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Free Social Media Optimization Tools to Track and Promot | social media analysis tools 2015


Social Media Optimization in web terminology is nothing but promoting our blog or website by the help of social media network sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Stumble upon, Delicious and Pinterest etc. Presenting our blog on social media is as important as creating the quality content for it as it helps to bring more traffic to your blog.
SMO is the powerful weapon that many bloggers have used to recover their blogs which are hit by Google Panda and some other Google updates. Making the calculated social media optimization to your blog is the best method that brings constant traffic. In this post I have only discussed about free online social media optimization and SMO tracking tools but not about the paid services such as Hootsuite or Buffer which have many limitations for free users.
So here are some free social media monitoring and optimization tools to keep track of your blog’s social presence as well as promote your blog by SMO using share buttons toolbar.

Free Social Media Tracking Tools

coolsocial
Coolsocial.net is one of the best social media analyzer where you can easily come to know the overall social media strength of your blog. Just specify your blog URL and hit on “website analysis” button, instantly you will get the result page in which you will get Google+ shares, stumbles, facebook likes as well as shares, twitter tweets and followers and delicious shares in a cool pie chart. It also comes up with meta information, domain and server details of the blog.
Analyze your blog with Coolsocial.
SharedCount
sharedcount
SharedCount  is an online tool to analyze social media votes, it shows your blog’s or particular article’s Facebook shares , likes, comments, tweets, google+, pinterest pins, linked in shares, delicious bookmarks and stumble upon stumbles. It also allows you to add multiple URLs so that you can count social media votes of your various blog posts at once.
SharedCount is the best tool to calculate your blog’s social media presence, Check it out here.
PinAlerts
pinalerts
Pinterest is one of the major traffic generators for blogs and websites but how do you track the images pinned by your article? Don’t worry, PinAlerts is there to help you, it informs you whenever an image gets pinned from your blog for free. With PinAlerts you can easily track pinterest pins of your several blogs under a single account. Start tracking your pinterest pins over here.
TweetReach
tweetreach
TweetReach is tweet analyzer tool that let you know who are reading your tweets, here you can search for tweets by keyword, user name, phrase, tweet text and URL. Just create a free account in TweetReach to monitor your tweets and also get the quick snapshot reports. TweetReach comes handy especially when you want to monitor a campaign. Check it out here.

Free Social Buttons Toolbar for Social Media Optimization

ShareitGetit
shareitgetit
ShareitGetit is an online bulk social media optimization tool similar to ButtonSpace that can be used to promote your blog posts as well as websites on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn and Stumble upon.  ShareitGetit also accepts links from URL parameter so you can add websites or blog posts link in browser’s address bar separated by comma, here is an example http://shareitgetit.com?vote=www.myfirstsite.com,www.mysecondsite.com. This tool is a good platform for professional social media optimizer team who exchange links for SMO.
Give a try to ShareitGetit online bulk social media optimization tool.
ButtonSpace
buttonspace
ButtonSpace is a SMO toolbar which comes up with Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Stumble upon and Pinterest sharing buttons. It loads the specified website or blog post below the sharing buttons which helps to bring traffic. ButtonSpace supports URL parameter. Visit ButtonSpace website over here.

Top 40 SEO Blogs to Read in 2015


These are the top 40 SEO blogs you should read in 2014. I spent over 10 hours researching, reading, and interviewing people in the SEO industry to narrow down the best SEO blogs. I was actually a little surprised to see that quality SEO blogs are very rare. Much of what I came across was pure crap that contained overly optimized articles that were written for the quantity of content, rather than the quality.



The top 40 SEO blogs aren’t solely based on my personal opinion. In fact, part of the reason I wrote this post was to find more and better resources. Here are some of the criteria I used when deciding whether or not to include the blog in this top 40 list.


