Search engines are the gold mine of driving traffic to any website. So everyone with an e-commerce site needs to stay on, top of marketing trends that will ensure their website is in proper positioning for search engine results.

Catherin Seda, internet marketing strategist form DriveTrafficToday.com notes that some trends in e-marketing do well to help websites get naturally higher rankings. She indicates that these are easy to use, but they are also powerful tools that attract search engine spiders once you supply them with the content they want. Here are some of the most effective tools you can use to get the spiders to note your website.

1. Blogging

Blogging will give your website a boost in search engine rankings. It also provides you with a lot of exposure to traffic that is highly targeted. You can create your blog as well as you can post helpful information tips on blogs that will help your demographic. In the latter, you can gain excellent backlinks to your website driving traffic there.

You can start slowly by using websites like IceRocket.com and BlogPulse.com where you can search for blogs in your niche market. Then you can post comments that users will find useful and link them back to your website.

2. Social Networking

With the use of social networking websites, you can share information in a community environment. For example, Flickr is a photo sharing website while YouTube allows you to share videos. Each site or app will have a significant consumer base giving you a chance to reach a vast consumer base.

With these communities, you can make use of viral marketing which can get you even more exposure and more traffic. When you post something, and one user sees it. They can like and share it with their friends providing you with even more exposure than your initial post itself.

Social Media should be a big part of your marketing and does affect your ranking in the search engines. Each profile you have online is a standalone page to each community. Each of these pages will rank in search engines, and you can link back to your website from each of these.

3. Article Distribution and Press Releases

Writing articles and press releases and submitting to websites such as newsforce.com or prweb.com can strengthen your position on the web. If you are new to writing, you will be happy to find that both of these websites offer tools to help you achieving search engine optimised pieces.
The more content you can get on the internet the more attractive you will be to the spiders. For less than $100 you can send out a press release that can get picked up by some blogs and websites.

You can get statistical reports with many PR services that will measure your advertising dollars so you can stay abreast of your success.
Gaining a good position in search engine rankings doesn’t have to be hard. You just need to put the things you do already into regular practice. These resources are at your disposal, and with simple techniques, you can get your presence noticed and increased your profits.

To prevent this happening and to ensure you’re always pumping out fresh content to your social media followers – have a social media content schedule.

What do I mean by this?

Ok start with a goal. Examples include:

• Post once a day on all forms of social media for an entire month
• Run a promotion on Facebook to encourage people to share and like page
• 500 Facebook likes by the end of the month
• Respond to all responses/interaction from people

Pick whichever you want, something regular and achievable. Do something simple to begin with and if you carry it out then build on it for the following month.

Say you pick the first one. Experiment with 20-30 words (keep it short and sweet). Print out a month-view calendar if you like writing or use excel if you love spreadsheets. Write one topic or idea on each day of the month (i.e. days 1-30)

Think about the month ahead (e.g. November). What public holidays or events take place in this month? Doesn’t have to be restricted to the country you are in.

Make a list of topic ideas for tweets and Facebook posts; two-three words which you can expand upon. For example: Spring Carnival; Start of Summer; Christmas; Thanksgiving. Brainstorm different content which is themed and appropriate for the season.

• It makes sense that you wouldn’t talk about bikinis and summer weather in May or June; a better idea would be to promote that great new scarf you got and how it has a really cool pattern – “visit our website to get your own”.

Don’t just spam people with promoting your business; share interesting thoughts, a funny joke, a cool picture or a thoughtful quote. Build a relationship and online network with your followers. Don’t just try and sell them stuff all the time. Of course let them know when you’re having a sale or when you get in new products or when you’re featured in the media. Mix it up so that it appeals to more people (keeping your target market in mind).

Once you have your month of content prepared, set a reminder so that you release the content required for each day. Do it as you drink your morning coffee (or tea). Also try releasing tweets at different times during the day to test responses. See when the ‘peak’ time is for your followers and post then.

Remember to integrate hash tags and keywords so that your tweets are searchable by your audience. Research what the current hot topics are and target these.

After the month has finished analyse the results. What response did you get? Did you achieve your goal? Ask your followers what they thought of your content – could you tailor it better to suit their needs?

Keep doing what you did well for the next month (draw up another month schedule) and brainstorm new ways to reach your audience. It doesn’t take long, especially if you nut it out on the first day of the month – the rest of the time you can just cruise (I mean complete other business tasks!).

Our crew at Brown Paper can help you do this and can also set up an eCommerce store for you. We have packages for all budgets and provide a range of services.