Dominating the Search Engines with Social Media Networks

By Steven · Sunday, April 27th, 2008

With the advent of Stompernet’s SMARTS program, Howie Schwartz’s Conversation Domination and Jack Humphrey’s Authority Black Book, leveraging the power of Web 2.0 / Social Media has "officially" gone mainstream.

As you know, I’ve used Web 2.0 for quite some time and a while back I created a "flow chart" to explain how I actually use Web 2.0 (in the ‘one’ forum I participate in on a regular basis). So I thought I’d share it with you as well.

Hopefully, you’re already familiar with Social Media sites on some level… from free Blogging platforms such as Blogger.com and Wordpress.com (which started this "revolution"); to Social Networking Sites like MySpace and FaceBook; to Content Sharing Sites, like EzineArticles, Squidoo and HubPages, and Social Bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us, Reddit, Digg, Propeller, Stumbleupon etc. (some would argue that Digg, Propeller, Stumbleupon and similar sites are Social Voting sites).

So, what’s the big deal about social media?

I personally think that the main benefit to these properties is that they contribute to "organic" traffic that is not dependent on Search Engine Results. In addition, you also get to take advantage of the sites’ authority, which means more search engine traffic and more backlinks to your site (depending on whether they use "dofollow" or not). In other words, there are two parts to the Social Media equation: Social Media Traffic Generation and Social Media Linking.

So, you might be wondering, what’s the advantage of using sites like Blogger, Hubpages, Squidoo and Wordpress.com?

All of these are considered authority sites and can rank very well in the search engines provided you build them "properly" and more importantly add some new content to them on a "regular" basis.

In terms of Blogger, they have a lot of pull with Google Blog Search as well as organic search engines and if you create the "right" type of content, you can rank on the first page of Google almost immediately (depending on competition of course). It is also very user friendly in terms of setup, ad integration (particularly Adsense), and is quite easy to "tweak". The downside of building blogs with Blogger is that Blogger controls your site… and they are often very "delete" happy (I’ve had a couple of dozen blogs deleted by them…).

As for Wordpress.com… they are similar to Blogger in that you host your blog with them (except they don’t in my experience have the habit of deleting blogs like Blogger). Their interface is easy to use and ranks well in the search engines. The upside of Wordpress is that they have an active user community that likes to read other people’s blogs… and you can get quite a bit of free traffic just from using "tags" in your posts. However, they are not very user friendly with Ad integration and if you’re not careful, you could be in breach of their TOS.

Which one do I start with, and is one better than another?

Squidoo and Hubpages can both drive quite a bit of traffic and they both use "do follow" in their links, which means you can leverage these sites to drive traffic to your "money site(s)" much in the same way you would use EzineArticles (or other article directories). The pages you build on these properties are also better suited for a more narrow niche (or product), rather than broad niches.

Blogger and Wordpress.com are "traditional" blogs and is a great resource for posting either snippets of articles from your money sites, or independent articles with anchor text links embedded in the article pointing to a particular page on your money site.

I generally use all of these properties to support my main money site, whether it’s an opt-in page, sales page, content site…

There are obviously no "rules" as to how you use leverage Web 2.0. I personally use them to build a "mini net" of properties to "dominate" a niche term… and funnel traffic and link power to my money sites. So, you could potentially set up something like this:

Web20FlowChart1[1].jpg

NOTE: This is just an illustration of how you can setup one type of a mini net and the sites listed are just some of the sites I may use.

As you can see, the chart flows from the "less" important web 2.0 properties down to Blogger / Wordpress.

The most important thing to know is that you should not get stuck in a pattern. In other words, you can for instance switch the positions of Blogger / Wordpress with Squidoo / Hubpages or other "authority sites" and gain similar (or better results). 

Let’s talk about some of the biggest mistakes people make when creating these networks:

  1. Try to focus on too many keyword phrases at once
  2. Give up after creating one blog /lens / hub for one topic
  3. Not bookmarking ALL content (be sure to use different bookmarking sites for different sites)
  4. Trying to use just ONE account for bookmarking / blog creation (I would personally recommend that you open multiple accounts, ten or preferably more, with each service to avoid footprints and patterns).
  5. Using reciprocal links between different properties

One of the biggest "secrets" to success with this tactics, is to actually create multiple pages spread across you network for just ONE long-tail keyword phrase. In other words, the whole network above should be for ONE phrase. Then you rinse and repeat for the next keyword phrase.

