Typically when we think of using Social Media for our websites, we’re imagining viral traffic and creating buzz. However there’s an additional benefit that is often overlooked: search engine optimization and, more specifically, backlinks. In this quick list we’ll take a look at several unique strategies that can get your site tons of free backlinks.

Video sites

Video upload sites can be a fantastic source of backlinks. Each video that is uploaded generally allows a direct backlink to your site within the video’s description. Of course, these links do not include your anchor text, but they are valuable links from high-value websites. If you can, upload several videos across all major video sites (YouTube, Viddler, Vimeo, Revver, etc.) for maximum exposure. NOTE: sometimes these links include the nofollow attribute, yet I have a strong inclination to believe that even nofollow links play a role in search rankings.

Twitter

Twitter profiles provide a free backlink from the “website” area of your profile description. These links are indexed by the search engines and can have an impact. Much like the video descriptions, they can’t include anchor text, but they are a direct backlink from a valued source.

Forum Signatures

My personal favorite way to get social media backlinks. Register for every single forums that is relevant to your site’s topic. Then include a short description of your site (~150 characters) and include 1-2 backlinks using your anchor text. Then, for each post you make on the forum, you’ll receive one free backlink – typically without the nofollow tag. These, alone, can truly make an impact on your seo.

Social Networking

Do you have your site in a Facebook profile? Myspace? MyBlogLog? Sign up for every single social networking type of site, even if you don’t use it often, and add your backlink to your profile. Some examples are Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Friendster, MyBlogLog, Tumblr, and others. You shouldn’t stop before you hit 20+ different networks.

The goal of this quick list of strategies was to show how easy it can be to generate free backlinks from social media sites, often providing you with lasting search rankings. More often than not, if two sites are using the same strategies, and one adds social media to their arsenal; that site will rank higher. Be sure you employ these tactics on a regular basis!

For many website owners, the question of whether to outsource seo to an online firm or hire someone local is a difficult one. Typically, going online and finding someone to do your seo work can be cheaper and easier. Yet hiring someone local can have the added benefit of face-to-face communication; which is always a plus. In this article, we’ll be comparing the two alternatives.

Advantages of Hiring a Local SEO Firm

The first, and most notable, advantage of hiring someone local is that you are able to meet with them face to face if necessary. In a sense, you already have some rapport and camaraderie because you’re from the same area, and this can make a difference.

Another key benefit of a local seo firm is that there is less risk involved. By meeting with someone face to face you can be sure they’re not an overseas company that will take your money and disappear. It’s still possible, but having a physical address just a few miles from your home adds a great deal of safety to the process of hiring an seo firm.

The third benefit of hiring a local seo firm is that the communication is usually stronger face-to-face than it is through email or instant messages. For most seo work, email works just fine, but for an added benefit, a local seo firm may be able to better understand your needs.

Advantages of Outsourcing SEO

Now that we’ve covered the advantages of working with a local seo firm, let’s take a look at why you might want to consider outsourcing your SEO work to a company that does seo work over the internet.

The most glaring reason that you may want to Outsource SEO is that the number of providers available to you is so much greater. Instead of 2-3 in your local area, you have access to thousands of providers online – a much larger talent base. In this area, there’s really no comparison, Outsourcing SEO is the best – and only – option if you’re looking to choose from a large pool of providers.

Another primary reason that working with an outsourced seo firm might be their prices. Again, with thousands of providers, it’s easy to compare and find the one that has the best services for the best price. This is a feature that can be hard to find locally. But with the internet, you can instantly get quotes from 10+ providers for your project, or just compare their pre-set packages and find the one that has the services you need at the prices that fit your budget.

While it may not work for every site, for the vast majority of website owners, choosing to outsource their seo work is generally much more effective than searching for someone local. However, as we’ve seen, there are two sides to the coin and ultimately the decision to outsource vs. hire someone local comes down to your budget and your website’s needs.

Many webmasters swear by using a particular type of blog or content management system for their websites. One of the most popular content management systems, especially for SEO purposes, is Wordpress. It’s my personal favorite CMS, and in this article we’ll be discussing how it can be used for maximum SEO benefits.

Choosing Hosted Vs. Downloadable?

The world’s most popular blog software comes in two versions: a free downloadable version that the user uploads themselves, or a free hosed version at yourblog.Wordpress.com; obviously the second version is quicker and easier to setup for those that are less technically inclined, and the downloadable version offers much more freedom.

The main advantage of using the downloadable version is that you can use your own domain name, plus no one can shut your site down if they choose (which wordpress.com could do at any time). And further, it’s much easier to rank in the search engines when you have your own domain as opposed to a free domain at Wordpress (or blogger, or typepad).

