1. When you login to Mixx or visit the domain (depending on your browser setup) you automatically see how your stories are performing and you can see what stories have been submitted by your friends.

2. The submission process is clean and friendly, I could quite happily sit down and submit hundreds of stories, photos and videos without feeling confused.

3. It’s easy to create a good friend and fan base, and your friends are displayed in your account page.

4. Karma points encourage Mixx users to interact, be nice, start conversations and be part of the community.

5. You can buy Mixx products, such as a stylish Mug, all your co-workers will know where you go to bookmark, drink with pride!

6. The Mixx lounge and tools are easily accessible at the bottom of the page giving you access to feeds and other Mix goodies.

7. They have a unique social awards system to once again encourage people to be active and friendly!

None of these features are particularly mind blowing or revolutionary but the way the site is put together it adds a sense of well being to the site. I’m yet to see the harassment of members by others, it reminds me of stumble when it first started.

Mixx is already a fast growing social bookmarking site but with these features standing out to me I can see very big things for Mixx in 2008!

Guest Post from “Nick James” (Swags2804)

Firstly I’d like to thank Matt for giving me the opportunity to make my voice heard over here. I appreciate it immensely.

Matt recently ran a small competition to compile a list of sage SEO tips that would be valid for 2008. His own suggestion was:

“Whatever industry your business is in your website will benefit from starting a company blog written by employees. As well as providing unique fresh content for your site this will open up opportunities in terms of networking and trust building…”

It’s a point that I agree wholeheartedly with, for the unprecedented success of blogs, blogging and various forms of social media have opened up an array of marketing opportunities away from just the old school, traditional SEO.

Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying for an instant that traditional SEO no longer has a place or is of any less importance. It can never be drummed into heads too many times that all those ‘repeated cliches’ about title tags, keywords, content, inbound links, and all the rest, are ‘repeated cliches’ for the simple fact that at present they do have a bearing on where a website ranks in the SERPs. SEO can affect a website’s performance although obviously not control where it will eventually land up within the hallowed halls of Google Search.

But as a means of bringing traffic into a website, the search engines are no longer the be-all and the end-all. In fact, they have even made their own forays into the world of social media with varying, if far from astounding degrees of success, because at present their existence is governed by the end-user utilising their search boxes in the hope of finding the most relevant replies to their requests: content that is produced and supplied by other users, not Google or the other portals.

But I digress. Back to the original point and that of starting a blog. This particular tidbit of advice is in fact a two-edged sword with regards to SEO. But a nice two-edged sword…

In fact it could be seen as ‘the gift that keeps on giving’, so to speak.

Firstly, if regularly updated with unique and informative content, Google will take note and increase the rate at which it crawls your website specifically to keep up with all these little gems you’re casting out into the cyber-latticework of the internet. At present a continual turnover in the content of your website is seen as good and aids in ranking issues, specifically over a website that may be targeting the same keywords as you, but has remained stagnant since its inception.

But there’s more. If a blog is continually providing this type of informative content and is being successfully promoted through social networks and bookmarking sites, then it will receive an influx of traffic and inevitably a steady reader base and subscriptions. This in turn will increase your blogs standing through the various networks as more and more people bookmark various articles or submit its content, making it available to their own group of friends and so on and so on, ad infinitum.

This will attract plenty of one-way, naturally formed, inbound links, the holy grail of SEO - the only downside of this scenario being the general inability to choose your anchor text - and hey presto, there’s suddenly all these other blogs and websites pointing their digital fingers at your pages. Taking into account that this hasn’t happened overnight and not all the inbound link text is identical, a search engine might just think… “Hmm… All these other sites pointing to this one. These boys must be good. Authority’s even. I’ll give them a foot-up through the rankings.”

It’s like a vicious circle, except it isn’t particularly vicious. Not even mildly perturbed. More of a warm and fluffy one. Social media providing a comfy chair for SEO to take the weight off its feet for a moment or two and let somebody else do the work.

But that’s just a basic outlay of the benefits a blog can have for a business and what counts in particular, people visiting the website and eventual conversions.

But that is not all. I’ve never been one to say in a short, sweet and succinct sentence what can also be said in twenty pages of rambling nonsense, which is probably why my application for staff editor at ‘Monosyllabic Monthly’ was swiftly turned down, but the title of this post refers to a onetime funny man of these shores: a certain Frank Carson and in particular his famous catchphrase.

All right, he wasn’t actually of these shores being from Northern Ireland, but what’s a small splash of water (the Irish Sea) between friends?

