guest post by Ann Smarty

When it comes to basic social networking on a totally personal level, there are three real contenders that are fighting for dominance over the market. At the top of the tier is Facebook, the current victor, if by a short distance. Next is Twitter, which has become wildly popular, especially for celebrities who enjoy quick updates and access to fans. Last, we have Google +. As the new kid on the block, it is still gaining traction as it begins to establish loyal followers who have made the switch from the other two.

But when it comes to generating comments and having general user interaction, which of the three is the most beneficial? Tradition over the last few years has taught us Twitter, right? Actually, it turns out that Google+ might be becoming a valid (and surprising) bit of fierce competition in that regard.

Google+ To Reach Out

I would have honestly never expected Google's social media platform to take off as it has, much less to gain as much momentum as it is. The company has tried their hand at the social networking game many times (remember Wave?), and usually with disastrous results. Yet, Google+ seems to be here to stay, and is not mentioned when thinking of the top profile sites on the web.

As huge as Google is, its social media product was surprisingly launched incomplete in features, full of bugs and controversial policies. It was almost instantly called a fail for a good number of reasons.

The question is, how does it really fare as a way of reaching out to readers and potentially marketing a product, service or person? User interaction is an important part of any social marketing efforts, which is simple with Twitter and Facebook.

Actually, a lot of people have been reporting greater results. Simply because they are getting more comments per smaller number of followers through Google+. For example, they will have 20,000 fewer followers on Twitter than in their Google circle, but will still get 10 or 20 more replies to a post than from a tweet.

This might not seem like a huge deal, given the small flux in posts. But when placed against the number of readers it shows a significant trend that might be an indicator of things to come. Specifically that while there are not as many people on Google+, they might be more willing to interact than on Twitter.

Why Is This?

The reason is impossible to say for sure. But if I had to guess, I would say it is because of the more exclusive nature of Google+. There are fewer companies or official profiles to follow, and so the updates aren't lost in the stream of information. Or perhaps they just have less to distract and so pay enough attention to warrant a response.

Besides, Google Plus makes it easy to filter your stream to get more relevant updates from friends.

Tips!

Whether you believe in Google Plus or still doubt its future, it may be a smart move to embrace it right now for the simple reason: it is easier and more effective to interact with the following.

• Create the Google Plus page for your business right now (it's predicted to be huge!)
• Whenever you plus a page using the Google Plus button, make sure to comment. Unlike Facebook where your "like" always goes to your feed, your Google Plus page will be updated only with the commented vote
• Make sure to filter your stream by "circles" to get updates from friends you have different relation to
• Make sure to tag people you mention: this way they will be notified by email of your update. Use + and start typing the name. Always thank those who tag you in updates:

Conclusion

Both Twitter and Google+ are valuable tools, and anyone who has the slightest bit of experience in today's online marketing world will not be surprised by this fact. What might come as a shock, however, is just how relevant Google's networking platform might actually be.

What are your thoughts on the Twitter VS Google+ debate? Let us know in the comments.

About the author

Ann Smarty is a social media enthusiast and blogger. She is the owner of My Blog Guest, the free community matching guest authors with blog owners. Ann is also moderator of My SEO Community, the new site aiming to bring you the top-notch SEO and social media content daily. If you are into SEO and love networking, join MySEOCommunity.com

Switch here to learn more on SEO Crash-Test and submit your website for SEO experts' review.

User Experience:

• The design of www.welcome2belgium.com looks slightly incomplete without the footer. Footer is a great spot to place links to such pages as privacy policy or your disclaimer. In this way you make primary navigation elements less cluttered by omitting non-landing and non-selling pages. It’s also a great place for the copyright string and brief company information (official business name, location, and phone number). Such information sends users signals of trust and may improve the conversion rate.

• Surely, it’s hard to keep all your social profiles updated and simultaneously develop the communities in G+, Facebook, or LinkedIn. If, for example, your G+ profile is too lean or has no information at all – remove the badge from the website until you get back to it. As a rule of thumb, do not point users to any information sources that are not going to contribute to the conversion.

