Diaspora is what you would call a “smart” site. While users and media all over the world were buzzing with Facebook’s privacy issues, Diaspora creators took a different route by providing an alternative to the social media giant by just posing the question to user “Why can’t privacy and connections go together?” This rather ambitious attempt by the founders has managed to capture a lot of eyeballs.

So the question that users may pose is “How is Diaspora different from social networking giant Facebook?” One of the key promotion points for Diaspora is that it is a decentralized network which means it connects computers to each other directly without going through a central server. Once you set up a Diaspora profile it can help import your data from Facebook or other RSS feeds.

Diaspora also offers what they refer to as a “turn-key” solution which allows users to personalize their user profile similar to the way a Wordpress blog does. While the tech geek may salivate over the Diaspora offerings, how does it appeal to the everyday user who is still trying to figure out Facebook after years of usage? If Diaspora creators make this portal an easy to use and layman appeal then it could take the social media world by storm. Facebook better watch out for their throne is in fear of being usurped.

Diaspora is not the first to stand up to and benefit from Facebook’s limitations. Facebook may have started off as a college networking site but slowly went on to include other users, parents, colleagues and even our grandparents! Techie Josh Weinstein founded a networking portal called “College Only” which allows students to be a part of it till they graduate. Similarly another networking website called “asmallworld” (clever take on Facebooks overpopulation) has users only by invitation.

Convonix Inc. is a dedicated SEO firm based in Mumbai, India. Launched in 2003, we offer comprehensive services in Social Media Optimization. We are one of the leading providers of SEO in India and provide values like expertise and in-depth research.

The old adage of “Not all change is good” was proved right, and how, when DIGG users revolted against the new interface of the website. Barely a week after DIGG changed to its new version 4, did users start protesting against the numerous changes that it brought with it. Some of the major changes that the site saw were removal of the upcoming news page, a “my news” section as default, removal of the “bury” or “dislike” button amongst other smaller ones.

While DIGG founders claimed these changes were for the site’s improvement; users had their own way of standing up to it. They flooded the website with links to the main competitor, Reditt. While founders have made the changes in an attempt to allow more personalization; DIGG users have been fuming over the amount of power the new interface gives to publishers as opposed to users themselves.

Content is one of the main issues post the web site change. While previously content had to be sent manually to the site, publishers can now automatically redirect their content to DIGG. This, and a technical glitch, was probably why a mediocre article on “Paris Hilton” remained on the home page for several days. Users are upset with the website going “more corporate” than “user” centric. The “Bury” button was considered a way for users to express their true opinion about an article. With the removal of that button disgruntled users have no way to express their dislike. What DIGG must realize is that the removal of the button may cause a barrier to receiving honest feedback about an article.

User animosity towards the changes was proved further when most of them changed their display images to “anti-digg” messages and some even went to the extent of declaring it an “Abandon DIGG” day. The amount of users jumping ship to move to Reddit even forced the competitor website to publish a “User Manual” for new Reddit users. As they say “One person’s loss is another’s gain”. DIGG must take this protest into consideration and revamp if they wish to have their dedicated users coming back.

Convonix Inc. is a dedicated SEO firm based in Mumbai, India. Launched in 2003, we offer comprehensive services in Social Media Optimization. We are one of the leading providers of SEO in India and provide values like expertise and in-depth research.

Links are the path ways by which search engine spiders get to your website. For this very reason, building links is crucial to any Search Engine Optimization campaign. Link building is also important from a popularity perspective as a website is ranked according to the amount and quality of links it generates. Any SEO experts will advise you to concentrate well on building relevant links. Here are some tips that can help you get started on your Search Engine Marketing plan:

Putting a blog on your website is a great way to get started with your SEO efforts. Most search engine spiders like unique content on a regular basis. A blog is a good source for regular content as it can be updated easily and at any schedule. Blogging is one of the most Google recommended way to improve your websites Search Engine Optimization.

Anchor text is another crucial step in your Search Engine Marketing plan. Anchor text is one of the primary ways in which search engines rank your website. It is important for your anchor text to have the right keywords that are most relevant to your site.

For good SEO and for search engines to navigate your site easily it is important to have a sitemap. A site map acts as a great navigation tool that helps users to find exactly where they will find a particular content. Site map also makes crawling easier for websites and helps increase their rankings. The more popularity a website gets in search engines the more links it will receive and vice versa.

Encouraging users to link to your blog can be a way to promote the site amongst other users. Getting users to link is also a great way to prove that your blog is a genuine site.

Always make it a point to have relevant links on your blog or site and link to other relevant sites. Getting irrelevant links can seem like spam and can harm the credibility of your website which will be detrimental to your SEO efforts.

The 2010 Emmy awards were celebrated this Sunday and Emmy authorities used Social Media in a big way to promote the ceremony. NBC made use of Twitter to give users a more real time experience for one of the most watched award shows.

