Social media will play a bigger part in overall marketing strategy of corporates. The launch of sites like Sunsilk Gang Of Girls by HLL, clearly targeting their female audience, is evidence that the trend is even catching on in India in a big way.

2. Marketing with Widgets: Offering a free tool or widget has bcome an accepted marketing technique for marketers looking to offer a quick introduction to their service, or those seeking to create an online connection with customers.

3. SEO Is Dead! Long Live SMO!: It’s official, people. SEO is dead! Even hard-core black-hat SEOs now admit that their SEO practices are earning diminishing returns, and that SEO must evolve into what is being described as Social Media Optimization. SMO involves building traffic through blogs, tagging, social bookmarking and creating buzz online, moving far beyond linking strategy and smart SEO into the marketing mainstream. Hooks to allow site visitors to easily share and bookmark content may become more commonplace than those ubiquitous “email a friend” links, notes Bhargava.

4. AutoTagging and AutoSorting: In 2007, we will see more solutions like this that offer autotagging, autosorting and the next extension of this technology … auto recommendations, where new content of any format can be recommended and people can find new content more easily.

5. Social Bookmarking or Human Filtered Search: The exponential increase in the amount of content online, thanks to blogs and video sharing sites will continue to lead online users to search beyond the algorithm for new ways of finding information. Social bookmarking involves people sorting content on the web, creating their own groupings and sharing that with others.

6. Contentcasting via RSS feed: Contentcasting, spurred on by the now ubiquitous use of RSS, and the growing number of online users that have taken to RSS feeds in a big way. This includes videoblogs, audio podcasts, and frequently updated content in any area of the site - from a blog to a newsroom.

7. Online Identity Shifting: Having and sharing your identity online is hot right now. The appeal of sharing our lives with those we care about - through blogs, photos, videos, podcasts - will continue to represent a force in driving more people towards social media.

Within these online representations of self, brands and products will continue to play a large role. People will talk about products they like and don’t like - they will share brand experiences, and they will even become brand ambassadors for products and services that they care about. In this world where individual lives are shared online, there will be huge oopportunities for marketers in 2007, concludes Bhargava. I concur.

Tags: online marketing; seo; search engine optimization; blog; blogging; social-media; web 2.0; podcasting; public relations; social media optimization; tags; tagging; folksonomy; RSS

In this WebProNews video from the SES on capitalising on social media, Converseon CEO talks about how search engines give social media significant weight, which means that negative feedback in blogs and other social media about your company or product could make up 60% of the top ten search results.

Monitoring the social media for brand reputation can help you “find the ripple on the water before it becomes a tidal wave.” The number of journalists reading blogs is phenomena, says the interviewl. I know this from personal experience because I’ve been interviewed twice by journalists who found me through my blogs.

The panel also discusses the ethics of incentivized word of mouth marketing and how flogs (fake blogs) are not the way to go for companies looking to include social media in their public relations strategy.

I wanted to share a brand new site to help you leverage the power of Web 2.0 (social networks, bookmarking sites) to bring new traffic to your websites.

Web 2.0 Secrets is a 6-week teleseminar series detailing every single trick, tactic and technique the experts use to drive a massive amount of free visitors to their sites every single day… and how you can do the same.

In it you’ll learn how to capitalize on the blazing fast growth of Web 2.0 companies like Myspace, Technorati, Digg and others to instantly attract an unlimited supply of new prospects and customers to your websites for free.

Listen to this audio interview on Web2Secrets.

Although it may seem like a distant memory, there was a time when people relied primarily on human-compiled directories to navigate the internet. These directories tried to categorize information to make it accessible to users.

The inherent human bias in the process, combined with the rapid growth of the internet, however, made the directory model an ineffective way of cataloguing all of the web’s offerings. Soon, search engines based on programmed algorithms and utilizing robot web crawlers began to displace the traditional directory.