SEO Factors:

• The URL http://www.welcome2belgium.com/?english should be probably redirected to http://www.welcome2belgium.com/ to avoid unnecessary duplication.

• Turn URLs like this /?apartments=389&buy into something more user friendly. E.g., /apartments/brussels-louise-stephanie-I.

• Use meaningful alt tags. You are currently using “Welcome2Belgium” by default, which hardly may describe any image (except for the logo) at your website.

• Use a different title and meta description for each property listing. E.g., %Property Type% for Sale in %Location Name% - %Property Name%. You may use similar approach for the descriptions.

.

Cheers,
SEO Crash-Test Team

P.S. This is where you can submit your site for SEO Crash-Test review.

guest post by IslaMarie Turnbull

Mocial is a term which has only recently come into more common use in the digital marketing and SEO industries.

This new term plays on the sudden growth in popularity of mobile devices and highlights the requirement of mobile specific marketing practices.

There are a number of reasons why this new term has emerged, however put simply it purely reflects the shifts in market trends and highlight the requirement of flexibility in the marketing and digital industry.

Why Do We Need The Term 'Mocial'?

In an ideal world for marketers one approach would be flexible enough to fit all requirements of consumers. However this is never going to be the case as our societal attitudes continually shift.

Social marketing has long been a buzz word over the past few years and many companies have latched onto this new trend in the hopes that it will revive their business and their marketing strategies. However as I have mentioned in my previous post, not every form of social media channel will suit every businesses as with mobile marketing.

Therefore you must choose  your approach carefully not only to make the most of the benefits which the channels can offer you but also what will best appeal to the consumer base which you are targeting.

Naturally if you can find this delicate balance you are far more likely not only to succeed in improving your sales but also in you data collection and customer relationship management of which both of these tools can then be utilised to inform later campaigns.

When To Know If A Mocial Approach Will Work For You

Put simply, there is never a right or wrong answer when it comes to marketing and advertising as how your work is perceived is always going to be down to the consumer base which you are targeting.

However as advertising is often a more general approach selecting a message which will appeal to your consumers while not offending others is very tricky.

For example, we have all seen the blow ups regarding BudLights Superbowl TV adverts which despite appealing to the target audience also received so many complaints that it was banned.

As a result until now social media has been the channel to use where you can truly tailor a message without the same risks of offending people.

However as we have recently seen Lynx and their 'Lucy Pinder.....Makes Me' viral adverts still fell short and into the paths of people who were offended.

With this in mind, mocial marketing could start a while new trend as to how we communicate with our consumers just as Social Media did a few years ago.

Current Applications Of Mocial Marketing

There are a few advantages to mobile and social marketing for a wide range of companies with many companies combining mocial methodology with NFC (near field communication) technology to help them target not only their desired market specifically but to also encourage them to engage with the consumer.

This process can involved a range of offers from discounts sent directly to the target consumers phone by SMS when they enter or pass close to the brands store to the ability to access specialist parts of the website via a mobile device through for example an App to gain access to a range of incentives from  price draws to exclusive  discounts.

As its popularity grows and mobile technology is more readily accepted as part of our society the demand for this type of communication will also grow not only in popularity but also in its success to engage with businesses.

About the author

IslaMarie Turnbull  is a marketing and SEO consultant for SEO Company Red Evolution, working in London to Aberdeen she specialises in Social Media, Mocial Marketing and Integrated Specialisms.

News of an alleged Google algo change began spreading as a result of a post on Noble Samurai blog, where the software provider officially announced that their product had stopped working with Google. More specifically, the company reported that "several days ago, Google made some significant technical changes to its services" which made it impossible to work with.

Having read the Market Samurai announcement, hundreds of current and former Market Samurai customers, as well as our own users, started asking:

- Is SEO PowerSuite working?

The answer is YES, your software is working and will continue to work with all the supported search engines (Google including).

- Is it safe to buy SEO PowerSuite license now?

The answer is YES, SEO PowerSuite is a safe SEO software to invest into since it works as seamlessly as before.

- And what is that Google algo change talk about?