1 - The Moz Blog
Twitter: @moz

2. Search Engine Land
Twitter: @sengineland

3. QuickSprout
Twitter: @neilpatel

4. YouMoz
Twitter: @moz

5. Matt Cutts
Twitter: @mattcutts
6. SEOBOOK
Twitter: @seobook

7. Rand Fishkin
Twitter: @randfish

8. Search Engine Watch
Twitter: @sewatch

9. Search Engine Journal
Twitter: @sejournal
10. Bruce Clay
Twitter: @BruceClayInc

11. SEO by the Sea
Twitter: @bill_slawski

12. Search Engine Roundtable
Twitter: @seroundtable

13. Digital Relevance
Twitter: @drelevance

14. Daily SEO Blog
Twitter: @ManiKarthik

15. Copyblogger
Twitter: @copyblogger

16. David Naylor
Twitter: @davenaylor

17. Daily SEO Tip
Twitter: @DailySEO

18. UpCity
Twitter: @upcityinc

19. SEO Theory
Twitter: @seo_theory

20. ClickZ
Twitter: @clickz

21. Marketing Pilgrim

22. Search Engine Guide
Twitter: @sewatch

23. REELSEO
Twitter: @reelseo

24. Higher Visibility
Twitter: @highervis

25. Yoast
Twitter: @yoast

26. John Battelle’s Search Blog
Twitter: @johnbattelle

27. BacklinkO
Twitter: @Backlinko

28. OptimizePrime
Twitter: @OptimizePrime

29. SEOno
Twitter: @steviephil

30. WordStream
Twitter: @wordsteam

31. Zazzle Media
Twitter: @zazzlemedia

32. Koozai
Twitter: @koozai

33. SEO Nick
Twitter: @nick_eubanks

34. Kaiser the Sage
Twitter: @kaiserthesage

35. DejanSEO
Twitter: @dejanseo

36. Small Business Online Coach

37. iAcquire
Twitter: @iacquire

38. David Leonhardt’s SEO and Social Media Marketing
Twitter: @amabaie

39. siegemedia
Twitter: @siegemedia

40. SEO Gadget
Twitter: @seogadget

Benefits of Selecting a Custom Domain for Your Free Blog



 As a Blogger, whenever we start our Blogger journey, most of us pick BlogSpot.com or WordPress.com, as they are free, and our blogging investment is zero. This is always a safe way to start, but as a starter who is looking forward to creating a career in Blogging, this is a huge mistake. No doubt, self-hosted blogs are the best options for bloggers, who are looking forward to taking Blogging as a profession in the future. Though, in this post I’m not going to emphasize on benefits of self-hosted WordPress, but we will talk about custom domains.

Will be affected google search result when blogspot is redirecting to custom domain:


Now, let me give you example from basics, so all newbie can follow and understand why instead of using .blogspot or .WordPress.com domains or any other free domain name providers like .co.cc, .tk, they should invest minimum $2.51 (.in) to $11/year (.com, .org) for a domain name.
Many bloggers who blog using free blogging platforms eespecially blogger or WordPress usually don’t like to go to a custom domain rather they keep on blogging for years on the same sub-domain. They feel they are going to get the good amount of traffic or exposure and if everything goes well then plan for a custom-domain but it will be too late. In this post, I have mentioned few effects of not choosing a custom domain and few benefits of choosing a domain name early.
When I talk about choosing a domain, I meant havetop-level domain name like ShoutMeLoud.com, ShoutMeLoud.org, ShoutMeLoud.in and so on. I hope, by now you are clear about subdomains which you get from BlogSpot or WordPress and a TLD (Top level domain name).

Effects of delaying custom domain name:

  • If you blog for say one year and can draw handsome traffic, then your blog will have its Alexa rank and page rank. So when you switch to a custom domain you would not have the same page rank or same Alexa rank but you have to start from the beginning. Your new domain name will be treated as complete new start and despite search engine friendly migration from Blogger to WordPress, your Alexa stats and PR will start from ground 0.
  • When you search with your blog title, search engines will not index your newly added custom domain but for few days it would index your old blog address. It takes time for Google to pass on the link juice (after 301 redirection), from old sub-domain to new domain you have moved.
  • Have you got a feed at feed burner now if you want it for you new domain you need to have one more so you will have duplicates of your feed so definitely your subscribers would split into two groups.
  • Are you having accounts with Google analytics and webmaster tools then you need to update them too? Though, you can always use old analytic codes in a new domain, but as a Webmaster, I would not like to see the stats of new domain under the old name.
  • Even if you have submitted your sitemap, for brand new domain, you need to submit sitemap to all search engines again.
  • Need to update your blog address in all social networking sites and all profile, where you have listed your Domain name.
  • Sometimes we don’t get a custom domain of our choice as someone else would already have registered it. This is a headache, when you plan to shift from sub-domain to custom domain under your brand, and then you need to work on re-branding from ground level zero.

Benefits of having a custom domain:

  • You have a good exposure in search engines, which often like to index domains rather than subdomains like blogspot.com, blogspot.in or a WordPress.com
  • You can also increase your chances of getting an approval for your Adsense account. Check out, how Ankit got Adsense account  approval with one-month-old domain..
  • You can have your contact email like username@yourdomain.com rather than gmail or yahoo. This is free using Google apps and here is a complete guide on how to create Email ID for domain name using Google apps.
  • You can publicize your domain name with ease rather than saying a long domain with blogspot.com or WordPress.com in the end.
Moreover, you will have a brand name from day one. Even here at ShoutMeLoud, when Harsh started his blog, he started with a BlogSpot blog under name virgintech, but later when he migrated to WordPress, he could not get TLD under name Virgintech but he got lucky with name ShoutMeLoud. Well, in your case, you are lucky enough to learn from pro mistakes and instead of waiting for long, you can grab a top level domain right away.

