Search engines
According to Nielsen, Google® currently holds about 49% of the market share, Yahoo® holds about 24%, MSN® about 10%, and AOL® about 6%. (Source: Search Engine Watch.)
Many companies rely solely on Google since they hold such a majority share of the search-engine market, but not all search spiders are programmed in the same way. In fact, search spiders are an unpredictable lot and good SEO/SMO consultants change and adapt as they discover new ways of attaining exposure.
Why private information should be kept private
According to Career Builders, "Twenty-two percent of employers say they use social-networking sites when evaluating job candidates, and an additional nine percent intend to do the same soon. Yet, only sixteen percent of workers with social-networking profiles have modified their pages with potential employers in mind."
It is indisputable that recruiters, employers, and business associates are using the web to research and verify the claims of people before engaging them in opportunities or partnerships.
In his EmploymentBlawg , George Lenard states, "I would advise applicants/employees to assume that future employers will read everything you post. So when you put something about yourself out there, you can be yourself, but avoid obvious negatives like saying you hate to work or posting sleazy or drunken photos. It may help to ask yourself whether you would want your mother to see your site."
While it's true that social-media interaction can be risky, it can also be quite beneficial. Here is a brief introduction into options that are available.
LinkedIn® provides opportunities to connect with like-minded professionals, obtain and post professional recommendations, and to join groups. Other sites, such as Plaxo®, border on the social gossiping generally associated with Facebook® and MySpace®.
MySpace started out as a preteen, tween, and young-adult site, but it wasn't long before adults were drawn by the easy-to-use interface than enabled them to monitor and communicate with their kids. With Facebook, the social network took on a slightly more adult façade and MySpace members began the migration — bringing with them the kids.
As MySpace began its rise, the initial inklings of Facebook started at Harvard, Yahoo! 360, YouTube®, Bebo® and Ning® all came into the picture. While these niche and smaller efforts at social networking did little but muddy the waters, the over-commercialization of MySpace was priming the online world for its first major migratory shift. Then 2006 came and Facebook lifted its .edu requisites. Suddenly there was a warmer south and the flocks began to move. (Source: Social Media Explorer.)
Even if you show restraint in your posts, the posts of others in your network are there to influence someone visiting your pages. It's not enough to show careful consideration for your own text, you must also consider the text of those in your network.
Web logs (blogs) are like web sites. In fact, they are web sites. They also share traits with a commentator's article in a newspaper or magazine. Unlike online magazines, blogs are written by a person or a staff with a singular focus. This differs from the traditional news reporter who must cover any story assigned by the editor. Blogs provide additional value as we attempt to establish you as an authority figure.
In the not-so-distant past bloggers were seen as second-class journalists, or they were dismissed entirely. Today, after having witnessed a president being elected largely due to social media, times have changed. Even the most-vocal opponents must recognize the elevated status of this new and very effective dissemination of information, of opinions, and of the value that a blog provides in establishing one's authority.
In addition to posting content, blogs also allow your readers to leave comments and interact with you on a topic. You may answer questions that are posted, or just allow the readers' comments to be attached to the article to provide additional information, a contrary point of view, or even a complaint. These comments are invaluable, as they help you to understand the readers and tailor your messaging to meet their needs.
For many people, their daily dose of news comes from a news syndication service. This is a way for them to customize the news that is delivered to them. They can predefine topics of interest and as content about that interest is posted, they are notified. This process is built upon Really Simply Syndication, or RSS for short.
Blogs and RSS are not synonymous, however, since blogs are generally frequently updated, RSS is a way to proactively push the updated information to the interested reader. We establish RSS as a tool for quickly and efficiently promoting your online contributions and maximizing the benefit that your blog provides.
A blog, as was just defined, is a web site to which you contribute the content and to which others may comment on your postings. A blog is completely within the control of the creator or by whomever has admin access. A micro blog is akin to a social network in that it is a posting service to which one becomes a member. Once a member, one posts short updates rather than entire stories - usually only one or two sentences. Twitter is, arguably, the most popular micro blog, but Facebook(r), Plaxo(r), and LinkedIn(r) all offer micro blog postings to augment their social-network structure. While many posters are irresponsible, some bordering on malicious, the value of micro blogs when used properly cannot be overlooked. Our message is simply that private information is not to be posted to a public forum, but that micro blogs are one of the many keys to our strategy of providing you with optimized professional visibility.
Our society seems to be starving for advice, leadership, mentoring, and guidance. That is supported by the sheer size of the self-help section of your local bookstore. To this end, social bookmarking provides web readers with yet another path for guidance. Using a social bookmark site such as Delicious one can collect, organize, search, and manage the bookmarks of their favorite pages and share them with other users. It's like creating a recommended reading list that you share with people who have access to your page. You can even create a private group for selected persons thereby limiting access of your bookmarks. Functioning as yet another brick in building your search-engine optimization, these bookmarks are searchable.
Digg is a web site of content submitted by members. Once submitted, other members review it and digg it. When a product or subject receives enough diggs, it is promoted to the front page of the Digg web site. This is very much like a search engine, except that the promotion is not controlled by a set of obscure, ever-changing programming rules defined for the search engine's spider, but rather by popular vote.We do not expect that our efforts will promote you to page one, but part of the appeal of this site is that followers depend upon this site for exposure to unusual, new, odd, and interesting topics. Depending upon your focus, this site may provide an opportunity to foster interest in you.
In the pursuit of promoting you, it often becomes necessary to promote your company. This is especially true of entrepreneurs who may be looking for funding, recognition of an invention, or potential partners. Opinion sites such as Yelp! provide a different kind of network where visitors leave comments, recommendations, and criticisms about businesses. These comments, left by a company's customers as an endorsement or warning, provide yet another venue for our efforts.
Wikipedia® is a web-based encyclopedia being created by the general public. Anyone with information on a topic may contribute to an existing page or create a new page. Anyone who reads the content once posted may edit, add to, or delete the post. With millions of contributors, Wikipedia is growing daily and many search engines rank Wikipedia pages higher than other web pages that actually have more content, are more authoritative, and of higher value. With this in mind, we will on occasion develop Wikipedia pages to promote our efforts.Wikipedia is the first and largest effort at a user-created encyclopedic resource, but there are a number of off-site Wikis as well. The value of an off-site Wiki is not nearly as recognized as that of the organic Wiki, but with consideration for Wikipedia's very strict rules about what is permitted and not permitted for posting, an off-site Wiki may become a viable option.
The very nature of a Wiki, whether organic or off-site, is that every visitor has the ability to modify or delete posted content. Given this, one risks detrimental or contrary comments added to our carefully crafted message. As specialists, we are accustomed to conducting a purposeful balance of posting our content and managing edits and deletions to keep our message intact.
Press releases and new releases
Blogging, however, has changed the electronic-news landscape dramatically. In addition to press announcements for the press, there is now a demand of that which is noteworthy — no longer is it required that a company wait for a major development to alert the media. Bloggers provide very unique opportunities for promoting every level of news and even that which would not be considered news by traditional standards.