Having read the Market Samurai announcement, quite a few users assumed (erroneously) that Google had changed its algo in a way that would make SEO software products broken. In light of that assumption, let us affirm:

- there was no Google algo change detected by our analysts as of now, and

- SEO PowerSuite continues to work normally as before.

For the past 7 years, our software has been working reliably, and we work hard to assure reliability of all SEO PowerSuite tools in future.

So if you ever wanted to invest into great and reliable SEO product, order SEO PowerSuite.

UPDATE: from Market Samurai blog

As many of you know, Noble Samurai team has recently changed the way their product checks Google data. For the next few weeks, Market Samurai will run data checks from clients' local machines (instead of company servers). According to most recent MS blog post, the new approach works for smaller keyword volumes and the team is currently seeking a solution to deal with larger keyword volumes as well.

"Checking rankings via a locally installed application works for users monitoring a small number of keywords, but for larger volumes will generally result in your service from Google being temporarily degraded. Obviously this isn’t ideal and so we’re working on a replacement rank tracking service and we expect this will take 2-3 weeks to implement."

To properly conduct rank checks from client machines (without getting degraded by Google) would require lots of additional safety features to be built into the software - a process which takes a while (up to 6 months, in our estimates). But, since the client-side rank checking model seems to be a temporary fix for Market Samurai, with third-party rank tracking service being a permanent fix, then 2-3 weeks is indeed an accurate estimate.

We do not doubt that Market Samurai team will stick to their schedule, and in 2-3 weeks Market Samurai will resume its normal work.

UPDATE: from Eugene Ware, Market Samurai CEO

To Victor, the team at SEO Power Suite & your users

We want to apologise for any concern generated about the viability of your products and for the additional support load you've encountered.

With 400K Market Samurai users, there's sure to be a number of users with both packages and we didn't want to imply that all tools (such as SEO Power Suite) had been affected.

At the time we observed the Google changes across our network (essentially a change in tolerance for automated queries), we received word from a number of our users that other tools had been affected. Given the time constraints our focus has been on resolving the issue and communicating with our users and simply took the feedback of our users on face value. So again, I apologise to you and your users for any implication you had problems. We've edited the blog post and removed the reference to problems in other tools.

The good news is all modules are up and running again with the exception of our back link analysis (shipping later today). We've moved Rank Tracking to use the local machine for Google queries which is sufficient for our users with a low volume of keywords, but inappropriate for our larger users. We're actively working with wholesale suppliers on a larger and more permanent solution which will take 2-3 weeks to implement.

The encouraging thing is we've had a number of our competitors contact us offering various services to assist which was both nice and unexpected. With a hundred thousand or so users impacted if there's some way you can work with us please get in touch.

I've purchased and used the Power Suite in the past and it's an excellent product. The SEO landscape is a rapidly changing one and it's great you & your company haven't been affected. For any of our users needing a rank tracking service immediately they should certainly check out your tool.

Regards

Eugene Ware,
CEO, Noble Samurai

P.S. And here is the official statement from Viktar Khamianok, the CEO of Link-Assistant.Com:

Every technology is analyzed, criticized and tested before development. We look at hundreds of use cases before making core decisions on software functionality. We understand that we must not, at any moment, put the user at risk. None of our clients can afford being left without working software or without any working feature of the software.

Confirmed by Link-Assistant.Com CEO: SEO PowerSuite continues to work as seamlessly as before. Try it now and see for yourself.

I may get fired for writing this post but the heck with it. It’s time to vent. About SEO, online marketing, priorities, goals and, quite simply, a sense of purpose in business, and life. As you read, ponder these two short and simple words: long run.

Today marks exactly one year and 18 days since I got into web marketing. Too much for some, too little for others. Just enough time for me to sit back and reflect. Hence this post, full of outpourings on the state of SEO and internet marketing - the way I see them through my long run lens, more on which in a moment. But first...

A story

I had a terrific economics professor, Eric Hinderliter. Brilliant, funny, strict. Many dreaded his class; many failed. Which is why I decided to sign up

To illustrate slumping economies, he would quite literally slump to the floor, books, pens and all, fallen professor symbolizing a declining economy. He joked, he acted, he sang. He once asked us to write a letter to our grandmas explaining Ukrainian economic crisis in simple words.

