It’s pretty evident we now live in a social Web. I guess some people might call that Web 2.0. Whatever you want to call it, it exists in various formats that end up looking and smelling like SEO and social media. Just about every website can be characterized as a percentage of each. But is there an optimal percentage?

Ideally, you’ll build your website reputation on some percentage of both search engine optimization and social media, but how much of each depends on several factors such as who you are, the niche you serve, your individual goals, the needs of your customers, etc. But it is absolutely certain that you don’t want to forget the SEO.

No matter how much social media you employ, optimziation is a necessity that will deliver results if done right. Of course, you can rank No. 1 for all your key terms and not make any sales, but it is rather difficult to rank No. 1 and not get traffic. And traffic is necessary for sales. With social media, you have to build relationships and that takes time.

The surest way to succeed online is to create a plan and work the plan. Don’t wing it. Make sure your plan addresses how much time and money you’ll spend on your social media campaigns and your SEO campaigns and you should have an idea of what you want to get out of each as well.

If you haven’t been around Internet marketers very long then you might get a little confused about how terminology is used. Even the veterans sometimes disagree on the labels and get confused between the blurring lies. But I thought I’d take a little time to explain the difference between search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). They’re not the same thing.

Essentially, SEM is a broader term and includes SEO. Here’s the distinction:

• SEO is the process of using content, links, keywords, and meta tags to improve a web page’s search engine rankings. Search engine optimizers tend to get a little tunnel vision where rankings are concerned and make that the No. 1 priority.
• SEM involves any task of marketing a web page through a search engine and may not necessarily be concerned with organic rankings. Typically, SEM refers to organic SEO as well as paid search models like pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Some marketers also include display advertising because Yahoo! and MSN both offer display advertising on their search pages. I think you could also include some aspects of social media since many social media marketing campaigns can have search implications attached to them, intentional or not.

That may or may not clear things up for you. An easy way to distinguish between SEO and SEM is to ask, “Does this activity concern itself ONLY with organic search rankings or can it influence other aspects of my relationship with a search engine?” If you are working on a web page and hope to influence your search engine rankings in some way you are engaged in optimization. If what you are doing has implications beyond search engine rankings then it is likely SEM, but it could also be SEO. See the difference?

Increasingly, I see new website launches where a site is ranking well for its key phrases before the site officially launches. How does this happen?

Let’s start with Bing. The search engine hasn’t even launched yet and it’s third in Google rankings. Obviously, pre-launch buzz has played a big part in that. But how?

The key here is in building a big enough buzz that you get people talking about you, and linking to your new website – that is, where it will be located once it launches. Those inbound links, with the proper anchor text, will help you rank for your key terms. Naturally, your website name is a key term. So how can you pull this sort of thing off?

First, you’ve got to have a well-defined plan for your website long before you start marketing. Secondly, you’ve got to start your online publicity campaign long before you launch. Pre-launch PR is absolutely key. And thirdly, you need beta testers. That last point is very important.

Beta testers will make or break you before you even launch your new site. But you want beta testers who are going to talk about you. And if your product is worth raving about, they will rave about it. But the beta testers are not really going to get you ranked. They’re just the injection. The real links that will get you noticed across the Web are the second-tier links. Those people who read the beta testers and will write about what they write about it. Get a couple of hundred vocal beta testers for your new website and that could turn into several thousand people talking about you and linking to you before you ever launch. If you can garner several thousand inbound links before you ever get to on-page search engine optimization, you should do pretty well in the search engines before you even launch your new site.

New website owners seldom think about the importance of their server in regards to search engine optimization. This is perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of building a website and it can get you into deep trouble if you don’t consider the options soon enough.

You have may have heard warnings about linking to bad neighborhoods. All that really means is that the server you are on is critical in terms of who you may be (often unknowingly) associated with.

Most new website owners, and many veteran site owners, go with the cheapest hosting plans they can find. This could be hurting you. Those cheap hosting plans are often shared hosting plans, which means that you share the server with several other websites. Do you know what those websites are? Chances are, no. And your web host likely isn’t going to tell you. So what can you do?

One thing you can do is go for a more expensive hosting plan and host your site on a dedicated IP. That will ensure that you don’t end up on a server with bad sites or spammy neighbors. You should also consider your site’s security. If it is easily hacked then you might become that “bad neighbor”. The horror stories are growing, but there are plenty of websites that have been hacked and used as a haven for spam, ruining their own chances of becoming a good neighbor themselves.

Finally, ensure that you examine the sites carefully that you do link to. One of the things that often gets website owners into trouble is just linking to a site that they think is cool without really examining where that site links to and what they offer. Has that site been hacked? Does it lead to bad neighborhoods?