Although internet commerce was still in its infancy, those who benefited the most from the transition to search engines were the people who saw the trend developing and who made an immediate effort to capture great placement in search engine results. Search engine optimization pioneers were able to grab substantial market share in a field devoid of well-organized competition.

Today, various search engine weaknesses are leading many users to seek out yet another means of finding information Social Bookmarking. They’re relying on social bookmarking services with increasing regularity as their tool of choice. The millions of people using social bookmarking services including Technorati, Del.icio.us, and others are proof that this is the “next big thing.”

Although the growth of blogs has spurred the increased use of social bookmarking services, the phenomenon is actually much richer and more nuances than that. The success and likely massive future growth of social bookmarking isn’t just a matter of blogs being hip. It’s based on the very reasons why people use the Internet and continues to grow as an alternative means of information organization.

This new user-driven means of categorizing and ranking resources is fluid, flexible, non-hierarchical, democratic and GROWING. It defies our usual expectations about how people can find products and services online.

Millions of people are abandoning traditional search engines and directories in favour of social bookmarking services. Marketers who ignore this trend do so at their own risk. Not learning about social bookmarking is nothing short of surrendering to a changing online world.

Those who “get it” will undoubtedly prosper. Those who don’t might just find themselves expending more and more effort competing for a shrinking portion of the search engine pie. What makes matters even sweeter for those in the know is the fact that successful mastery of the social bookmarking scene has search engine advantages, too.

For more information check out The Complete Guide To Social Bookmarking.

Check out this video from the Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference where Andy Steggles of SitePR Tracker talks about the true value of PageRank, and what it should and shouldn’t mean for your site.

Andy stresses that PageRank in and of itself is not a tool for boosting search engine rankings. It is, however, a good barometer to gauge how Google perceives the quality of your pages, an issue that is becoming increasingly important as Google tweaks its algorithm for calculating quality score, and consequently adjusting minimum bid values based on the findings.

One of the major PageRank killers is duplicate content. If your site’s content is mirrored in a good number of other online sources, your PR will drop faster than Kevin Federline’s net worth. Therefore, it is vital that webmasters pay as much attention to the originality of their content as possible. If you have other users that submit content to your site, encourage them to put their own spin on things instead of simply scraping text from one site and pasting it on yours.

Above all, however, don’t invest the majority of your time obsessing over PageRank as the end-all, be-all of tools for achieving high search rankings. PR is only an indicator of quality, and therefore is just one cog in the wheel that drives the machine of search engine optimization.

Check out the video here

As I explained in my article here, one of the most important differences between businesses (or articles) that succeed and those that fail is the ability to understand what their audience wants, and give it to them the way they want it.

Accurate market research is the foundation of a successful business. Any search marketer worth their salt knows that market research is the basis of a good search marketing strategy. The Digital Point keyword suggestion tool is one of my favourite tools for conducting quick market research and creating lists of keywords to target.

It’s also recommended by Wendy Boswell, About.com’s guide on Web Search, who puts the reasons for conducting market research in simple, succinct terms here:

In order to create a searchable site, you must know who you are writing for. Your target audience knows what they want and what they are searching for, and you must know what that is before you can deliver what they want.

For researching and writing articles, simple tools should suffice. But when you’ve put advertising dollars on the line, the quality of your research becomes paramount to your success.

Customer profiles, surveys and focus groups are essential tools in the marketer’s store, but asking the right questions of your audience, and making sense of the data gathered, is an art by itself.

It was only after I listened to some audios by a guy called Glenn Livingston, that I began to gain an understanding of the nuances of conducting good market research. Glenn was recommended to me by Perry Marshall, who states that he’s “reduced marketing to a nearly exact science.”

He’s developed a system that shows you how to use market research to dramatically multiply existing profits, and how to save ridiculous amounts of time and money entering new markets by finding out exactly where the “bulls eye” is before you invest your marketing dollars, and even before you ever develop a product. This is seriously good stuff, and I urge you to check out his ideas here.