To get on to the “live and exclusive” bandwagon, NBC set up a special website whereby users can send tweets directly to the host for the night, Jimmy Fallon. Users could either get on to the website or use #imontheemmys hash tag to make sure their tweets reach the host. This year users got to introduce their favorite stars by sending their introductory tweets which were then used by host Jimmy Fallon. This was a great tactic to get users on to their televisions in hope of their tweet being the chosen one.

While showing the red carpet arrivals is common among all awards shows, the Emmy’s have gone a step further by showing a live stream of backstage action over their websites such as nbc.com, emmys.com and ustream.com. This tactic is a great compliment to the actual show and provides users with a live feed of the backstage action, press rooms etc.

Twitters yfrog service will also be getting in to “live” action by providing live pictures of the event in “real time” on to their website. Yfrog had also set up a booth at the venue where celebrities had to click pictures which would be updated instantly on the website.

Skeptics have called this a show strategy which would not result in relevant gains. However use of Social Media for the award function saw a rise in number of viewers by giving everyone a chance to get on the Emmy bandwagon. Users got an all round experience of the function and all this “real time” feed gave a perception of involvement which is a crucial part of any Social Media campaign.

Convonix Inc. is a dedicated SEO firm based in Mumbai, India. Launched in 2003, we offer comprehensive services in Social Media Optimization. We are one of the leading providers of SEO in India and provide values like expertise and in-depth research.

A recent study by several USA monitoring agencies has shown a remarkable 72% companies indulging in Social Media. The study by King Fish Media and its partners also showed that the companies wanted to increase its marketing budget in the coming years.

Social Media has become a coveted method of marketing due to its “human factor”. Most people are on social media networks to directly influence customers. Unlike traditional marketing and advertising, Social Media gives you the advantage of talking to your customers and having them revert back to you. This provides a more valid and personalized data. It is no wonder, therefore, that USA companies are increasing their social media budgets.

While initially social media received only 5.2 percent of the total marketing budget, companies are now planning to pool in an average of 9.9 percent of their total media towards social media marketing which will increase to almost 17.7 percent in the next 5 years.

The question however is where this budget would come from. While most major companies create a separate budget for social media activities, a majority of them shift funds from traditional marketing budget towards social media. This strategy works for those who do not have excess funds to create a new budget. Applying funds in appropriate measures to both social media and traditional media will help companies strike a right balance between the two.

Companies claim that 60 percent of the budget allocated to social media would go towards the “human interactive” activities like blogging, content development etc. while around 20 percent would go outside the company to other agencies, consultancies etc.

With the power of social media growing by the second, companies too are looking to ride the wave and get a piece of the pie. Before long social media will become the first choice in marketing to the target audience.

Convonix Inc. is a dedicated SEO firm based in Mumbai, India. Launched in 2003, we offer comprehensive services in Social Media Optimization. We are one of the leading providers of SEO in India and provide values like expertise and in-depth research.

At times even experienced Search Engine Optimization experts find servers to be a weird and mysterious entity. Servers play a key role in SEO and need to be fully understood for your Search Engine Marketing strategy to be effective.

The domain is an important place for you to start understanding SEO for your server. It is important to know if your server if it is a dedicated server or it is shared. Although dedicated servers cost more, they allow users to have a lot more control over their webpage. A domain that is hosted on multiple networks can have a load balancer to take users to the correct pages.

Sub domains are a separate issue as sub domains can be hosted anywhere. A “CNAME” DNS entry allows you to point a certain content or section of your page to another domain, by masking yours. For e.g. If you use a content delivery system like Amazon, you can transfer certain requests to their pages thereby reducing your site load and in turn increasing the page loading speed. While speed has always been an important part of any website, it is now becoming a criterion for search engine rankings.

Another area that servers play a critical role is SEO redirects. Although a 301-redirect can be easily done with a side-script; overall site-redirection happens at the server level. Microsoft has developed an SEO kit that provides various options to make SEO easier. In addition to web redirects, Search Engine Marketers must set up proper 404 redirects.

The location of the box is an important SEO factor. For multinational websites it is important for websites to give adequate signals to tie specific locations to their correct web page. For e.g. If you want to host a sub domain for your Indian site you can either set up the sub domain in India or have a .in hosted there.

On page Search Engine Optimization is the first step in your SEO efforts. Your webpage should be optimized in a way that it is both search engine and user friendly. If your on page SEO is strong, it gives you a higher chance of ranking better in search engines. Here are some tips that will help you with your on page optimization:

The title tag is one of the most important parts of your web page. Search Engine will recognize the Title as the head of your page. Hence it is important for Search Engine Marketers to optimize the title by using relevant keywords. Each page should ideally have its own unique title that in keyword rich. However it is important to keep your title short to avoid distracting users from the main content.

