In the community someone had asked: “I was wondering how likely is it for a site to become the #1 search result on the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN)? What are the most important factors for determining the likelihood of your site being #1? Is this something I should worry about now before launching the site or is it something I can do later? If a site ranks as #1, is it hard to maintain that after you have achieved it?”

Let’s take a look at the first question:

I was wondering how likely is it for a site to become the #1 search result on the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN)? This depends on many factors. Some that come to mind are:

Content – how often are you updating your content? Are you using consistent keywords that makes the search engines recognize your site as focused on a topic?

Search Engine Optimized – is your site optimized for search engines? Network Solutions offers this service.

Titles & the first paragraph – I think this is more important than tags. (I don’t tag anything on my personal blog). But a strong succinct title with key words is awesome for catching search engines. I have found titles like Twitter 101 and Blogging 101 to be very effective. Think about what people would search for in your niche then use that. Think like your readers. Ask them what you should write about. And you should also focus your first paragraph on keywords.

Images – hosting your photos in Flickr allows you to add tags & then search engines see those tags also.

Inbound links – how many links are you including to other highly influential sites? You can use a search in Technorati to find blog posts that have a high authority on the topic that you’re writing about. Use one link per paragraph. And if you link to influencers then it may catch their attention & cause them to link to you (which is called back linking)

Back links – When others link to you that also increases your presence online.

Competition – how many people are in your niche? One trick I’ve found that works well is to have a weekly post on a set of links to related articles.  I title it ‘community strategy links’. Community strategy was heavily dominated by sites in the UK, but I’ve moved up to the 2nd page on Google search results now.

Common misspellings – My name is commonly misspelled so I did two things. I purchased both domain names: www.conniebensen.com and www.conniebenson.com. But I also had to use Connie Benson in a few blog posts to get the search engines to notice it. (I generally don’t misspell my own name, so for one post I actually blogged about it. But you can blog about something & post it with an earlier date).

Those are my tricks of the trade. So why would anyone want to work so hard? Well if having your business online be successful is important to you, then yes SEO is very important. For me I’ve chosen to have a career of working online. A couple of weeks ago I received an email from a conference organizer that found me thru Google. My blog came up & as a result I have a speaking opportunity.

Additional reading:

Performance Related SEO In An Economic Downturn

and Network Solutions offers ongoing webinars & sessions on SEO

It looks like I need to answer the rest of the questions in future posts What are your SEO tricks? Please share – I gave you my best!

Facebook offers incredible networking opportunities. It’s more than just a place to share photos & information with friends. The first thing to relax about is the idea that your personal friends will mix with your professional contacts. It’s ok. (The inappropriate photos & commentary are best to not be online anyway).

1. Create a profile

Make sure to include your photo because that personalizes it so much. (Don’t include your year of birth to protect against identity theft)

2. Use your email to search for people you know. Search by people’s names also works well. You’ll be amazed at how many people are there.

3. When you add people as friends put a note in stating why you’d like to connect with them.

4. You can also send a message to someone without adding them as a friend

5. Groups on Facebook are hugely diverse. They’re not as effective as traditional forums, but they serve a purpose of connecting likeminded people. There is a wall where you can introduce yourself. And there are discussion threads to exchange ideas with other members. Some groups are extremely active & others are quiet.

Tip – When you see people making comments in groups that resonate with you reach out & connect with them. You will find that you’ll meet a number of amazing people! Facebook connected me with people from Microsoft because they’re making their business to be there too.

More reading: articles on My Solution Spot, SCORE Chicago, Chris Brogan, Small Biz Trends

Do you use Facebook? What are your tips?

Here are five steps to get you started after you create an account.

1. Make sure that your Summary is descriptive of what you’re looking for & what your company offers. Chris Brogan recently had a great list of ideas to pay attention to when creating your profile.

2. Connect with people that you know. You can use your email address list to see if those people are on LinkedIn. You can also search by name or company. When you find people that you know, you can connect by using their email address. They will appreciate a quick note about why you’re connecting.

3. Find a group to join. There are many! Groups offer many opportunities to meet new people. They range from location specific to topic specific

*tip – if you want to connect with people & don’t know their email address use the Group option & select one of yours. Then write a personal note telling them why you want to connect.

4. Answering questions is a great way to meet new people & establish yourself as knowledgeable in your subject area.

5. Asking a question can also introduce you to new people as well as provide you with expert advice. I recently asked a question that resulted in saving me a lot of research time.

So LinkedIn can be used to connect with like minded people, share ideas and answer questions that you have about your business. It’s a perfect place for the busy professional!

Bonus tip: You can also download all of the email addresses to create a mailing list. For example if you created a group – you could do a mass email.

For further reading:

articles at My Solution Spot

articles on SCORE Chicago

What tips do you have for using LinkedIn?

Here are 10 ideas to alleviate & dispel those fears:

1. Write down ideas when they occur to you. Many people have a tablet dedicated to blogging ideas. I use Evernote (a free app) & jot the notes in there.

2. Use publishing software. There are many to choose from. I use LiveWriter (but it’s not available for Mac’s). Using a publishing program allows you to start articles & return to them later. I can also work offline.

3. Have many drafts prepared & in various stages of completion. This allows you to choose the topic that you want to address.

4. Start with a list – it’s not necessarily an outline, but it definitely helps get things going. If I can’t do that, then I write in a more prose style & go back and put it into bullets highlighting the main points.

5. Have set times where you sit down & know that you can be productive. Sometimes we set ourselves up for failure by trying to write when there will be lots of interruptions.

6. If you’re a new blogger maybe you’re worried about perfection. Be a recovering perfectionist! You’ll find out soon enough that sometimes you don’t have hours to write a post & it needs to get published as it is.

7. Establish a weekly routine – for example on most Fridays I post a list of links that I want to share with my readers. I’ve found that people love this! During the week, I toss links that I want to share into a post with a sentence or two about them. It eases the stress too..

8. Write less and remember that simple is fine. When I started blogging I thought that I had to write long incredibly profound posts. That’s not true at all.

9. Quality vs Quantity – Don’t feel like you have to post every day. If you post about 3 times per week or so that’s fine.

10. If a post feels like it’s getting long, break it into a series. It will give people something to look forward to!

What do you fear when you sit down to blog? What are your best tips for overcoming that fear?