How to choose a custom domain.

  • See that you always choose smaller domain names rather than longer ones because people often remember smaller names and not long names.
  • Never choose a hard spelled domain name as it makes users land on someone else page. So see that you choose easily spelled domain names.
  • When changing your subdomain to a custom domain never change the entire blog name see that you choose exactly the same name which your blog has if at all it is not available  then go for small alterations but not large ones, you may have chances of loosing your regular branded traffic.
  • If you move your Blogging platform (Blogger to WordPress) (WordPress.com to Self hosted WordPress), make sure you go with 301 perma-redirection, so you can change name and don’t lose any search engine traffic.
And once you have understood the science of picking the best name for your domain, here are domain name suggestion tools, which will help you in mind-mapping and picking up a best name for your domain.
You can buy the domain name from  ShoutMyDomain or Godaddy. If you are using BlogSpot, this complete DIY guide will help you to add the custom domain to your blog.
adding domain to BlogSpot
Similarly, you can add domain from WordPress.com admin dashboard though I would always suggest using self-hosted WordPress instead of free WordPress.com blogs. You can refer to WordPress guide to getting started with it.
Now I think you might have got an idea of why a newbie blogger should start on his blog journey with a custom domain rather than free sub domains given by the blogging platforms.

How to Make Your Blog Posts SEO-Friendly | 9 Killer Blogspot SEO Tips For bloggers



How to make Google fall in love with your article.

Why do you need a blog post that is super SEO friendly? Well, because we all wish that every time we write a new blog post, it quickly ranks well for the main keywords, and we immediately get lots of traffic. Yes, we can share our post to social networks to get a boost in traffic, but that’s a only short term solution. Having a search optimized blog post that ranks well will help you reach audiences for a much longer period of time.
This step by step guide aims to teach you how to make your blog articles SEO friendly. It’s especially helpful for webmasters who are beginners and want to DIY Search Engine Optimization for their site.
I will be focusing on the WordPress blogging platform (since it’s the most popular), and I will be using “How to cook fried rice” as an example of an article I’m trying to optimize.

Step 1: Write a post that you are proud to share with the internet. Aim for excellence.

The single most important rule is to write a really good piece of content. This is by no means easy, but it can potentially render the next few steps redundant. If you write every piece of article knowing your competitors and potential customers are judgingyou based on the content, you’ll naturally put in more effort in coming up with better content. Because it’s highly unlikely that regular webmasters like us can easily churn out the best damn articles ever, it’s much smarter to just aim to create something that’s better than the existing ones.
Here is a dirty trick. Before you start writing, Google the topic you are about to write to look at existing resources.
how to cook fried rice search
What can you do to make your post better than theirs?

  • Are they lacking in details? Add more details.
  • Are they lacking in pictures? Add more images.
  • Do they have outdated information? Add updated information.
  • Do you have more to add? Make your article longer. (In fact,a study showed that the average content length for a web page that ranks in the top 10 results for any keyword on Google has at least 2,000 words.)
Using a SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) analysis, you can come up with a pretty good plan to craft a better blog post. Now that you’ve got a good idea of how to write good content, here comes the technical part.

Step 2: Keyword in the title + makes it catchy!

The best titles 1) let readers know what they are reading, 2) let search spiders understand the general topic, and 3) entice people to click through to read. There is high SEO value in adding the targeted keywords in the title. It is one of the main on-page ranking factors for search engines like Google.
keyword in title
A title consisting of only targeted keywords would be boring. Add your own twist to it so potential readers can’t help but click on your link. Here’s a pretty easy guide to follow.

Step 3: Know the guidelines for keyword placements

SEO consultants have come a long way from the dark ages of recommending webmasters to stuff keywords all over the place. Your blog post has to be SEO friendly AND human friendly as well. Keywords still play a big part in search engine ranking factors though. Here are some guidelines of where to place your main keywords. Remember: these are not rules set in stone. Overall flow of the content should be natural.
Keyword in URL 
Separate your keywords with hyphens, and try to keep your URL as short as possible.
keyword in url
Keyword in headings
Headings are the <h1>, <h2> HTML tags that help to break a content into sections. Think of them as subheadings that help guide the reader along main points of an article. Use keywords in headings when it makes sense to.
keywords in headings
Keywords near the start of the article
Here’s the thing about search engines. When they send their spider minions to crawl a web page, they scan from top to bottom. Putting main keywords near the start of the article helps these guys understand the topic quicker, and reminds them that “the article is about this“. Sorry for the simplistic analogy, and as always, use this method when it feels natural.
Variations of keywords repeated 2-3 times throughout the article
Don’t do this.
ugh
ugh
Humans aren’t stupid. Search engines aren’t stupid either. While it’s important to help search engines understand important content on your page, overdoing it can result in a penalty. Use variations of the keywords. Try using different synonyms. Be natural.