Even if you do all of the above, you could still end up on a server with a site that is bad. And it could hurt your reputation with the search engines even if you aren’t linking to the other site. If there are several bad sites on your server then your site could get lumped in with those other sites. If a search engine bans an IP block or penalizes a complete block of IPs then your site could be affected. If you see a sudden drop in PageRank and you know that you’ve done nothing wrong, that could be the case. Move your site to another host or ask for a dedicated IP and see if that fixes your problem.

There are three different types of search undertaken by users; transaction, information and navigation. Each search type can be accessed using keywords that are appropriate to each classification. For example, navigational searches are generally quite specific in that they are looking for a particular web site by name. This is where branding is particularly important.

The informational searches are often dominated by blogs and sites such as Ask, About and perhaps even Yahoo! Answers. The information area is one of the most competitive on the web, particularly if you consider the number of blogs in existence these days.

The third group, the transactional type of search, is the area that most online business need to concentrate on. These searches often include words like ‘buy’ or ‘download’. The searcher is not looking for a particular merchant, they are looking for a product.

What is interesting is that transactional searchers will often follow links that are well down the results pages. Navigation and information searchers will generally look at the first two or three results – if they don’t find what they are looking for they perform another search. You can make use of search idiosyncrasies by being just a little smarter in the way you optimize your pages and it only takes two areas to work on.

First, your description meta tag needs to be spot on. The searcher is looking to buy and your site has appeared in the search results. Prove to the searcher that your site is the best place to visit and even though it may appear at six, seven or eight in the results, you will still attract the clicks. To get into the search results, optimize your site using transaction keyword phrases that are appropriate to your niche. You can undertake keyword research to help find those search phrases in common use.

Bill Slawski from Seo by the Sea has a comprehensive post on this subject that is well worth a read and that goes into more depth on all three search types. If your smart, you can incorporate all three search types – optimize your brand for navigational searches; optimize for informational searches, perhaps through a blog; and optimize for transactional searches for those looking to buy.

Finding a domain name that is suitable can be difficult. If you are a bricks and mortar business looking to add an online presence you may feel that registering your corporate name is all you need to do. This could be a mistake since corporate names are rarely ’search engine friendly’.

Corporate names can work well on billboards or shopfronts and regular customers will expect to see that name on your website. This doesn’t mean the domain name has to be the same. Don’t get me wrong, registering your corporate business name is a must – just don’t stop at that point.

Careful research will often uncover frequently used search terms that relate directly to your business. Take this example. You have a bricks and mortar business known as ‘The Boston Surfboard King’. Sounds good and looks good on all your merchandise. Your business is located in Boston and only services the Boston area so the name is appropriate.

Research may show that frequent search terms include ’surfboards in Boston’. Finding a domain name related to that term will make optimizing your site for search traffic a lot easier than using your corporate name.

You may be wondering what to do with your corporate domain name and whether or not you need two web sites. You could develop two sites but it is easier to redirect traffic that comes through on your corporate URL to your generic site. That means one site, optimized for your keywords yet attracting traffic through more than one URL. You are able to use your corporate URL in correspondence and marketing whilst optimizing your search friendly URL for the search engines.

Gimmicky URLs – they are generally difficult to optimize and what appears gimmicky today may appear tacky tomorrow. Some gimmicky URL’s work well for their owners but that is only because they are well suited to the niche they belong to and are easily optimized for search. Find a domain name that is easy to optimize and build on that to can valuable traffic.

Blogs and websites that allow commenting are often gaining a substantial SEO boost without even knowing it. Those sites that block comments are probably missing out – I say probably because not all comments help in your rankings. Why do comments help?

Web Pro News has an interesting post on how comments increase the value of content. The Huffington Post is used as an example with the broad statement that ‘comments are the reason for the sites success’. I would argue that it is the quality of the content that has lead to its success. However, that content led to comments and over time ‘conversations’ between readers. Web Pro News itself often receives 50+ comments for posts with readers often debating issues between themselves.

How does this help on site search engine optimization? It all comes back to popularity. The more people that comment, the more likely you are to find individuals writing about the same issue with, you guessed it, a link back to the original post (come to think about it, that is what I have done here). More relevant links, better rankings. What is important is to engage the reader, draw them into commenting and to then develop a debate between commentators. Readers will either come back to see how the debate is progressing, or in the case of blogs, perhaps subscribe to follow up comments.

For the site owner, it is a huge win and it hasn’t taken a lot of hard work. Get those comments flowing and you will be surprised at how many people will pick up the thread and publish their own take on the subject. The hardest part is in engaging the reader to leave decent comments!