We listed things every website must have, tips for landing pages, and ways to engage your readers, so now we want mash all of that up into a new idea, integrating your social campaign with your main website.

#1 – Add live streaming content to your website.
Your visitors want to know that what they are looking at is the newest most current information. Give your site a fresh look by adding an RSS feed from a continually updating data source.

For example: Add your Twitter feed to your homepage. Check out the Twitter widgets for an easy way to display your Twitter updates on your website.

BONUS TIP: Try adding an RSS feed from a popular news source that publishes content about your industry. Like Digg or CNN.

#2 – Add social features to your website.
Offer your visitors a way to connect and interact other than just a phone number or a contact form. While you may not want to offer comments on your site a good alternative would be to add a Get Satisfaction profile to your website. It’s a great way to help connect your customers to your business.

#3 – Add social buttons to your website.
A critical component to facilitating an online conversation about your services or products is to offer your visitors a way to easily share your content with others. An easy “email this” button or bookmark button might be the difference between a visitor sending your website to a friend or adding it to their own social bookmarking site. Try addthis.com, it is a clean easy to install button that features all of the major social bookmarking sites.

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We’ve discussed the benefits of having a content platform on your website that publishes new content on a regular basis. Continually refreshing and new content (like a blog) is:

• Preferred by search engines
• A great way to achieve high rankings in search engines
• Indexed (searched) faster than static content
• More up-to-date than static content

And now Google has given us another reason to recommend adding a blog to your online marketing campaign. As you can see in the screen shot below, Google now offers a new search option called for recent results.

When a searcher chooses the option for recent results, the typical search results for keywords are replaced with the most recent blog and new articles.

There are varying ranges of dates, but in the example below we chose to see the most recent results.

As you can see, the top 5 search results were all posts that were made in the last 24 hours. If you repeat this same search one day later, you will see a new top 5 search results. That’s because the most optimized and most recent blog posts are always going to at the top of the Google search result page.

If you are unfamiliar with the term “refreshing content”, it simply means something that is new or fresh on a constant basis. Here are a few example of refreshing content.

• Blog that is updated at least 3-5 times a week
• New product page that updates often
• Weekly specials page
• Newsletter page
• Company news page that updates a few times a month
• RSS feed from your Twitter or other social networking site

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The other day I was explaining to someone why a blog is such a good idea for a business that is trying to optimize their website for search engines. I used the word “refreshing content” and I got a blank stare. They had no idea what I meant.

So if you too are confused by the term “refreshing content”, here’s an explanation.

Refreshing content is NOT

• An article that makes you happy
• Served with chilled, bottled water
• A type of coffee drink
• Good news about the economy
• Edible

Refreshing content is

• Preferred by search engines
• A great way to achieve high rankings in search engines
• Indexed (searched) faster than static content
• More up-to-date than static content

Examples of refreshing content would be a

• Blog that is updated at least 3-5 times a week
• New product page that updates often
• Weekly specials page
• Newsletter page
• Company news page that updates a few times a month
• RSS feed from your Twitter or other social networking site

Refreshing content is not only for preferred by search engines, visitors like to see that your website has been updated recently. People like to know that what they are reading is relevant and current. People don’t Tivo CNN’s headline news. They want to know the latest information and if you provide a steady stream of information not only will the search engines find your site to be more relevant, but your visitors will also find your site to be more useful.

Keep in mind, refreshing content is important for search engine optimization (SEO), however I would not recommend this strategy for search engine marketing (SEM). Best result for SEM would be to use a landing page.

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