orangutan

I think one of the ways you can sum up the idea of social media optimization and marketing is: "traffic alternatives to Google".

As great as Google is, marketers are increasingly looking for alternative and/or additional channels for content distribution and marketing and consumers for sources of information and interaction.

Some have suggested social search as an alternative. I don’t think social search will ever replace search engines as we know them today, but I do think the rate of growth for major search engines will certainly be affected by the growing number of niche tools and media specific channels such as social networks, social bookmarking sites, personalized search, tagging, podcasts, video blogs, regular blogs and other "social media".

Some bloggers have been calling SMO (social media optimization) the next level of SEO, or SEO 2.0. SEO has grown out of it’s mainly technical roots and become more of a creative discipline. There will always be technical issues to solve though, since web sites and servers are technical things. It’s the creative and multi channel aspects of "pull marketing" that are defining the future of SEO.

What’s interesting is that more and more of our clients are asking for what amounts to alternatives to Google traffic. They’re doing great on Google and the other major search engines, but want other sources of "free" traffic. SMO/SMM provides that augmentation. These include MySpace, Digg, YouTube and other viral tactics. For an excellent list of such opportunities, check out Rand’s list.

The only problem with Matt Cutts blogging is that it gets harder and harder to remember all the great nuggets he gives out. I want a chart! Maybe I’ll make one. In the meantime, 21 Great SEO Tips From Google’s Matt Cutts from SEO Egghead is a nice reference list of Cuttsian proclamations and wisdom over time. Spotted via SEO Black Hat, which notes not everyone might believe what Matt says. True, but it’s still nice to know what he said, even if you want to view it with a critical eye. Oh, that acronym? Tell you what? One good bit of link bait deserves another. Link to this post if you think you know what it means. First person I spot with the right answer, well, I’ll link to your explanation.

Postscript: And Razvan wins, first link with the right answer I’ve seen. Check out the explanation over there!

New York, NY, September 12, 2006 –(PR.COM)– Online Utility (http://www.online-utility.org) is the organization the aim of which is to provide as much free online computer utilities (tools). The company has been announcing that they officially left beta testing phase as of September 2006. They provide various free online utilities since April 2006. They have noticed that Internet users like to have Web utilities instead to install some software on their computers. Installing of software on the computers needs time, is virus prone and tends to leave garbage on the hard disc if one decides to try different software packages in the hunt for the best software package for one particular need.

The idea of Online-Utility.org is to give users most of small utilities at one place. Their tools are online so there is no need to install. They are free which their users certainly like and they claim that they will remain free as long as this organization exists. Potential users could find different interesting utilities on one place and it might even shorten their need to use search engines to find different tools they need.

Here are some of the Online-Utility.org currently provides. Their tools in the English language section allows users to write easily readable texts (for writers) and to understand complicated texts better (for English language learners). Those tools currently includes: Detector of complicated vocabulary, Dictionary, Finder of uncommon English words in arbitrary text, Finder for usage of words in literature, Helper to understand complicated English texts and Readability tests, suggestions to improve readability. Their tools in Text section allows text analysis and some word games (misspellizer). Their tool in Math section allows even powerful online math calculations (i.e. linear equations, integrals) using famous Open Source math software Octave in the background.

Their tools in Webmaster section includes keyword suggestion tool and various backlinks analyzers. Keyword suggestion tool uses synonyms to provide tips for webmasters(SEO) about keywords they might decide to use in their pages. Backlink analyzers include domain and IP analyzer, backlink PR analyzer and anchor text analyzer. They also provide some nice articles about search engine related issues. In section named "Other" they currently provide image format conversions and measurement conversions. Within few next months they plan to provide four more tools, but they will keep in secret what they are about. They invite all users to give them feedback about their tools.

Ever wondered how websites get premier first place result layouts like the one shown in this picture? (See this sample ‘live’ here or simply type in “Canadian news” at Google.) Rumours have persisted for a while as to how these listings are created but Google has finally updated the webmaster’s help guide explaining these listings called “Sitelinks”.

The long and the short of it is that the creation of Sitelinks are totally automated; this had appeared to be the case from all accounts but could not be verified 100%. As it turns out Sitelinks will only appear if Google thinks they will be useful to their users.

The most revealing tidbit comes when Google stated that: “If the structure of your site doesn’t allow our algorithms to find good Sitelinks, or we don’t think that the Sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user’s query, we won’t show them.”

So, if you want Sitelinks for your first place ranking what does this mean for you, the site owner? Ensuring that your website is search engine friendly is more important than ever.