Search Engine Optimization, that is. If you own or update a blog or website, then you need to know the basics of optimizing a page for search engines to find. 

Most people think that the index (or home) page of your website is the most important. Well, I won’t argue with that completely – but when it comes to using your website as a marketing piece, it needs to be more than a business card. By optimizing each article or page on your website individually, you will help Google list your website in organic search results when people are looking for YOU. 

Here are a few tips to help Google find your website: 

1. Your website or blog is built with clean code. Pretend YOU are a search engine spider. What do you look for on a website? Do you want the content to be easy to find and easy to read? So do search spiders! Search engines want your website code to be clean enough that they can find the content within the jargon. 

2. Do your search engine research. Without giving away all the goods, I would say start with Google Suggest and Google Insight, and see what some popular trends and topics are. Then go into your search engine key word tool and find the exact phrases that will key Google to display your website. 

3. Use your keywords in the correct formula to get Google to notice you. Its easy. Use the key phrase in the title of your page, in the first paragraph, and the last paragraph. There are lots of other rules that will help you out, but that will get you started.

Friday 2.0 is hosting the first ‘Blog-Off’ Competition for blog owners in Central Virginia and Roanoke. 

77% of active internet users read blogs. 900,000 is the average number of blog posts in a 24 hour period, according to Business Week.

LYNCHBURG, Virginia. – May 5, 2009 – A ‘Blog-Off” competition will be held on May 22nd at The Muse Coffee in Wyndhurst at 9:00 in the morning. Local business networking group, Friday 2.0, has put together a panel of four judges to evaluate the main criteria that makes an effective blog. Submission deadline is May 15th.

Lynchburg Blog-Off

The purpose of the event is to evaluate the effectiveness of local bloggers, while educating local business owners that those who fail to embrace social media technologies for business will be left behind. Through the month of May each judge will get a chance to share their criteria for blog sexiness, usability, search engine optimization and community engagement.

In a Coleman-Parkes Research study, companies currently using Social Media reported the following:

• Improved Feedback 78%
• Improved Customer Satisfaction 66%
• Improved Customer support 71%
• Increased Sales 40%
• Improved public perception of company 75%

The panel of judges include ShoutOut LLC’s director of marketing, Andrew Potter, Marketing-Helper.com’s Jennifer Bailey, BrowseLynchburg.com’s Phil Tucker, and Nannette Saunders from RE/Max. 

“More and more companies are using social media and blogging to position themselves as industry leaders in their fields,” said Marketing-Helper.com owner Jennifer Bailey. “A lot of companies are afraid of this thing called social media, but the truth is that if we can learn how to adapt in an effective way then we can not only cut our marketing costs but increase sales leads.”

Those interested in learning more about the competition can visit The Blog-Off Fact Sheet >

About Friday 2.0
Friday 2.0 is a local Virginia networking group who meets on Friday mornings at 9:00 a.m. at The Muse coffee shop in Wyndhurst. Friday 2.0’s goal is to get educated about social media tools and opportunities. The most passionate and curious professionals attend this un-meeting as a way to connect with like-minded individuals and discuss the topics and trends relevant to technology, social media and the future of social media. Everyone from the freshly-minted twitter-er, to the tech-advanced executive managing 500 people are encouraged to attend and participate. All voices are equal and welcome at Friday 2.0! Join our Facebook Friday 2.0 Group.

Other Resources:
Coleman-Parkes Research Findings
Definitions of Social Media

There is a lot of talk about our social responsibility to social media tools like Facebook and Twitter. 

…what do you mean, “Social responsibility?” Don’t I only have a responsibility to MY organization, MY cause, and MY paycheck? 

And even I never really got past the fiscal goals of social media (costs less, increases sales), until I talked to @joegerstandt and @appomattox_news over the weekend at the Social Media Seminar. 

“The way we approach leadership is shifting and that part of the future and part of the crossroads we are at now is that we are shifting away from relying on the “experts” at the top of the organizational charts and relying more on groups of people coming together regardless of title to share ideas, information, perspectives and to drive positive change.” (via @joegerstand on the Social Media River)

Imagine if you could double your donor base in a year? Imagine how many people you could reach with your cause message if you had 1,000 twitter followers… who all had 1,000 followers. Imagine if you could rally all of those people and their friends around your cause and your message to drive that positive change you have been working so hard for? 

GuideStar gives us some more practical reasons, here.

Pete Hollier of The Wizards Blog, posted some statistics and surveys indicating that the majority of North American companies believer that their companies can’t survive without social media. 

A recap: 

• 60% of American citizens used Social Media.
• 93% indicated business should have a Social Media presence
• 85% indicated businesses should interact via Social Networks with their customers

Consumers surveyed indicated businesses should use Social Media to:

• Solve Problems – 43%
• Obtain user feedback on product and services – 41%
• Enable consumers to interact with the company brand – 37%
• Market to consumers – 25%

Barriers to initiating Social Media Programs:

• Lack of understanding by Senior Management 58%
• Negative impact on employee productivity 49%
• Fear of unknown technology 58%

Companies currently using Social Media reported the following:

• Improved Feedback 78%
• Improved Customer Satisfaction 66%
• Improved Customer support 71%
• Increased Sales 40%
• Improved public perception of company 75%

Within the survey completed for Avande were some general statements which must be considered:

• 52% of respondents stated “Companies that fail to embrace social media technologies for business purposes will be left behind “
• 78% of respondents stated “As we enter a possible economic downturn we need to focus on new ways of communicating with customers which add real value.”
• 77% of respondents stated “If they did not initiate a Social Media Program Social Media would enter the company by stealth”

Important read called ‘How to Hire a SEO Firm According to Google’

What is SEO? Wikipedia defines it as improving quality traffic to your website via search engines with targeted key words. 

Basically, the higher up your search results appear, the more targeted customers will come to your website. 

Why is it critical? Galleon-SEO in the UK said it perfectly: 

• 87% of all visitors come from the top listings
• The majority of people online use search engines
• 3.5 billion websites compete for the top slots, but only a few make the top listings

I first discovered Search Engine Optimization the day I took over the company website. At the time I was working for a nonprofit, way before I started my own company. We were using a content management system at the time and I discovered that search engine spiders (yes, another term worth learning) couldn’t even read our website! Not because it was an unattractive site, or because the content was confusing… in fact, it was a really top notch site with excellent graphics and content. 

So what was the problem? 

As wikipedia says, Search Engine Optimization considers “how search algorithms work and what people search for. SEO efforts may involve a site’s coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site.” 

Think of it this way: if the code (HTML for example) of your website is too messy and tangled for the search engine spiders to get through it, it is going to come back as a huge jumbled mess. The content management system was too dirty! It created bad code. 

So after 5 years of learning how to code, structure, research and write key word content and properly index a website, I finally feel like I have a handle on it. 

Its actually pretty easy to use SEO to elevate your website in search engines, based on key words. That is my definition of SEO: “Making your website findable on search engines.”