A true social media master will be like the nature of water. Like Bruce says: First, empty your mind. Don’t get caught up in what you think you know. Social media is alive and ever changing, as such we must be centered and willing to accept it’s constant flux.

Be formless, shapeless, like water. Don’t limit yourself to just one network, one mindset, one way of looking at a goal. You must free your mind. Diversify your message for more powerful content. If you are managing a  account on Twitter, become Twitter. If you want to succeed with your Facebook page, become Facebook. Learn the networks and how to use them, more importantly: USE THEM. The best way to learn is to do.

Water can flow, or it can crash. So can your social media strategies. While one can’t always predict changes in cultures or how demographics may accept experimental new marketing techniques ( no matter how “liquid” of a marketeer they are! ) a larger percentage of how much success you will see is limited only by you.

If you want to expand on creating a consistent message across multiple profiles, try presenting it on each network in a different way. This  can not only allow you to create more enticing content for cross-network followers but also help to cover more keyword ground. Spin it to win it.

Water is the softest stuff on earth, but it can penetrate rock. Don’t forget, be persistent. When your efforts, no matter how small a drop in the bucket they may be, are combined over time you can still see tremendous effects. The rain doesn’t carve away the mountain all at once, but one drop at a time.

Be Like the Nature of Water My Friends…stay social. : )

She was devastated and broke down on the phone, so much so that even though I only knew her casually that I too was in tears. I had many many things to get done that other clients considered ab-so-lute-ly URGENT…without thought I set all of it to the side so that I could put together a nice card with some good words on holding on to HOPE for her to let her know we would be thinking and praying for her because (to me) reaching out and letting her know someone cared was more IMPORTANT than anything else…

Time for mortals is finite. In fact, we never really know when we’ll run out of it. To make matters more complicated, there turns out to be truth in the old saying that you never have enough time to do everything you’d like to do. So you must decide what is really important, and what others simply consider urgent…while my actions may make for long hours this week as I play catch-up I know that if I helped bring even a single grain of comfort into her life that I accomplished something far greater than simply checking another task off my queue…

I don’t like to do a lot of advertising and market pushing on my blog here, but I recently did a website for a Boise REALTOR and found this home so amazing that I wanted to share it with all of you — not to mention I wanted to do a little horn tooting about the web design I did on the job. The design itself is simple, but attractive, and was able to be put together without too terribly much trouble – and for a cost that I know would have rivaled any other design house in the Northwest. This is typical of the real estate web design I do at Tour Real Estate Inc – effective, affordable online presences; all backed up by some of the best hands on customer service in the industry. But I digress…

Elegance in the Heart of Idaho Mountain Country

Gorgeous Custom home. Spacious, open floor plan. Hardwood floors, distinctive stairway featuring wrought iron spindles and wood hand rail. Large functional kitchen with breakfast bar, black appliances, tile back splash, cabinets w/ crown plus pantry. Family rm boasts stone framed fireplace with hearth and wood mantle. Main level master has corner soaker tub, dual vanity and separate walk in shower. Plenty of storage and large closets. Fantastic curb appeal. Stunning Mountain Views!
Check out the website for more details!

This is the kind of home I can only DREAM of living in, stunning inside and out and also primely located in the heart of the Idaho mountains. WOW!!

Say, are you a local Boise business or website owner who needs a little help getting more traffic and improving your search engine visibility? I can help! Contact me for the best Boise SEO services and innovative web design in Idaho!

Most people aim for a keyword density of 2% (i.e. use the keyword 2 times for every 100 words).

It’s a fine balance. Generally you want your main keyword to appear a several times either in your text or as the title of a paragraph (in bold), with keywords that are your secondary focus trailing along in frequency.

You will know for sure that you are stuffing a bit too heavily if every other word in your content is a keyword. You want your text content to have a natural flow for human readers while still being keyword dense; there are a few good methods for this.
Use keywords as a title of a paragraph or section, using bold, and/or “H” tags in the html code itself. Search engines will give a bolded word (and especially an H tag) slightly more weight than regular text on your site. H tags may just look like big text, but search engines read them differently and give them extra keyword power.

This is an H1 Tag:

Boise Search Engine Optimization

This is an H2 Tag:

Search Engine Samurai

This is an H3 Tag:

Coldfusion Cowboy

Use alt-tags on your photos in place of repeating keywords over and over where users are forced to read them.

It’s not JUST about the number of times your keywords appear either. WHERE they appear also can play a big role. Make sure your keywords appear in these places as good rules of thumb for best keyword visibility:

The Title Tag.
The Page URL.
The Main Heading (H1 or H2).
The first paragraph of content.
At least 3 times in the body content (more or less depending on amount of content and if and only if it makes sense).

Search Engine Optimization isn’t some mystic art, it comes down to easy to understand elements created and managed in balanced proportions. It takes time and it takes effort to see lasting results, especially as algorithms are constantly changing.

Don’t understand any of this? Just don’t have time to manage your SEO or social network marketing? I can help! Contact me to find out how I can help you develop your digital presence to work for you.

Vicky Churchfield can help you find the very best properties in the Treasure Valley, including Eagle Idaho Homes, homes for sale in Star Idaho, and great deals on real estate in Emmett! With nearly a decade of experience in real estate Vicky can help you find the perfect home you’ve been looking for or help you prepare to sell your current home, even in this difficult market.

Hey, while you’re at it why not visit her Eagle Idaho Homes Blog on WordPress? It’s got some of the latest and greatest available homes and real estate news you need to know!