In his prime Frank Carson, like myself, could ramble for England (or Northern Ireland) but amidst his continuous patter of banter and bumble there was always the razor-sharp delivery of gags. As he would continually remind us, “It’s the way I tell ’em”. Which finally, is what I’m trying to get at with this post.

If you’re not an already established blogger or an authority site, how the deuce do you get yourself noticed above all the other blogs and noise in your niche vying for the same attention? Well disregarding any ‘black hat’ techniques to promote your blog, providing a unique voice with which to deliver your content is a must. Just take the common or garden SEO blog for instance; there are only so many times you can go on about the irrelevance of metatags before it’s drowned out beneath the clamour of everybody else saying or having said the same thing. Of course, there are a multitude of other topics to discuss within SEO, but if you’ve not carved out your particular recess or found a distinctive voice by which to brand yourself, then that groundbreaking item of search news that you’ve spent months researching for and testing against - the one that was set to be guaranteed, solid gold link bait - might pass by unnoticed, or even worse be picked up upon by a more renowned yet less scrupulous blogger who proceeds to steal your thunder and bask in the glory that was rightfully yours (masses of unadulterated, organically formed, one-way links).

If, however, you have successfully cultivated a unique voice and a unique style of writing, then it will give you some leverage with which to attain that extra few inches to raise ourself above the crowd. A rather tall hat can be as equally effective…

But wait there just one moment, young man! Just who the devil are you to tell us about unique voices and writing styles? What exactly have you achieved?

Well nothing really. And I’m certainly no authority on blogging, with an audience of thousands waiting upon my every word. But I know what I like and what I look for in the blogs that inhabit my feed. And I can only carry on with my particular style and hope it keeps a steady readership both informed and entertained.

A blog is a powerful marketing tool, but as I’ve said before it shouldn’t be just that. Its upkeep should be taken seriously, for if you take it seriously, remain genuine, and don’t regard it as solely a way of earning a few extra shillings, then your readership will start to grow and return your commitment with their loyalty.

You have to set yourself apart from the crowd if you wish to be heard. In a cutthroat world where success or failure can depend on the turn of a coin, so to speak, you have to have that something that sets your voice apart from the clamour fighting for the same attention all around you.

So the next time you sit down to write that post on ‘10 Things Danny Sullivan Eats For Breakfast’, remember, “It’s the way you tell ‘em.”

I recently got into a discussion with a blogger who stated that any kind of social media work was not considered seo. I for one have to disagree with him, rather than email him my complete thoughts I have decided to write about it here.

Search Engine Optimization is what it says. You are optimizing something for search engines, period. This obviously involves the following (in no particular order);

1. Site architecture
2. Code optimization
3. Appropriate tagging
4. Content optimization
5. Keyword research
6. URL structures
7. Internal link structure
8. Link building
9. Redirects
10. Domains
11. Analytics analysis
12. Benchmarking

Now I perform and promote the use of social media campaigns as part of my overall seo strategy because it gets results! The list below includes additions I consider to be social media but what should be considered in an seo strategy.

1. Blog setup (including bookmarking plugins etc)
2. Social Bookmarking
3. Social networks
4. Community activity
5. Link baiting

Basically these additions to an seo strategy would help with optimizing a site for search engines. The blog would provide regular content updates, and the others would provide opportunities to generate natural links that search engines love.

It seems to be that “link building” these days should be considered as “social media” as old link building methods have now become near useless for producing results!

As some of you may already know, Sphinn is the Digg equivalent for the SEO, SEM, and SMM (search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and social media marketing) industry. To many of us industry types, its really important.

Benefits of Sphinn:

For the most part, Sphinn serves many functions;

a) its a training ground for SMM, before we move up to Digg, Reddit, Propeller, Mixx, etc.

b) its a good tool for getting known in the industry, and for starting to brand yourself

c) its good for developing relationships with other industry types, many of which can be leveraged on other social media (hint, hint)

d) its a great tool to stay in touch with the latest news and opinions on industry matters.

Notice however, that 3 of the 4 identified benefits are heavily influenced by one’s ability to have posts ‘go hot’ and appear on the main page. This of course means, many people in our industry stand to benefit greatly by hitting the main page of Sphinn. As is typical too, a few account for a disproportionately high % of the ‘gone hots’.