Also, learn to use and publish your RSS feeds. This will save you A LOT of time when updating your web 2.0 properties.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences on the topic…

To your success,

steven_signature.gif

[tags]conversation domination, authority black book, stompernet smarts, stompernet, jack humphrey, web 2.0 traffic, social media traffic[/tags]

Topics: Traffic Building, Web 2.0 · Tags:

Comments

Good advice.

I have 2 questions.

Are you saying that the example network above would be for “blue widgets” and you would make a totally new one for “red widgets”?

Also can you explain some more about the RSS feed. If I am optimizing each network differently how do I send them different feeds.

Thanks

Thanks for these insights. any chance we can see examples or a case study? thanks,

lawton

Arnold,

To answer your question about “blue” vs. “red” widgets… Yes, you would make a totally new one for each color widget.

One thing to keep in mind is that you may not have to create as broad of a network for some keyword phrases, while for other more competitive networks you may need to scale it up.

As for RSS feeds, I’ll see if I can put together a quick tutorial on how best to implement it. But, to give you a short answer… you don’t necessarily need to use “different” feeds for different properties.

/Steven

Lawton,

I’m a bit hesitant to reveal some of my niches, for obvious reasons.

But, I did something very similar for my “Project Quick Cash” review… I wrote about one aspect of this in the following hubpages case study: http://www.affiliatemarketingdiary.com/case-studies/hub-pages-case-study-appear-on-the-first-page-of-google/48/

All the best,
Steven

Hi Steven,

Thanks so much this information.

Web 2.0 has been so confusing to me that I have been ignoring it, but I do not want to miss out on all the traffic that it can bring me.

This really helps a lot and if you can furnish any more information or recommend a good learning tool or resource let me know.

Thanks!

Scott

Great chart - thanks!

Web 2.0 marketing has been an interesting ride to say the least. Just when you think you have it figured out, something emerges that totally surprises you.

I have no complaints and agree that varying things up a bit between campaigns is quite helpful.

Right now, propeller is saving me in the search engines as I’m on the 1st page for my primary keyword term but am finding my squidoo page for this same keyword term is no longer appearing on the 1st page but when it did, the squidoo page converted search traffic far better than my propeller listing.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks.

Alex

Thanks for such good information. I have had such a hard time understanding all of this but this helps a lot. Hopefully I will succeed in implementing this this weekend.
Marilyn Parmelee
Author “Hearing God’s Voice For Yourself”
http://www.myspace.com/marilynparmelee

Using a variety of social bookmarking is a great way to get a boost in traffic. Also great diagram of the traffic funnel, very useful.

My biggest social media tip would be to keep profiles/accounts active. I also don’t have TOO many profiles all over the place. I’d rather focus a lot of energy on a handful of sites where my target hangs out instead of spreading myself too thin across the Internet and waste my time. I also stay updated on social media news through Mashable. I have found some cool sites through there that have helped my social media efforts.

I’ve been doing the social media/networking for Salesconx for the past 2 months and it has been a great way for us to gain more traffic and users. Since we’re an online marketplace for business referrals, I am always on the lookout for new buyers and sellers to join/get active on our site. With social media, I have been able to easily track down perfect users and get them active through an email or two. It’s a wonderful tool for small businesses to get in on.

Gina
Marketing Manager
http://www.salesconx.com

Thanks for a very informative topic. I use a combination of both Trend Marketing and Social Networks to dominate the search engines.

hi,

I made a blog about seo and web site building and was wondering how to get it ranked in google. I have registered my site with google but it doesn’t want to index it for some reason. What do i need to do?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated

This is awesome information - thank you
Iam just starting social bookmarking and this helps :-)

Steven -

What are your thoughts on the buzz around the reported social networking “google slap”? My feelings are that if you are creating activity that looks artificial, you will be detected, and slow and steady wins the race with bookmarking etc. Curious to know what your thoughts are - I’ve used this model with great success, just don’t want to worry that my sites will disappear from the searches later.

Thanks!

Alecia Barnes - unless you’re getting a huge amount of links (ie spamming) then you’re hardly going to ring any alarm bells. I wouldn’t worry too much!

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