Step 4: Add images, videos, gifs

Nowadays, having a plain old text article is just boring. With social sharing driving increased traffic, you want to make your content as  share-worthy as possible. Adding images and videos really do help break up the monotony. Better yet – use gifs! Furthermore, people searching for images might stumble upon your article because of the embedded image.
“Oh, so I just add images and that’s it?”
Credit: www.reactiongifs.com
What you have to do is to make sure relevant keywords are present in the image <alt> tag.
image options
Click on the image in your editor, and you might find additional options (for WordPress).
keyword in alt tag
Under Alternative Text, that is where you have to fill in the appropriate keywords.

Step 5: Link to your older, relevant posts

Also known as internal linking, linking to your own posts should be a priority. I actually covered similar points in one of my older articles about easy ways to increase traffic. See what I just did😉 ?
Internal linking helps to pass “link juice” from one page to another; that is, when another site links to your article, the pages that you linked to will also get some of the SEO benefits! You can also direct some traffic to past articles which are collecting virtual dust somewhere on your site.
In WordPress, you only need to highlight a phrase that you want to use as the anchor text, and click the “Insert/edit link” in the toolbar. Either manually insert the URL of your older post, or use the search function to find a relevant page.
insert linkAdd New Post

Step 6 : Link FROM your older posts

While on the topic of internal linking, why stop at only linking TO your older posts? The benefits go both ways, and in fact, you can help your newer article gain some “link juice” from your older articles by linking FROM them. Not only will people discover your new article when they read your older posts, your newer article might get a boost in search visibility if the articles you are linking from have high link authority.
Here’s a little hack: you can use the same search function mentioned previously to find old posts that contain keywords related to your current article. Type in variations of your targeted keyword and select articles that you think you can link from.

Step 7: Link to credible, authoritative sources

While there is no hard proof that linking out (external linking) to other websites directly affect your own ranking, I am a firm believer in its intrinsic value. Think of it as building good internet karma.
I’d explain why, but I think this article does a better job of explaining why linking out can be good for your own SEO. Also useful to know is WHEN you should link out.
Basically, you are providing a good experience for your readers while laying the foundations for beneficial relationships with other credible sites. When you reference another site, link to them. When you use someone else’s image, link to them.

Step 8: Assign categories and tags

Categories.
When you assign categories, you group content into similar themes. This provides a good way for readers to find articles under a topic they are interested in, and helps search engines understand which contents are closely related to one another.
using categories
For Categories, limit each blog post to a maximum of 2 categories. In the case for our article, it would be best to file it under “Rice recipes”. Limiting your categories also ensures a focused theme.

Tags.
While Categories are broader concepts, Tags are more specific to each post. Think of Tags as your website’s index: short keywords that point to you the articles that used them.
tags usage
For our fried rice recipe, using “rice” as a tag is one option. I might consider “eggs”, or “fried” as good tags too. While Tags aren’t as limited as Categories, you should take heed not be abuse them. 3-4 tags per post is plenty already.

Step 9: Make your meta description pop!

This final step before you publish your post might not be a direct ranking factor, but it affects whether people are likely to click on your link on search results page. Meta descriptions are typically displayed on search engines as the snippet of text below the clickable links.
Consider the following example (click to enlarge).
how to cook fried rice Google Search meta description
To bring the attention to the meta description, I blurred out the Titles. You can see how the more useful meta descriptions are the ones that provide a clearer idea of the content I can expect to read, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the ones with better descriptions rank higher.

One thing I have to point out is that you don’t have to always have to fill in the meta description. Google will automatically pick out pick out a section of your content to display to searchers, based on what it thinks is most relevant to what the person is searching for. The drawback is, Google only points out certain keywords, and it definitely lacks the ability we have to make the description interesting.
Take note of these few points when writing your meta description:
  • Restrict the length of it to around 150-160 characters.
  • Including your main keywords is always helpful.
  • Think of what the searcher wants to know, and pitch your point across concisely.
  • All meta descriptions should be unique.
For WordPress CMS users, you can edit your meta description if you install a plugin like WordPress SEO by Yoast. After installing and activating the plugin, you should be able to see this option below where you normally write your posts. Simple!
meta description editing
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