Search engine location, location, location

Although many people might think so, Google is not magic. The search engine and ones like it need a way to actually scrounge up results when users are looking for something. They parse through the title, content, and code of the sites to find the most relevant to a searcher's query. Publishers on the web can take advantage of this process through Search Engine Optimization.

Effective SEO will take a site to the top of search results when it is relevant, and thereby drive traffic to the site and make it more profitable or effective. A recent article in the New York Times discusses the new jobs that are developing as companies working on the web try to utilize this strategy. The article says that, most importantly, SEO includes "identifying appropriate keywords for search engines like Yahoo or Google to home in on, and adding them to a Web site’s programming code."

Social Bookmarking sites, according to Wendy Boswell of about.com, are "sites that allow users to post their favorite sites, using tags (or keywords) to categorize and organize them; then other users can take these bookmarks and add them to their own collection or share them with even more users." Basically, they are "look what I found!" services for people to mark sites that are worthwhile for others to look at (and comment on, in the case of digg).

If someone picks up on your site through social bookmarking, there's the potential for it to explode. This is a lot more promising than social networking like Facebook and Twitter. On sites like these, you'd be required to either make a page and try to reach out to individual people, or just hope that people tell their friends/followers about your site. This is a pretty big "if" if you're a corporation looking to get people to start talking about your site. This will happen if you have unique, buzz-worthy content. No amount of social self-promotion will help you if your site sucks.

Ideally, a great strategy will incorporate Search Engine Optimization from the get go, using strategically planned terms and keyworks in the code in order to get the site to come up in search results. Worthwhile content will power the social movement, although a little shameless self promotion through Bookmarking sites, Facebook, and Twitter can't hurt.