I walked out of his lectures exhausted, enlightened, with a slightly screwed up GPA, and a lesson that I will remember for life.

Whatever you do, think long run.

In other words, see the big picture, set priorities, follow your goals. Separate the "important" from the "noise".

Let’s see what I mean and how this all ties in with SEO and online marketing.

Long Run vs. Short Run. Can you tell the difference?

• You chain smoke. And drink. Beer. Daily. ("Come on, it's just beer!") Life's good, for now, and that's all that matters. Well, that looks like short run.

• You run marathons. For fun, for fitness, for the challenge, for the throbbing feeling of being alive and for the day when, aged 100, you do yet another marathon, just like in the good old days. In literal and figurative respects, that’s a long run.

• You go to college just because. Plus your mom tells you to, driving your parents into debt for the next 25 years. You flunk tests. You don’t give two shizzes about learning. That’s short run.

• You are passionate about web design. You feel a severe lack of skills and want to go to school to learn, with a vision of one day becoming a great designer. School may or may not help, but nevertheless…. That’s long run thinking.

• You are an average guy, doing average work, earning average money doing things that you mostly hate. That’s short run. (And I sure hope you quit that job. Soon.)

• You are a young photographer, blazing your trail, earning little but head over heels in love with what you do. You refuse to compromise your passion for the sake of short-term rewards. That’s long run.

• You are an SEO software user. You don't know much about SEO and you care not to know. Why learn when you’ve got the best SEO tools in the world ? You have no SEO strategy, no online marketing strategy, and you get upset at the software: it has failed to bring you to page one. That’s short run thinking.

• You own SEO tools, too. They are your helpers but not the decision makers (YOU are). You read up on SEO and realize that neither SEO tools, nor SEO itself, is an end-all. They are part of the big picture – inbound marketing, which is part of the even bigger picture – great product, or service, which you offer. An even bigger picture? These are the products and services that you’ve invested your heart and mind into. That’s long run.

• You are an self-proclaimed SEO "guru" running a cheap (oops, sorry, "affordable") SEO agency. You promise clients first page rankings in the next 24 hours. You build links to dubious sites, using dubious schemes. Your days are numbered. For a very simple reason – you are all about short run.

• So, let me ask - which guy are you?

Do you think "long run" in your business and life?

Think, reflect, share.

Innovation is necessary to stay ahead of your competitors in AdWords, so today I'd like to introduce you to three things you can do as a part of your AdWords management that will make your life easier as well as open the door to more leads and sales.

1. Gmail Targeting

This tactic allows you to hit customers on a page that they likely spend lots of time on, their inbox. Gmail-targeted campaigns are great in that they allow you to use keywords that your potential customers will see regularly in their emails.

For example, if you're a cable provider you can use your competitors names as keywords, that way when people receive newsletters or bills from their cable company, they'll see an ad served up by you that reads, "Tired of paying too much for 'X brand' cable? Try us and save!" or something along those lines.

You may also want to think about the service you provide, and the kinds of emails that your kind of clients would be getting. If you provide tax services, you'll want to look into using keywords such as IRS, W-2, 10-40 and other tax terms.

The best way to use Gmail targeting is with exact keyword match types, so you'll want to know the exact headlines of the emails your customers will be getting.

Here's what I do as an advertiser in the AdWords management business. I use automated AdWords headlines that I know people are receiving, because I receive them as well. I want people who need help with AdWords to click on my ads, and I know that people who need help with AdWords get emails reading "Your AdWords Ads Aren't Running; Action Required" so I used that as a keyword.

There are tons of possibilities to unlock with Gmail targeting; your only limit is your imagination. Of course, strategies are going to vary depending on the service you offer, but I do think that almost any business can find a way to make use of this tactic.

To set this up, begin a new campaign and select that you only want your ads to appear on the Display network and "Show ads only on pages that match all selected targeting methods."

Then choose these two sources as your placements

- Mail.google.com

- Mail.google.com::Inbox,Top center

These will target both the top of the inbox and the sidebar.