Themes and Plugins for SEO

Now, once we’ve installed wordpress on our domain name, there are several features that make it a great choice for SEO. First, there is a theme database that makes it extremely easy to click on any theme and install it instantly. Many of these are specifically designed to look like a “content site” as opposed to a blog; this can help disguise Wordpress as a more typical content management system. Additionally, many of the themes will create very simple and clean code – making your site SEO friendly and easy for the search engines to crawl. Take a look at the WordPress Theme Viewer to see what’s available.

Next, on the plugins front, there is something called All In One SEO Pack that is incredible. It allow the user to easily manage every element of on-page seo right from within the admin panel. Users can add custom titles, descriptions, other meta tags, adjust the url structure and more. This plugin turns Wordpress into a SEO Powerhouse

Any Downsides to Wordpress?

The investment. Of course WordPress doesn’t cost anything, but the major downside of this software is that, right out of the box, it does take quite a bit of knowledge to customize and setup properly, but once that investment has been made, it’s my personal favorite content management system, especially for SEO.

For a free (and open source) piece of software, WordPress is really impressive, and extremely functional. Because it’s easy to disguise the blog features and make your website look like a traditional content site, it’s what I use almost exclusively for all of my web projects.

Visit: http://Wordpress.org

It’s easy to spend far too much time worrying about link building, and rightfully so: it’s probably the #1 largest factor that affects your rankings. However, without a solid on-page strategy already in place, your link building efforts will be greatly hampered. This post discusses the 6 most crucial elements of on-page SEO.

Title Tags

One of the most important elements to any website’s SEO strategy is the title tag. This tag is placed in the webpage’s <head> section and will tell the visitors and search engines what the page is actually about. Further, the title tag is almost always used by the search engines as the title of your website (big blue link in Google) when your site displays in the search results.

Now, why are titles important? Because the search engines have deemed them to be one of the most crucial factors in determining if a site is relevant for a particular term.

For example, many sites use something like: “Welcome to MySite.com.” And when someone searches for mysite.com, you this website will probably rank highly. However, it would be much more valuable to use a title like “Discount Boots including Boot Deals at MySite.com.” With the second example, you’re now relevant for the terms Discount Boots, Boot Deals and still MySite.com.

The bottom line is, once you’ve determined your keywords, changing the title is step #1.

Google Search Result: blue link is the, black text is the meta description

Meta Tags

Much like the title tag, meta tags are placed in the <head> area of a webpage. The two that we’ll focus on are the keywords and description meta tags.

The description tag is much like the page title, it helps search engines determine what your site is about and what keywords it should rank for. Again, they will use this tag in the search results to describe your site. Make sure you provide an accurate description that includes your keywords.

Google itself has notified webmasters that they no longer use the keyword meta tag in their search algorithms or results. However, there is reason to believe that others still use it and it’s a good strategy to continue using it. Be sure to include just 3-5 keywords, though; as more will make your site appear spammy.

Headings

Once you’ve covered the head section of the page, it’s time to move into the content. The <h1>,<h2>, etc. tags do influence the search engines. Essentially, they give more weight to the content in these tags than anywhere else on the page. Therefore, it’s imperative to include a heading tag (there’s not much difference in weight of H1 to H2, both seem to get the same results) with your keywords. If you have a blog, chances are your post title is a header tag (and also the page title) so it’s important to choose your headers carefully. For example, the big blue text that shows this post’s title is a <h2> tag on this blog.

Keyword Density

We’ve all heard that content is king when it comes to the search engines, and while I can’t agree that content is #1, it is absolutely necessary. Optimal keyword density is approximately 2-3 usages per 100 words. Any more than 2-3% and you’ll raise a red flag, any less and your site might not appear too relevant to your keywords. The best way to check keyword density is, while you’re still writing the article in a word processor, do a search in the term and see how many times it comes up; then view the total word count to get your percentage.

Internal Linking

This includes two elements: clean links from each page to the other pages, and a sitemap. The site should be programmed so that all of the other pages are linked from every other page. This helps the search engines “crawl” your site to find all of it’s pages. Of course, if you have a blog with 1,000 posts, this wouldn’t be practical, and you’ll simply want to include the most important ones.

Second, to help the search engines find each of your pages, it’s a good idea to create a sitemap. The best method of sitemap creation is a html page with links to every page on your site (this can be done automatically with a programming language). Plus, this type of sitemap can be helpful to visitors as well, if they’re browsing through your site.

Images

Lastly, an often overlooked element of search engine optimization are images. Marketers don’t think of images as “content” and often ignore them. This is a mistake, because images are valuable for two reasons. First, they can include an attribute tag titled “alt=” which defines the text of this image, similar to a description tag for the webpage itself. If you’re using your site’s keywords as the alt description, that will help your seo efforts.

Second, Google uses the alt tag to display relevant results in it’s image search. This means that if your page is ranked, you can also rank highly for the image search of the same term – increasing the number of search engine visitors.

Again, I cannot stress enough how important on-page SEO can be. Don’t make the mistake of ignoring your on-page efforts while getting caught up in link building: make the changes on your site before ever building links.