But market research is just the start of a good marketing strategy. It takes more than that to attract the kind of audience you need on the internet. Wendy recommends you remember these three things when developing your target audience internet marketing strategy:

Do your research. Don’t automatically assume that what you search for is what your audience searches for.

Get involved. Man is not an island. Network with people in your field or industry to truly understand what might be in demand, and then you can target your audience accordingly.

Write good content. Easier said than done, but I guarantee that the more time you spend researching key phrases and writing thoughtful content, the more people will be able to find your content.

Read more about market research strategies here

How to Research Your Business Idea (Entrepreneur.com)

Market Research for Small Business on a Shoestring: Surveys and Focus Groups (StartUpNation.com)

Market Research Basics and Terminology (Elance.com)

Writing articles for the internet is not the same as writing for print media. There are some common mistakes that writers make online that are likely to lose them potential readers and traffic.

Writers need to understand that people have very short attention spans while reading online. If your article doesn’t address their immediate concerns or is difficult to read, all they have to do is click away - and you end up losing a reader.

If you’re a writer who wants to leverage your articles to get maximum traffic and ensure that your readers enjoy reading it online, here are some guidelines you should follow.

1. Find Out What Your Readers Want

The best way to boost your visibility online is to provide specific information that people are searching for. While researching topics for your article, input your root keyword into the keyword research tool here to find out what keywords people enter into search engines while researching your topic. Keep a list of these keywords handy when writing your article and use them in creative ways.

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

Search for information using keywords related to the topic you plan to write about on the sites below, and see what other people are writing about it.

http://www.ezinearticles.com
http://www.technorati.com

Get familiar with these resources. They will help you focus your writing around the needs and interests of potential readers. Write articles that address those specific needs and your traffic and visibility will skyrocket.

2. Give Your Keywords Prominence

I recommend that you never stuff your article with keywords. It doesn’t work anyway, and it will make your article unreadable and useless. Always write your articles with the reader in mind.

However, do remember that search engines give more weight to keywords that are included in specific locations in your article (a concept known as keyword prominence). So while writing your article, it’s good practice to include your keywords in the following locations in order to leverage them for maximum visibility.

Article Title: Try to include your primary keywords in the first half of your title.

Article Sub-head: Use a catchy subheading for your article and try to include synonyms for your keywords.

Paragraph titles: Include specific keywords related to your topic in your paragraph titles

3. Get More Readers With A Catchy Title

A catchy, topical or provocative title will always attract more attention and get you more click-throughs and readers, but always en sure that it corresponds with the theme of your article. Titles that are catchy but misleading are not appreciated by either publishers or readers.

4. Boost Readability For All Your Readers

There are two kinds of readers online those who read an article in detail, and those who scan through it. For the sake of the latter, break up your articles into paragraphs, each of which makes a point, and use a title for the paragraph that effectively sums up the points you made in the text.

Write a catchy title for each paragraph. Keep your paragraphs short. Long riffs are difficult to read online. I usually prefer a maximum of 2 to 3 sentences per paragraph, but longer is acceptable. The use of bulleted points and numbered lists also boosts readability.

5. Follow Good Language Guidelines

Unless your audience comprises other writers and poets, few readers appreciate long-winded and pretentious prose online. Remember that the average visitor online reads at the level of a sixth-grader. So keep your sentences short. Use words that are simple and easy to comprehend.

Write complete sentences, but keep your tone conversational. Write as though you were talking to a friend. Avoid the use of slang, colloquialisms (unless necessary to make a point) and swear words.

Always check for blatant grammar and spelling errors using a spellchecker. If possible, get a second and third opinion on your article before sending it out to publishers and article directories.

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Copyright © Priya Shah

Priya Shah is a partner in the blog publishing company, Connect10 and writes an internet marketing blog. Visit Article Writing Tips for more article marketing tips and tools.

This article may be reprinted as long as the resource box is left intact and all links are hyperlinked.

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