2. Conversion Tracking

I've always been taught that setting up your AdWords campaigns with conversion tracking was a necessity, but I've noticed that there are quite a few advertisers who are content with simply seeing the number of clicks they're getting.

To truly determine what you're getting out of any PPC campaign, you need to know how much money it's costing you to land a sale – your cost per acquisition (CPA).

You're probably willing to spend $20 to make $50 but if you don't have conversion tracking set up, you really can't say which campaigns are driving sales and which ones aren't.

While costs per conversion will fluctuate based on a number of factors, when you've relatively figured out what your cost per acquisition is, you can turn your PPC campaign into a money making machine because you know approximately how much money you'll make per dollar you spend.

3. Ad Extensions

That AdWords character limit makes it difficult to get across the message you're trying to convey sometimes, but with Ad Extensions you can do so much more with your ads. And they don't cost you anything extra to set up which is always helpful.

Location extensions

I'll talk about location extensions first. These are cool because they can appear on the search and display network and they're also triggered on mobile devices.

The location extension gives your ad two extra lines, one for your address and another for your telephone number. Sometimes a Google map will pop out showing the location on a map when you scroll over the ad.

I like location extensions because when a potential customer can see how close you are to them, or if they can even see where you are at all, it makes them more likely to give you a visit than a competitor that they'd need to look up.

These ads can also produce conversions without even paying for a click because the searcher might just call your number or decide to visit your shop in person instead.

Sitelink extensions

My other favorite ad extension is the sitelink extension. You've surely seen sitelinks in the organic search results before, they're an easy way for the owner of the website to distribute traffic to where they want to go without having to visit the homepage first.

For example, this search for "Disneyland" gives me the option of going to pages about ticketing, schedules and vacation packages instead of going straight to the Disneyland homepage.

The AdWords extension for sitelinks does the same thing, except they appear in the paid search results. They're helpful in that they allow you to send your traffic right to the page they want to go to, which will improve your conversion rate.

Think about this, if you run a shoe store and someone searches for "running shoes" your ad could have sitelinks for kids running shoes, men's running shoes and women's running shoes. It may not seem like a huge difference maker, but when a customer is sent right to the page they're looking for, their odds of purchasing greatly improve.

AdWords is all about experimentation and innovation, keep up with the new features Google is rolling out to advertisers to stay ahead of your competition and turn you PPC campaign into a money-making machine.

About the author

Trace Ronning is the social media coordinator for WordWatch. They offer AdWords Management for small businesses. Follow him on twitter @WordWatchPPC

Anyhow, SPYW is here. And, moving beyond the initial reaction like 'Gosh, I hate it' or 'Wow, I love it', I would like to try and analyze what this new feature holds for different parties in the game.

Google

The blessing

There are over 2 billion people using the Internet on the globe. Out of these 2 billion, 90 million users have G+ accounts as of January 2012. This means that about every 20th Internet user will be exposed to the new feature IN FULL. Besides, signed-out users will be exposed to it to some extent, too (think of People and Pages).

What does this mean for Google? Well, exposure! The more often people see this G+ stuff, the more actively they will want to use the network. The more often they use the network, the more new people will get attracted to it. Not to mention that businesses will simply NOT be able to ignore G+ any longer.

The curse

At the same time, Google now has to deal with accusations regarding using its status as the market leader to push the fledgling network. This could or could not be the biggest problem with SPYW for Google, depending on how it turns out. Just like Microsoft's historic adding of Internet Explorer to Windows that resulted in 'the United States vs Microsoft' case, Google's move may lead to a serious FTC issue. So far, FTC (Federal Trade Commission) has simply added SPYW to the big pile of other antitrust complains they have on Google.

Bing

The blessing

Ever since Search plus Your World appeared, quite a lot of people on the Web have been talking about switching to Bing, cause, they believe, Google has been getting crappier and greedier over the past couple of years. However, most of those people are actually SEO's and Web marketers, and they are complaining because now they have extra headache to deal with (IMHO).

