Learn SEO | Search Engine Optimization Tips and Techniques

I am curious how many companies are offering special discounts on products and services via Twitter only. When you think about it, Twitter based discount offerings is a very good idea to gain followers as word gets out that discounts can be had. By doing this you can almost guarantee a higher visitation rate to landing pages than you would via other means such as AdWords. By giving a reason to follow and offering daily discounts to your products or services you can increase the traffic to your website and conceivably see an increase in sales conversions.

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.

On May 6th I posted how a theme change on the blog caused my Google ranking to drastically drop and that I intended to go back to the old theme and layout.  Well I made that change and waited for the friendly Google spider to pay me a visit. I am pleased to say that x7SEO.com is now back on the second page of Google for the search “learn SEO”. Now I just have to work to get it to the front page of Google. One step at a time.

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?

Page layout and structure play an important part in the search engine optimization process.  This was driven home the past couple weeks when I made a major change to this blogs layout. Prior to this change (using the format you now see) x7SEO.com consistantly showed up on the second page of Google for the searches “learn seo” and “seo techniques”.

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?

I am selling one of my websites at Sitepoint.com 

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.

9 days ago i added a plugin to this blog so that each of my entries would go to my Twitter account. During the past 9 days I have started to see more and more traffic coming to this blog from various twitter based sites / programs. While Twitter hasn’t affected by ranking on Google (still on second page for “learn seo”) the added traffic is certainly welcomed.

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?