The description Meta tag is used to describe the content and theme of your webpage. Search Engines always display the Meta tag along with the Title in the Search Page results. Hence this description is an important step in Search Engine Optimization as it is responsible for driving traffic to the webpage. The number of characters in your description varies between search engines so it is important to keep your keywords placed early in your Meta Tag. These Meta Tags are primarily for human users so it is important for SEO experts to make sure it is interesting enough for users to come to the page.

Header Tags are basically the second most important element of a webpage after the title. Generally the page is structured to have a Title, followed by a Header Tag and then Sub headings. The Header tag must contain a general description of the page. Search Engines often rank the headings higher than the body of the page, therefore it is important for your relevant keywords to be present in this description.

On Page SEO is crucial for your web site rankings and should be planned well for it to rank high.

One of the most common mistakes that Social Media Optimizers face is deciding on the goals for the social media of their brand. Unless the goals set are right for the brand, the strategy will not be relevant. Most goals exist to solve an underlying problem. Once an SEO expert can identify the problem his client wants to tackle, then a strategy can be built around it.

There are 3 main aspects in which a brands problems may lie. Some brands may want to increase their sales and get more conversions for their brands. Another aspect is to get more audience attention. This is usually for brands that are starting out or developing. The third is customer loyalty. Brands want a loyal set of customers who will continue to use their product or service for a long time. Banks generally aim to build customer loyalty through their marketing campaigns.

Once the goal is set however the Search Engine Marketing expert must remember to set out a well defined plan and strategy to tackle those goals. Content is an important part of any well structured SEO strategy. If any brand thinks they can get away with poor content then they are mistaken.  Social Media Optimization may look like a lot of fun, but in truth it requires a lot of careful consideration to avoid being a complete waste.

Content is also important to get relevant traffic to your website. For any of your goals to be fulfilled effectively, relevant traffic needs to come on your site. For that they need interesting content that will get them to the site and convince them to convert.

It is important to define your target market effectively. A well defined target market will be the base of all your social media marketing campaigns and strategies.

A lot of brands indulge in Social Media to promote their business. However the most crucial thing to be kept in mind during Social Media Optimization is to make sure it is done right. More often than not SEO experts take the short cut and do not research the social media tools before applying them. What must be remembered is that Social Media Optimization is not just a passing fad. A proper plan or strategy must be created before jumping into it. Social Media provides a vast range of options at your fingertips, and a good Social Media Optimizer would construct a well thought out strategy to effectively use those tools.

One of the primary rules of social media is to avoid complete self promotion. Moderators do not take kindly to excessive self-promotion and may pull down your post or comment. Quite often Search Engine Marketing experts make the mistake of posting a well-crafted comment over several blogs or websites. This immediately attracts attention as spam and can be one of the reasons for the comment being removed.

One of the key points to remember is that Social Media does not have normal work hours like 9-6. If you want to run an effective social media campaign you need to maintain it constantly and keep it updated at regular intervals. It often happens that brands have a large number of followers but they do not reply to user comments and reviews. Over time the user will consider the brand to be boring and stop following it. This can be detrimental to your SEO efforts as you will stop receiving valuable user comments and reviews.

Do research on the amount of influencers your brand has. It is through these influencers that you will receive valuable responses that will help you with your Social Media Optimization activities.

Google has taken a recent step to appeal to small businesses by setting up a setup guide. This guide will help users get advice and tips on how to use Google Places and other Google sites. The tools are aimed towards Small and Medium businesses and this guide will prove to very beneficial for those getting started.

Google sites is a service that’s allows users to create simple and basic template based web sites that will a part of Google’s cloud infrastructure. This feature allows users to choose from templates that will suit their business and color scheme and create an easy and free website. With the help of this online guide users can now have answers to all their queries about using this site effectively. Google Sites works in tandem with other Google applications like Webmasters, Analytics and Ad Sense.

Another opportunity by Google for small and medium businesses is the availability of Google Places. Google Places allows businesses to claim their place on the Google Map and enables them to provide basic information like address, store timings, photos, payment methods, videos etc. Users of this feature can also upload information like menus and publish coupons. This feature is a great tool for small businesses looking to leverage their brand and gain popularity in the online circuit. While Google sites may not be used by businesses with their own website, Google Places is an ideal option for businesses wishing to create a local presence.

With the growth of importance of Google Sites and Google Places, the online guide comes as a welcome respite. In this fast paced world, users are often at a lack of time to figure out and understand features. Hence using this guide they can easily navigate through both Google Sites and Places and use it more effectively. This guide will also get more people opening up to using it with enhanced simplicity.

Convonix Inc. is a dedicated SEO firm based in Mumbai, India. Launched in 2003, we offer comprehensive services in Social Media Optimization. We are one of the leading providers of SEO in India and provide values like quality, speed and accuracy.