The curse

SPYW is something totally unique, and it may be that, in the future, quite a big portion of people will warm up to it. It's only a possibility, but, who knows? If this happens, Bing will be forced to add a similar or a better functionality, too.

Twitter

The blessing

It's hard to imagine how Twitter can possibly benefit from the update besides making several pieces of scandalous news. Also, there are rumors that Google may simply buy Twitter in the near future. But, whether that'd be a blessing for Twitter, I'm not that positive.

The curse

With more and more G+ pages appearing on Search plus Your World now, the number of Tweets appearing for the same search terms will most likely be reduced. This is because Google said they do not have the permission to crawl Twitter as deeply as they can crawl their own social media property, hence, there is nothing left for Google to do other than display G+ pages in the SERPs. Yeah, right...

Facebook

The blessing

G+ may actually help Facebook get Twitter out of the picture. However, if Google partners with Twitter (which is not likely to happen, I think), Facebook will have to work much harder to sustain its position of the leader.

The curse

If Google's SPYW trick actually works and things turn out well for G+, this will mark a dark day for Facebook. It will have to work really hard and come up with something new to remain the world's most used social network.

Social media specialists

The blessing

I think it's heyday for social media folks now. They have yet another fruitful niche to tap into - the new, powerful-as-ever G+. Also, suddenly, everybody needs social media - website owners, SEO's, webmasters. So, it's time for social media managers to educate and procreate!

The curse

Yeah, yeah, yeah, social media folks now have to deal with G+ whether they want it or not. So, learning something new is inevitable (for those who haven't mastered it yet).

SEO's

The blessing

Oh, what about us, SEO's? Now, we have a real reason to be cursing Google and sending Matt Cutts angry messages, threatening to dump Google and switch to Bing… Well, besides that, we now have THE BUTTON, mind you. So, there is something good in it for SEO's as well. You can now switch Web history off in a hit, and that's already something! Perhaps Google will introduce an 'override geolocation' lever next? Would be nice!

The curse

It has become harder to rank websites near Google's top with all those G+ listings taking up quite a lot of space. Besides, the personalization plague appears even scarier now, especially when it comes to explaining to clients why they see different results.

Users

The blessing

Good old user! Users probably do not even suspect what battle is taking place right behind their backs. Or do they? Anyhow, besides the initial surprise, I don't think the feature will make that much of a difference to the end user.

Well, it will definitely be easier to find different stuff related to one's self on the Web, for those who need it. However, I don't think users would like their search results to be largely replaced by all-personal results, the way it happens in Google's promo video:

The curse

The new feature may cause trouble to some users, I think. Say, you forget to log out, someone uses your machine, performs a search and sees your private stuff. Not good.

How is it different from forgetting to log out of, say, your Facebook account? See, there is a big difference between intentionally sneaking a peek into somebody's Facebook profile and performing a search and - oops - seeing someone's G+ pages in the search results. The latter does not presuppose deliberate intent and is much more likely to happen.

Conclusion

As you see, there is both good and bad in the Search plus Your World feature introduced by Google. For some parties it's more beneficial than not, for others – vice versa. As for us, SEO's, we now have some work to do.

Social Media has long been a 'buzz' word in the world of digital marketing and generally features on every business's objective list. However despite awareness of the power which social media can offer to businesses, many businesses are completely clueless when it comes to measure the effectiveness of their social media efforts.

What many companies forget is that having a Facebook page doesn't mean social engagement with your consumers. This could not be further from the truth and in some situations holding a Facebook page may not be as beneficial as running a successful blog or Twitter account. With this in mind the key thing to remember is that not all social media accounts are going to suit your businesses and the way in which you engage with consumers/clients and so it is essential to select your social media ventures carefully as not one fits all.

Choosing The Best Social Channel For Your Business

There are a few key things to remember when choosing which social media channels will work for you and your business:

- What type of business are you, who is your intended audience?
- What do you want out of the communication, brand awareness? Data collection?
- How much time do you have/are willing to dedicate?

How you answer the above points should significantly impact on what sort of social channels you look to follow.