So, as important as it is, how does someone new to the industry start to hit the homepage of Sphinn to experience all the above benefits and elevate their profile? Its a chicken vs egg dilemma really. Fortunely, Danny and crew have made some changes recently to make it easier for everyone to hit the homepage … if you just know how to use them to your benefit.

So What Has Sphinn Changed? Actually, Sphinn has made a number of changes, but the two biggest are:

1) The addition of the “Top 10 Most Sphunn in What’s New” table to each page

2) The “Latest Comments” table to each page

How Do These Changes Affect Front Page Tactics?:

Essentially, the above changes accomplish Sphinn’s goal, and do make it easier for everyone to make a story go hot. You still need to follow the standard practices (for a great post on these tactics … check out ‘How to Dominate Sphinn in 4 Easy Steps‘), forging friends, voting, commenting, submitting the stories of others, and in general being part of the community, but now there are more tools in your toolbelt. Specifically, here’s how the most recent changes at Sphinn can be used to your benefit.

1) if you’ve got 10 to say 15 votes for your story already and it seems to be lagging (remember you’ve only got 36 hours from time of submission to make your story go hot), call in a few favors to get the minimum number of votes needed to show your story in the “Top 10 Most Sphunn …” table. Once there, and assuming the piece is good quality, I’d suggest 95% of stories go hot. I’m not an advocate of calling in favors on Sphinn, but when you’re new, sometimes you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do … just until your profile is elevated somewhat.

2) Use the comment section to your benefit. The first place I goto whenever I goto Sphinn is the Comment table, and I know others do too. Don’t know why, but I love to look at the comments. So … use that to your advantage. Comment more. By commenting more (obviously well thought out comments rather than generic one liners like “nice post”), you draw more attention to yourself and your submissions. At the same time, make certain your comment is catchy, and stands out from the rest of the comments. Ideally, the comment would begin with a catchy ’sound bite’ that entices people to click on it (see screenprint below … which grab your attention? 2 are mine. Hint … one uses multiple ‘!’s, and the other talks about ‘magic beans’). If you comment on your own submission, you can then draw more attention to it once it begins to stagnate.

Summary:

In the end, these are only tactics, and are no substitute for being a valued and active member of the community. The fundamentals are still the same … participate and make friends. While trying to establish a name for yourself though, sometimes its necessary to resort to more agressive tactics such as those mentioned above.

Drop me a note and say ‘hi’ next time you’re on Sphinn. Happy Sphinning!

The preceding post was guest authored by Jeff Quipp of Search Engine People. Any guesses where I became acquainted with Jeff?

Stage 1 - Research

The first stage of a successful social media strategy should involve identifying industry related areas of the web that will provide opportunities to create a buzz online for your clients industry. These include looking at niche social bookmarking sites, blogs, forums and social networking sites. You should have records kept on file of what sites work well for which industries, this will save you time in the long run, this file will eventually get very large (trust me!).

Stage 2 – Registrations

Once sites have been identified that meet the projects criteria the long registration process entering clients details in profiles takes place. This will usually involve entering a “homepage” URL, company logo and a brief summary of what the company’s goals are. Any additional promotional material would also be useful to help build up the brand within the different communities.

Stage 3 – Building trust

The key to creating a successful social media strategy is the relationships you build and the trust that you earn. When suggesting sites or information it should not immediately be the clients site or link bait, it should consist of industry related material. Commenting on related blogs, starting forum threads about the industry should also be created. This should be maintained for a period of time before moving on to the next stage. You should take a genuine interest what you comment on and write about, no-one likes a fibber!

Stage 4 – Release link bait

Once there is a level of trust associated with the company profile that is the time when the link bait or urls should be posted. Using this method will ensure that the information that is posted will not be labeled as spam by the various site administrators or site owners. By this time the profiles created will already hold some weight within the various communities which will ensure a level of traffic.

Stage 5 – Generate traffic + links

Once the urls and link bait have been posted this should immediately create incoming traffic to the client’s site or landing page. The secondary goal of such a strategy or possibly primary goal depending on client will be the natural links generated as a result of such a strategy. If like minded users find the link bait interesting then by all accounts they should then bookmark the link on their own social media site, be it a blog, social bookmarking site or forum. This will additionally create more incoming traffic to the site and generate a number of links that will help with the clients search engine positions for selected keywords.

Stages 3, 4 and 5 should be maintained over a longer period of time to keep impacting the search engine results positions. If this is not repeated throughout an extended time period then the increase in search engine positions will only be temporary.

By the way it’s my Birthday today so wohoo to me!