This is a great video by SEOMoz about making eCommerce Pages SEO friendly and linkable.

Rand talks about how to make product pages unique, linkable, and search engine friendly. Even if you sell the same products that hundreds of other people sell online, you can be unique enough to dominate SERPs.

Key Takeaways from the ECommerce SEO Video

1. Use keyword rich phrases as the title of products
2. Show multiple images of products that YOU take
3. Write creative descriptions of the products (not duplicate content from the manufacturer)
4. Display cool statistics that people can source or write about on their own sites
5. Run side by side comparisons of other products – the pro’s and con’s, benefits, etc.
6. Allow user generated feedback: comments, rankings, thumbs up/down, reviews

How do you optimize individual product pages for search engines?

I have been talking a lot lately with clients about how a social network profile can help your online business.

A few points I focus on include:

• Backlinks on other credible sites
• Direct interaction with your target audience
• Online networking with big players in your field
• Ability to monitor competitor involvement and strategy
• Online reputation management & brand awareness
• Natural SEO & link building if profile pages are allowed to be set up correctly

The last point was one I’ve always known, but it didn’t come to me so clearly until tonight when I was talking to one of the managers of a new political social network. Over the past few days, I’ve been working to help him understand the importance of social media in organic search engine optimization.

One of the goals his company has is to be the “LinkedIn of Politics” or the “Politically Focused Facebook”. Granted, it’s hard to compete with the likes of Facebook, but the point he made to me was that these big websites don’t really do SEO. That statement really made me think, “Is he right?” “Is organic SEO really that important or…?”

I thought about that for the rest of that day and through out the day today. My gut kept saying “Yeah right! SEO is a MUST!”,  but he had made some valid points.

Then the light clicked on as I was driving home this evening.

One of the MAIN WAYS big companies like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter do organic SEO is by letting USERS do the SEO for them.

How Social Networks Use SEO

Think about it:

• Social networks let people, some of which are very, very good at SEO, online PR, etc. build unique, SEO friendly profile pages: (http://facebook.com/mollermarketing)
• These profile pages have lots of dynamic and static content
• The profile pages have tons of quality external links with relevant topics
• These same creators of individual profile pages in-directly, and some times directly, promote their social media profiles (follow me on twitter)
• Some users build profile pages just to say they have lots of followers.
• Others promote their profile pages for online reputation management.

But the bottom line is, the USERS are doing a lot of the hard core SEO grunt work – the off-site SEO link building, the viral marketing, etc.

By allowing visitors to set up static profile pages with friendly URLs, social networks like Facebook and Twitter are saying, “Sure, we’ll let you have a “free account” but we’ll grow our investment capital over and over again because you’re building yet another indexable page for us and adding your name and info to our “subscriber list…Thanks for stoping by…”

I'll just wait for the SEO Train to stop by...

I agree that at some point, Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn my not care (as much) about organic SEO, but maybe they do afterall.

Facebook has been making changes that hint to the fact that SEO is important to them:

• Indexable pages
• Friendly URLs
• Etc.

Organic SEO is here to stay.

Yes, word of mouth marketing plays a crucial role in the heavy growth of websites, especially social networks.

But every online business, big or small, needs to make the time to work on organic SEO strategy: if they don’t, their competitors will.

What are your thoughts on social networks and SEO?

For years, small businesses have been plagued with the dilemma of the high cost of online marketing. I always tell small business owners, “If you can’t afford to pay someone to do it for you, there are plenty of resources to help you learn how to do it.” After all, that’s how most of us got started in the business; by necessity. I am no different; however my journey started a bit earlier than most (back in 1999).

Today, there are plenty of low cost and free resources for the small business owner who wants to win online, so there is really no excuse for not having some sort of online marketing program for your business. If you are a small business owner, I want to share with you 6 strategies that you can use to acquire local online market share. The first two won’t cost you a dime, technically #6 could be done at no cost, and the cost of the other 3 will depend on your skills. Nonetheless, I challenge you to take some kind of action if they are applicable to you.

1. Local Business Profiles. All three major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) allow you to build a local business profile at no cost. There are certainly ways to optimize these for maximum search engine benefit, but being there is the first step. Follow the instructions and most of all, build a complete profile (don’t leave any blanks). The goal is to have your business show up in the map based search results on each site respectively.
2. Local City/Business Guides. There are literally dozens of these and some have more value than others but most still offer free listings in additional to their paid options. If you have not taken advantage of local business profiles, I recommend checking out Merchant Circle, CitySquares, and Yelp for starters. You can also find reputable search marketing providers that can simplify these submissions for you as my firm does.
3. Mobile Search. With the growth in use of iPhones, Droids, BlackBerrys, and other smart phones, you are really missing out if you are not getting in front of this audience. While search engines and local directories feed some mobile providers data, another great solution is to have a mobile version of your website which can be listed in various mobile directories and display well on mobile devices.
4. Local Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Make sure your website is not only optimized for keyword related to what you do, but also for your location. It is critical to make sure that your physical address appears on your website as the search engines will take notice. From a link building standpoint, the number of inbound links you need to outrank your competitors will be determined by how competitive your business is. And for those who don’t know what links are, this refers to having other sites that are connected to yours. These could be search engine directories, press mentioned, or simply links from complementary websites and they act as votes for your site in the eyes of the search engines.
5. Paid Search. Sometimes paying for search engine traffic turns out to be a great way to get the job done. Just make sure that you use geo-targeting so that you only pay for local search engine traffic or you will be wasting money. My advice if you are going to do this on your own is to make sure the first thing you do is learn how to set daily limits and use this feature to protect you against overspending.
6. Social Media. The best way for a small business to get involved in social media is to have a blog. I know it takes time, but it will pay off. Just put it on your schedule and make it happen. You can use free blogging software such as blogger, but for long term success I recommend having your blog be a part of your website. Once you have gotten blogging down, you can add additional social media venues such as Facebook (where you can connect with local customers) and YouTube (where your video could get take on a mind of its own, if it’s unique enough).