Facebook is Great for B2C Marketing

The problem with social media is that everything is very much a matter of personal opinion, however from my experience I have found channels such as Facebook primarily successful when it comes to B2C companies, i.e. communicating with the wider public. This sort of communication in turn is fantastic for brand awareness and data collection as Facebook is 2 way communication.

It is essential when using a 2 way platform like Facebook to LISTEN as well as talk as sometimes the best marketing insights and data can be gained from simple driven conversations over these sorts of platforms.

Blogging is Perfect for a B2B Company

Alternatively if you are a B2B company who is looking to establish yourself as a market leader and improve your brand perception you may find a blog to be more successful in helping to demonstrate your knowledge. You can still use a blog to engage with potential clients however the focus is commonly a more educational form of communication therefore demonstrating knowledge and approachability to build consumer trust and therefore encourage further communication.

How To Make The Most Of Your Social Media

The ability to measure the success of a social media marketing campaign is very rare and what must be remembered about this type of communication is that it is not about ROI (return on investment).

Trying to define how successful a social campaign is in terms of how much money it makes as opposed to how much it costs will never work. This is simply because this sort of channel doesn't lend itself well to a hard sell approach.

However there are some ways in which to track the success of your social communication, the most common of which is the ability to measure click through's from the content you post, this will not always relate to how much money you are going to make but it can give a indication of how well you are engaging with your customers as this is key to your social success.

Sometimes knowing how to make the most of your social media communications can go beyond the reach of an in-house marketing team. This is where additional online specialisms such as SEO can play an significant and positive role within a company. An SEO will typically be able to help you not only optimise your site to improve your ranking in the search engines but they can also help to provide guidance on the selection of the best social media channels for your company.

These sort of non marketing specific specialisms can also provide fantastic insights when it comes to collection data from your social communications as well as standard search information. This sort of data gathering is essential to any businesses success online and can not only help to drive innovation and improvements in company services and products but can also be used when engaging with consumers to ensure optimum output. Whether you choose to outsource this type of market analysis or keep it in-house it is essential for any company to collect this data to make the most out of whichever social channels they have chosen to use.

About the author

IslaMarie is a marketing and SEO consultant for SEO Company Red Evolution, working in London to Aberdeen she specialises in Social Media, Mocial Marketing and Integrated Specialisms

The reason why Google invented one more AdWords tool is obvious - so many guys have tried the ad placement option for their pay-per-click campaigns and failed. I remember how disappointed I was to get CTR lower than 0.1% in just a couple of days after launching an ad group.

Besides, this CTR is considered by Google when calculating the overall account CTR, which made me even sadder, as it took me so much time and effort to raise it to 1%.

I guess my experience was typical. In a conversation with an AdWords strategist responsible for reviewing my account and making suggestions, I learnt two things:

1. Google knows its network placement leaves much to be desired
2. Google doesn’t want to lose this slice of the ad pie

Is it much of a surprise for me Google unveils the Contextual Targeting tool? Not really, as it might be just vital for the whole placement network to survive. Now let’s see what this tool can do and how you can use it.

Getting themed keyword lists

Let's face it, there's no exact recipe for your PPC success. The only recommendation we get is that our ad groups must be as targeted as possible, and now Google tries to show what it means.

To get to the tool, login into your AdWords account, click on the tab "Tools and Analysis" and choose "Contextual Targeting Tool."

After that, you need to type in your target keywords in the required field, choose the country and language options.

For instance, if you sell flowers in the UK, you will get something like this (see the image above). The tool analyzes your keywords and builds themed groups. You can expand each group to see even more detailed ones. If you are satisfied with the suggestions, you can easily add groups to your existing campaigns or export them to AdWords Editor.

Additionally, for each group you get a list of websites where you can place a relevant ad. You can review each website separately and then choose the ones that suit you best. The "suggested bid" value gives you an idea of how much you will spend for each ad group.

Thinking about the keywords Google suggests, I had an idea that those keywords have good CTR (and probably even conversion!) rate. Why would it show poor-performing phrases, when it can suggest the words that get actual clicks and earn more money? So, in this case you have to be careful. If the keywords are so popular, they might bring a lot of clicks (which will increase your ad spending), but not necessarily customers. Therefore, I'd recommend switching one more powerful tool, your brain, and thoroughly filtering Google suggestions .

