1) YouTube has updated their design to integrate (like other Google properties) with Google+.

2) Facebook has updated their insights (analytics) improving content effectiveness tracking.

3) LinkedIn added group demographics statistics to better understand the quality of each of its groups.

4) FourSquare has created its own button for publishers. The button is aimed at supporting retail websites.

5) Facebook increased status updates to 60,000 characters.

6) Google is replacing the account black navigation bar with a new drop-down menu.

What would you add?

• A) Klout scores your Google+ activity.
• B) New YouTube design  -  How to Enable the New YouTube Design Now.
• C)  Adobe is pulling Flash.
• D) GetListed.org

• A) Colby’s phoned-in question. (You can call too 1 646 397 6741)
• B) SEO: How to develop a SEO plan.

In Google Analytics, under keywords, you will find the total number of keywords used to find your website via the search engines. This is an important number.

What is your number?

Too many business owners focus only on the rankings of their favorite keywords in search results.  They define success by their pet keywords moving to the top of the search page.

Keyword rankings are important, but they are not the only measurement of success.  It is hard to know all of the combinations of keywords and their rankings that are relevant to your website.  This makes it difficult to completely measure SEO (search engine optimization) success.

Any keyword traffic will not do.

An SEO’s (a person who optimizes websites) job is to attract the best traffic to your website.  None-the-less an increase in the number of keywords directing traffic is still an excellent indicator of a successful SEO campaign.

Keep track of your search result rankings, the amount of traffic coming from search engines, the total number of unique visitors and the total number of keywords delivering traffic to your website.  This package of indicators will give you a more complete SEO picture.

Anchor text are the words people see connected to a website hyperlink.

Search engines use this text to help identify what a webpage is about.  If a website has a lot of links directed to it containing the word food – a search engine can easily deduce that the page has something to do with food.

As important as links are to your website, the anchor right text can make a big difference to help search engines understand what traffic to drive to your website.  In other words anchor link text containing just your name or worse yet “here” is not as helpful as text describing what your company does.

You don’t have control over all the links aimed at your website.  Sometimes you will place the links yourself or have influence on other websites.  If this is the case, you should make sure the anchor text contains quality keywords related to your website pages.

Think variety.

Even if the best match for your website is Detroit Marketing Firm, make sure every link does not say the same thing.  Search engines will not consider this a natural occurence.  Plus, the natural variety in keywords will help generate more combinations of search terms people will be able to use to find your company.

Keep tabs on your anchor text and you will find benefits in your search engine rankings.

Rosh

One way to keep track of search engine optimization (SEO) success is to measure the number of keywords people use to find your website.

In your Google analytics account under traffic sources you will find a list for keywords (see figure on the left).  At the bottom of the list you will find a total.  This total represents the number of keyword combinations people used to find your website.

Make note of the total number of keywords at the beginning of your campaign.  It is impossible to know all of the combinations of keywords people can and will use to find your site.  The more work you do on your SEO campaign the more  keyword combinations will develop.  Even if your target keywords do not rise dramatically in the search results listings you should see results in your total keyword number.

If you don’t see any improvement over 3-6 months you should rethink you SEO strategy.

Rosh

You may find more of these videos on our facebook page.

• A) More Facebook changes
• B) Foursquare 1 billion served
• C) Google + for everyone
• d) Google Wallet launched. Are you using it?

• A) Will you use Google Wallet?

• A) Rethink your blog posts
• B) A/B testing
• C) Test your website in various browsers

5) Action item:  Do something new on your blog.

If your goal is to develop relationships than focusing on a few blogs is the way to go.  If your goal is search engine optimization (SEO) than the more blogs you comment on the better.

Blog quality plays a role in SEO.  You want to comment on blogs highly regarded by Google. The best way to find such blogs is to use Google search.  Once you have found a few blogs as a starting point -  follow the blogrolls and links to other valuable blogs.

If you wish to develop relationships through blogs then look for quality blogs with few comments.  Before you engage too deeply review past posts to see if the blogger is responsive.  A good blogger will respond to comments.

Comments are not the best indicator of the quality of the blog.  A blog with a lot of comments can mean multiple things.   Some bloggers are great networkers while other bloggers write great posts that encourage engagement.  I believe being highly active in the social media encourages participation with your blog more than quality or expertise.

Comments are also good for driving traffic and introducing your expertise – keep humble.

Commenting should be thoughtful.  We (Synectics Media) often comment on various blogs for SEO purposes, but we have a policy.  If you have nothing relevant or of value to add to the conversation – don’t comment.

Rosh