I hope this is helpful and I look forward to hearing your local search engine marketing success story!

This guest post was written by Anthony Kirlew, founder of a.k.a. Internet Marketing, a full service online marketing firm with a commitment to making local search engine marketing affordable to small business owners.

All I have to do is just start a website and “Viola” – the traffic will just appear.

I’ve heard, if I get lots of traffic, Google will take note of that and move me up the charts.

I’m thinking about buying a list so I can get the big traffic and be ranked high in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, can be a big myth to many people, especially those that believe some of these statements above.

What is the right answer then?

And how do you find the truth?

First recommendation would be to hire a Utah SEO consultant

If you’re not ready for that yet, try it out on your own for a while, and then hire an SEO consultant to fix what you may have messed up.

Before you mess it up too bad though, there are a lot of great people out there willing to share tips and tricks.

Thanks to Rand Fishkin from SEOMoz for the clarification on traffic in correlation to search engine rankings in his Whiteboard Friday tip.

Does Traffic Equal High SEO Results?

Summary

Talking about user and usage data and why they don’t influence search results very much.

“Maybe if I get lots of users to go to Google, search for my brand name, click my listing, and then check out my site, Google will give me higher rankings…”

The answer is, “No, not really!”

This strategy is pretty “gameable”. It doesn’t follow the SEO model of link popularity, inbound link quality scores, etc.

On their own, user data will not improve SEO rankings.

The big reason why it won’t work is manipulation.

Mechanical Turk: people who will do small tasks on the web for small amounts of money. Millions of people participate in mechanical turk. However, it’s not going to work for SEO – you can’t hire “turkers” to go visit your site and certain times of day and manipulate search engine results. It’s too easy to manipulate.

Bot Net: zombie computers that create manipulative activity to trick the search engines. Welcome to the world of Black Hat SEO.

The SEO Techniques that Really Matter

• Accessibility
• Internal Link Structure
• Site Architecture
• Keyword Research & Targeting
• Link Building
• Social Networking Aspects

Clicking on your search engine listing isn’t going to help you magically appear at the number one spot.

How did this help clarify your SEO strategy?

Thanks to my SEO friend, Dan Patterson, for sharing this video clip with me.

This post was written by guest blogger, Alex Stetson.

There are so many social media sites, social bookmarking sites, and document/video sharing sites available to us today.

It can be difficult to pinpoint which of these venues will be the most effective use of your time and effort for SEO link building.

Based on personal experience combined with technical fact, I would recommend the following as some of the most useful community-based sites for link building.

Twitter

There’s been a lot of controversy about the usefulness of Twitter for social media campaigns. Twitter is mostly criticized for being “a waste of time.” I can vouch for the fact that Twitter can be a huge time warp; but to successfully utilize Twitter for link building, you have to have a plan and stick to it.

Twitter can be an amazing source for social media link building. It can help you drive traffic and links to your site because it’s easy to connect with other professionals in the industry, get and give tips, and make contacts for guest blogging (great way to link-build.)

Though Twitter links are no-follow, there is a viral value to this ubiquitous micro blogging site; it successfully captures human interest as a means of viral link building, and quickly provides you with a relevant and willing audience.

Sphinn

This social bookmarking site allows users to post and “Sphinn” articles that they like.

Three major factors make this site great for link building:

• it caters to online marketers, a relevant audience, so the traffic it can drive to your site is that much more valuable.
• all links on the site are followed by search engines, so even if your post doesn’t get a lot of Sphinns or reach the homepage, there is always an inherent value in participating.
• it’s quick and easy to use, so it doesn’t waste your time, which encourages user engagement (yielding a larger audience.)

Blogspot

Blogspot is much more user friendly than many other sites that allow you to create a webpage. It is slightly more valuable than its article submission counterparts for a number of reasons. It is highly customizable; you can specify your domain, description tags, and your blog posts are neatly archived. You can totally redesign the look and feel of your blog without possessing any design skills. Since it’s a blog, it encourages reader commentary and participation, which will help maintain your link relevancy. Plus search engines follow all links posted on this site.

StumbleUpon

Another site that does not use “no follow” tags for hyperlinks, StumbleUpon is a good link building tool for a number of reasons. It draws a large, diverse audience in terms of user interests; but at the same time, it personalizes random searches or “stumbling,” based on user feedback. So strategically written content, (e.g. overlapping subject matters,) can draw interest from an otherwise unreachable audience.

For example, an article on the new iPad that also discusses web design might attract a music lover, and consequently interest them in your design services.

StumbleUpon is great for displaying different types of media—pictures, videos, or written content. It appeals to the everyday, slightly A.D.D. web surfer; and the more good ratings you get, the more prominently displayed your site will be on the homepage (which = more publicity, which subsequently = more link juice.)

Squidoo

Squidoo is my favorite social portal site for link building.

It allows you to build quality links through quality content creation in an easy-to-use interface. Each user can create up to 5 pages, called “lenses,” that are crawled by search engines.

Squidoo lets you strategize based on keyword iterations by allowing you to pick your page name and titles; inserting hyperlinks is no-hassle, and you can link your lense to other related lenses, increasing chances of driving relevant traffic.

Which social media sites would you recommend for link building?

Leave your comment below and tell us why.

This post was written by Boston SEO expert and guest blogger, Alex Stetson.  Alex works out of Waltham, Massachusetts for Fresh Tilled Soil, a digital media and web design firm.  Talk SEO with her on Twitter @Marisol1986.