SEOs, you are welcome as well!

I can't find a reason why SEOs should neglect this tool. Don't you need keywords? Are all your pages 100% optimized for search engines? Hesitate? Then you are welcome to use the tool, too. Moreover, I have at least three reasons you should definitely give the tool a try:

1.    If keywords (and groups of keywords) chosen by Google are good-performing in pay-per-click campaigns, they might be good for your organic campaigns.

2.    The way Google splits the keywords into groups can help you better understand its logic and tune up your on-page optimization.

3.    If you are challenged to do SEO with foreign languages you are not really good at, here's your chance to get a quick list of keywords and groups targeted for the certain region and language.

Keyword groups for "sushi restaurant" in Japanese:

Although the Contextual Targeting Tool is still marked as "Beta" in Google AdWords, I think it does have a future. Probably it will be integrated into the common Keyword tool - then we'll see a really powerful free search and (!) targeting instrument that will help SEOs build themed keyword lists in a couple of minutes. Who knows? But until that happens, I'll stick with Rank Tracker and  WebSite Auditor for my SEO strategies!

Writing compelling headlines is a skill. Writing compelling headlines that also help rank your blog or website through the use of targeted keywords is an art.

Learning how to do both will help you increase your search engine ranking and your site's visibility, helping to drive traffic to your site.

Here are a few tips for how to create effective headlines that are both SEO optimized and compelling:

Include Keywords

One of the most important aspects of search engine optimization is your choice of keywords and how well you use them. Once you have researched your keywords for the post you plan to write, remember that you must use them both in the body of the post, as well as in the headline.

Try to minimize the keyword phrase you use to only two or three words. The more words you try to cram into the headline, the more awkward and stilted it will sound.

Also, try to place your keywords near the beginning of your headline. The closer they are to the front, the higher they will rank.

Be Compelling

No matter how strong your keyword research is, or how well placed those words are, if you write a boring headline, no one will want to click on your post or read it. It is important to write a catchy headline that invites users to read your post.

There are several types of headlines that can accomplish this:

• A question: "What mistakes are you making with your blog that is costing you traffic?"
• A call to action: "Take control of your future by starting your own profitable blog now."
• A promise or guarantee: "Learn how to increase traffic to your blog with these 3 easy steps."
• A challenge. "Can you make a living working only four hours a week? Here's how."

When you think of your headline, think of those you see in newspapers or that you hear on the nightly news. These types of headlines are often used to lure in readers and watchers. Combine a catchy headline with the right keywords, and you will have an effective headline.

Keep it Short

Headlines should be indicative of the content that the post will include, but they should not read like manuals.

A headline like "How to make your blog profitable now" is much more effective than "How to write better headlines, perform keyword research, and maximize your SEO strategy to drive more traffic to your blog and make money now."

Be brief, but include information about what your post will offer. Give readers a glimpse of your content, offering them enough to want to read more but not so much that they find just reading the headline to be exhausting.

Use a Plugin

Finally, one of the easiest ways to have your cake and eat it, too - or to have your catchy headline and your string of SEO keywords, too - is to use a plugin that allows you to show a different headline to your readers than what you show to the search engines.

For example, your post might read "Get your bikini body back by summer," but the url string in your browser might read something like "www.yourblog.com/7+tips+to+burn+fat+fast+for+quick+weight+loss+this+summer."

The longer url string allows you to target more keywords with the search engines, but your headline post doesn't have to read like a directional guide. WordPress SEO is one of many plugins that offer this capability.

Your blog's headlines are critical to drawing in traffic to your site and to increasing your search engine rank. Not only should they entice your readers, but they should also target appropriate keywords to make your site more attractive to search engines and, therefore, more visible to new readers. Following these guidelines will help you to do just that.

About the author

Amanda Tradwick is a grant researcher and writer for CollegeGrants.org. She has a Bachelor's degrees from the University of Delaware, and has recently finished research on grants for minority students and student grants in West Virginia.