Islands in the Stream
Google+ features a Stream, basically just like Facebook News Feed, allowing users to share photos, videos, links or their location with friends…but better! You see, the focus of this social project is not on sharing with a mass group of friends, but on targeted sharing with your various social groups.

To do this, Google uses a system called Circles. Circles are an extremely easy way to add people to specific groups. Rather than the clunky or difficult ways other networks have done this with Google+ it’s as easy as dragging and dropping, or clicking an option when you accept a new persons friend request. Circles make it easy to choose exactly who you want to share with any time you post an update – an invaluable tool as our social personas collect more and more followers.

You can even easily create your own Circles to make categorizing your connections even easier.

Photos and More
Google+ has very slick photo abilities as well. The photo tab takes a user to all of the photos he or she has shared, as well as the ones he or she is tagged in. But there’s more than just photo tagging – Google+ includes a variety of image options, privacy options, and sharing features.

Facebook tried to jump the gun with their video chat – ironically enough the release of which was majorly overshadowed by Google+ launching just a few days later. As video continues to become a more and more prevalent tool the ability to hold live real time video conferences, meetings, and chat sessions may very well become “the next big thing”.

Beyond this Google+ also has some innovative and imaginative ways of Sharing content and even announcing events. To encourage easy sharing, Google has added a “recommendation engine” for finding content you are interested in. Called Google+ Sparks,it is a collection of news, videos, photos and other content grouped by interest. For example, the “Music” spark will have a listing of recent and relevant content for that topic.

Google+ allows users to create “Hang Outs”. Essentially creating their own instant “check-in” locations for events or places they are gathering. Similar to the way foursquare and other networks allow you to “check-in” to already established/verified locations, Google+’s Hang Outs let users create these wherever they are, on the fly.

The Next Social Network?
No matter what Google may claim, Google+ is without a doubt their answer to Facebook but being the giant of search engines doesn’t buy you a free ride in the social networking world – and not all of Googles past enterprises have been a success. Remember Orkut? Yeah, Google hopes nobody else does either. Google is just dipping it’s toes into the social arena at this point but in some ways their functionality alone is already a HUGE improvement over other available networks. Having only been using this new platform for a short time it is hard to judge, but already I’ve started to feel like I am playing with Tonka trucks every time I login to Facebook now. With Google+ whispering rumors of a “business profile” ability that is yet to come to the Google+ platform the leader in search engines may soon be giving everyone in the social networking world a real run for their money.

Regardless there are just a few very basic things to understand in order to help improve ANY websites standing in search engine results. It is my hope to clarify a few of these items in order to help educate those interested in learning search engine optimization for themselves.

There are three main things that will largely determine your search engine visibility: Age of Your Domain, Keyword Density, and Backlinks.

Age of your domain:
Sadly, not a lot you can do about this one if you are new. Believe it or not the search engines do give a little ‘grandfathering’ powers to sites just for being around for a longer time.

Keyword Density:
This is the number of times a keyword appears in your sites content. Your keywords should be focused on your target market, so if you sell shoes in Boise for instance good keywords would be things like “boise shoes”, “shoes in boise”, “boise footwear”. Search engines look for these keywords in your site code and text as well as in the URL itself – and even seem to give a little extra edge to sites which have their keywords in the domain name itself.

A word of caution: stuffing is only good at Thanksgiving, and that includes keywords. Make sure you don’t OVER saturate your site with keywords to the point that it becomes illegible to human readers. Keyword stuffing can eventually harm your search engine position as much as not having those keywords at all.

Backlinks:
These are links from other websites pointed to you essentially saying you are a credible source for what you claim to be. I often use the analogy of the sign waver guys you see on the corner – essentially a link from another website to yours is like a sign waver on the internet saying “GO Here for This Service”. Search engines see that and give you better placement for it.

Those are the “Top 3″ of factors that will effect your standing in search results. Secondary factors include things like how many other sites are competing against yours, website page count (internal links), and frequency of updates.

There are any number of keyword research and density tools online, as well as tools which allow you to see how many backlinks your site has; I encourage those interested in doing their own SEO to make use of these largely free online tools like Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, and others.

Some simple tips for improving your sites SEO:
Make your main keyword prominent in the top portion of your website, preferably in the meta-data and by using “H tags” near the top of the site. Search engines read sites from the top down, so it is always best to have keywords at the top even if nowhere else on the site.

Be sure to make at least a couple of the keywords found on your site BOLD. It’s a small thing but some search engines still give bolded keywords a little extra relevance.

Make the links within your site use a keyword instead of “click here” for anchor text. So if you have a page on your site you are linking to for “Boise Homes” make the text the user clicks reads BOISE HOMES instead of Click Here (this same rule applies for creating links to your site from external websites). Read more about Building Better Backlinks here…

Link to other sites, but more importantly get other sites to link to you. The internet, and seo success, is all about being interconnected. Request owners of websites in your industry in other states to link to you. Comment on blogs and websites and include your website link. Add your website to online directories. Establish profiles on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to help expand your overall web presence.

ANY of these things will help your websites search engine position if done correctly. It’s not some arcane magic, it generally comes down to putting in the time to do some research, a lot of typing, and either maintaining your website code or working with an experienced web developer who understands SEO.

There are myriad other details and subtle techniques to really harness the power of the web to boost your business, but just starting with these very basic items is key to better search engine placement.

Interested in learning more? Stay tuned to this blog, or connect with me on any of my social portals. Generally I am as easy to find as typing Hinsel into a search engine.

Don’t have time, or don’t care to handle SEO for your website on your own? I can offer exceptional organic search engine optimization for established websites or create an search engine friendly design for you from scratch. Contact me to get started!