But the most important step in the search engine optimization process is time and patience. Even though the Internet is a blazing fast method of speading the word, SEO does take time. Each step forward requires a little tweaking and monitoring the results then retweaking.  It really is a never ending cycle.  Time will be on your side when it comes to an SEO project but you must be willing to wait.  I have found in my personal experience that in order to see a website consistantly rank in the top 10 on Google, I must be willing to work at it for about 12 months.  If you are a patient person then you should do fine with your SEO efforts. Just realize what you do today may not produce fruit for another year if you are relying totally on search engine optimization to bring rankings and traffic.

What it your opinion and what has been your experience with the time factor of SEO?

What do I mean by “better quality of visitor”? Referrals have always been the golden nuggett in sales.  Isn’t that what social networking is all about at its core? I find something I like on the web and I share it with others who like the same thing. Simple but very effective. Through social networking referrals I know the visitors want exactly what I have to offer, whether it is a product or service. Someone has told that visitor about my website and has recommended they visit it.

I am starting to believe that social networking will surpass SEO as the primary means of getting a website in front of the right viewers.  By having social networking as my primary means of traffic generation I am freed from having to worry whether or not I have offended the powers to be that control the search engines; I am free not to worry about correct keyword to text ratios or page layout. I am still concerned with inbound links but beyond that all the other apsect of SEO can go out the window.  As long as I have a good service or product and good quality content tha solves a persons problem, then I should focus on developing relationships with my visitors and their contacts.

True I may not get as many visitors but the visitors I get are more apt to use my service or purchase my product based on the fact that someone referred them.  What do you think? Has social networking overtaken SEO?

By building a blog under a different domain name you do a couple of things. First you establish a second identity in the same industry. This second identity can be developed to the point where you are considered and expert on your particular field of interest.  As your build your blog you can use it to display the latest news and achievements from your company as well as your industry niche. When these news articles are written you have the opportunity to use anchor links in your text to link back to your original site.  Of course it takes time to build credibility so those links will be effective but with good quality original content you can achieve that status in a few months. Quality is definitely the key to this process.  In addition to anchor text links throughout your articles and news you have the opportunity to use a keyword based link from your blog roll back to the original site.  Place a banner ad on your main site displaying a visual link to your blog and set up a Twitter account with an auto updater plugin so your blog entries will post automatically in Twitter.

Before long your secondary web presence (blog) will be driving traffic to your site and you have the opportunity to actually rank more than one site for the same company high in the search engines.

What is your experience with using blogs and websites together.

Here is my example:  Main site at www.bbq-festivals.com and blog at www.bbqhub.com

The next time you have a special discount, why not use Twitter to advertise your savings and see what happens. I would be curious to see the results.

Lesson learned:  Be prepared for a change in your search return positions when you make major changes to the layout of your site or blog……..

What has your experience been?

That was not to be with the new theme. After Google crawled the site it fell to number 47 and you know what that means; traffic took a definite hit!  So I have switched back to this WP theme called “Seashore”. It is a simple format and may not look as good as others, but it presents the information in a simple and clear way to the reader and it would appear is “spider” friendly. 

If you opt to expirement with different layouts and themes on your WP blog, be willing to see fairly substantial flucuations in your rankings.  Now I must wait until the next Google crawl to see if this blog comes back up to the second page.  Then it will be time to work on moving it to the first page for the search “learn SEO’.

What have your experiences been when changing layouts? Have you seen a drop in rankings and what did you do to get back up to where you were?

ShipsCaptainAndCrew.com is a yacht crew employment information site that has been on the first page of Google for its primary search term “yacht crew jobs” for more than a year.

Selling as I no longer have time to devote to it.  This site has a lot of growth and income potential. I get emails weekly from individuals seeking to post resumes on the site.  That would be good income stream in addition to AdSense and private advertising.

Site has a PR2 and is all custom………no templates and all original content.  Check out the auction at SitePoint.com and make a bid.

I have seen a lot of debate lately on whether or not Twitter is a viable marketing tool or if it just a social phenomenon that will quickly pass. My initial impression is that if used correctly it could be a good way to communicate with followers about what is happening at your website. This type of function has already proven itself for me with MySpace.  The MySpace message system is an excellent way to send out a blast to all your followers about the latest happenings at your site.

Normally when I start working with someone to develop an SEO strategy one of the first things I have them to consider for the off site aspect of it is to start a blog and let that blog feed links back to the site. I think I am going suggesting that a Twitter account be started as well. Like MySpace a Twitter account used for business purposes must be closely monitored. On my MySpace account only those people interested in barbecue are allowed to be followers. That way I know when I send out a blast message it will be of interest to everyone.  The same will be true for Twitter.  I am going to set up a seperate Twitter account to go with my barbecue oriented blog and website and that will add an entire new group of people who are interested in the world of bbq.

I am sure this may be old info to many who have been on the Twitter train for a while but I admint I am still learning the ropes of SEO and any time I learn something new that works I intend to pass it along.

What are your experiences with Twitter driving traffic to your site?