Google and Social Media

Marketers go to great lengths to obtain high visibility for their blogs or websites. Since most users find sites by doing a search on Google or one of the other search engines, marketers are constantly trying to find ways of getting to the top of the first page.

Techniques for achieving that position for a given search include:

• Using the most effective keywords.
• Buying space at the top of the page.
• Having many feeds and links.

Increasingly Google is going to be assessing websites and blogs by finding out which ones people actually like. Many users of social media recommend sites to each other, and that’s the stream of information that Google wants to analyse (to allocate positions in lists) and that marketers will be trying to exploit. In other words, personal recommendation is going to be increasingly important, just as it is in the real world.

What are Social Media?

Sites such as Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Better Networker, Friends Reunited and of course Youtube account for massive amounts of internet activity. They are examples of Social Media.

You probably know people who send messages, pictures, links, jokes – and anything you can send – to each other through these sites. Many of these people spend a lot of their time doing it – it’s big business (and there are great opportunities for advertisers there).

Users have fun building networks through these sites and – cynical as it may sound – marketers are using them to make links and build trust and cyber-relationships with potential clients. It’s considered bad form to try to make sales directly through these sites – but it’s the links to other sites that are important, and they can lead indirectly to sales.

What is Affiliate Marketing? I'll explain:

You can get started as an affiliate marketer today without spending any money.

You use your expertise in any area to promote products that others are selling – you don’t need to buy anything, you don’t need to carry any stock – you don’t even need to see the products, and the advertisements have been done for you.

This is how it works:

Punters do Google searches for whatever they’re interested in. Let’s say they like caravans or pewter mugs or silent films. When they press return, Google offers them a list of websites, blogs and articles. Blogs and articles, by the way, are free to set up. When the punter clicks on any of these, they will encounter information, perhaps advertising copy or pictures, and a clickable link to a product which is available for sale.

You write a short and punchy article about something. Only 200 to 1000 words. In fact you can write as many articles as you like about anything. Maybe you know about Romanesque churches, mathematical puzzles or how to play tiddlywinks. One of the amazing things about the internet is that you don’t have to concentrate on popular interests to be visible – your market will find you, no matter how obscure your subject.

In fact there are advantages in having expertise in a minority topic, as there will be less competition than there would be for very popular subjects. You submit your article to a directory such as ezine. They don’t make a charge.

At the end of your article, in the profile section, you add a hoplink to something the punter can buy. You find this product in an online retail outlet such as clickbank. They provide the advertising copy – it’s all free and straightforward to set up. For example, here's a book you can buy. Just click on these words to see the advertising copy.

When the punter buys the product you get a commission. It won’t be a lot, but you can repeat the process as many times as you like and tweak the balance between capturing a niche market and getting a high volume of sales. The science of becoming more findable is called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and that’s a whole industry in itself.