Mobile SEO is a common misnomer in both the search and mobile industries. It simply doesn’t exist.

Why? When most people say “Mobile SEO,” what they really mean is local SEO. They’re talking about optimizing your website for users on their mobile phones doing searches on the go. For example, if you own a pizza shop and someone types in “Pizza” when they’re in your city, you want your result to show up first.

Is Local SEO the Same as Mobile SEO?

Yes. 

If you’ve been working in the internet industry for some time, it can be easy to underestimate how much specialized knowledge you actually have. Before teaching someone how to build links, you’ll often have to go over a lot of things that you consider basic.

All that said, here’s how to take a brand new link builder and turn them into a pro.

Basic Training

The first step to teaching someone link building is to teach them the fundamentals.

What is a high quality link? What is PageRank? What is anchor text? What is the difference between an in-body link and a footer link, the difference between a no follow link and a do follow link?

The best way to teach them the basics of link building is to expose them to concepts gradually. Don’t just dump a 200 page eBook on them or send them to read 50 articles. Instead, teach them one concept a day or have them read one article a day while they’re learning the rest of what they need to know.

Software and Procedure

Next teach them about all the software they’ll need to know how to use, the basic procedure and linkbuilding techniques that you plan on employing.

Have them watch you do it several times before asking them to do it for themselves. A few of the most important things to cover include:

• Data gathering tools. Tools to check PageRank, tools to check traffic, tools to check nofollow status of backlinks and so forth. Make sure they know how to use the tools and have the tools installed on their own computers.
• Status of current projects. What kind of links are you targeting right now? What are the bottlenecks and what are the next steps? What was the mentality or philosophy that went into cultivating these links?
• Linkbuilding tools. Make sure they know how to use any tools necessary in the actual link building process. The exact tools depend on your methodology, but can include social media submitters, backlink checkers, content spinners, etc.
• How to find and make contact with websites. Walk them through the process and make sure they understand what it’s like before trying it themselves.

Teaching Them the Sales Sequence

The first 30 days on the job will usually give you enough information about the candidate that you’ll be able to tell whether or not they’ll succeed in the long run.

Though technical skills can be taught to a lot of people, the most important skill when it comes to linkbuilding is sales. The ultimate question is: Can this trainee convince other people to link to your website?

Within about 30 days, you should be able to find out.

Teaching your candidate the sales sequence depends should be part theory part practice. In the beginning, you’ll want to hold their hand through the process. Once they know what the process looks like, you’ve got to let them go to see whether they sink or swim.

The most important aspects to cover in the sales sequence include: 1) Finding potential sites to get links from, 2) Researching those sites, 3) Making the initial contact and 4) Closing the deal.

Throughout the whole process your trainee needs to be keeping great notes. If they hit a block in the road, it might make sense to have another team member take over the correspondence. If that happens, they need to know exactly how to pick up where the first person left off.

Do several links together in the beginning to make sure they understand everything from front to back. Then give them a few assignments and have them report back. Finally, once they’re up and running, create a set of metrics that you want to track and let them do their job, using you as a resource if they have any questions.

Launching an eBook is much like launching any other product. You first need to do extensive market research to make sure you’re creating a product that people want to buy. Then you need to spend a lot of time creating a good product, so that people who buy it will buy again in the future. Finally, you need to market the product well so that your target audience knows about its existence.

Here’s how to write, launch and sell your informational eBook.

Before You Write a Single Word

Before you write a single word, you need to do your market research.

Doing your market research involves figuring out exactly who your target audience is. Once you know your audience, you then need to figure out what they want.

Your audience should be a very specific group of people. For example, if you’re selling a weight loss product, “women” is far, far too generic. Instead, you might want to go for something like women in their 30’s who are about 40 pounds overweight. You might even want to go more specific than that: Housewives in their 30’s, 40 pounds overweight.

This gives you a very specific market to cater to. It allows you to market to your highest ROI market segment.

Once you know who you’re talking to, the next step is to figure out what they want. There are a few ways to do this.

You can do your research online. Find message boards, chat rooms and website dedicated to your market segment. Look for repeat questions and pain points that seem to come up often.

Also read magazines that cater to your market. What kind of hot buttons do they continually push?

Once you’ve figured out what your market really wants, you can then write an eBook around that topic and know you have a fairly good chance of hitting it out of the park.

Writing the eBook

Creating an eBook is quite a mission. An eBook is typically at least 20,000 words, often a lot more. That means a lot of time in front of the computer.

At times you may question whether or not you’re really committed. At times you might wonder if the eBook will sell, and whether you’re just putting all this effort into something that might just go down the drain.

Staying motivated is a big part of success when it comes to writing an eBook.

Perhaps the best way to write an eBook is to set a daily goal. Instead of trying to write it all at once, just set a goal for yourself. That goal might be 500 words a day, it might be 1,000 words a day. It might be one page a day or three pages a day. Whatever the case may be, just set a daily goal and try to stick to that goal.

At 3 pages a day, in 30 days you’ll have a 90 page eBook. It might not seem like much progress at first, but it very quickly snowballs.

Launching & Selling Your eBook

If you already have an audience, start by launching your book there. Announce your new eBook to your blog, your email list, your Facebook friends and your Twitter followers.

If you don’t already have an email list, the going gets a little bit harder. First, start by seeing if you can find other people who have an audience to promote your book. If you’ve been in the industry for a while, chances are you know some other people who might have some influence.

You can also try paid marketing. Using tools like Google AdWords, Microsoft AdCenter or Facebook Ads can be a powerful way to make an impact.

Finally, try SEO. Create an informative website about your subject and create top notch content about that topic. This method takes more time, but can generate consistent traffic.

Getting an eBook off the ground takes dedication. Once it’s off the ground however, it can generate a lot of revenue for years to come.

So what is SMO, what is engagement and how are they different?

What is Social Media Optimization?

Social media optimization is the more quantitative side of the social media equation. It’s what allows marketers to tackle social media in a systematic and scientific manner.

Let’s say you’re trying to get a certain fan page to go viral. One way you can measure this in SMO terms is through what percentage of people repost your posts.

So if you post something on your wall and it’s “shared” by 1.5% of your fans, that gives you a benchmark metric to measure against. If you track this number whenever you post status updates, you can very quickly start to get a sense for what kinds of things get passed along and what kinds of things don’t.

This is just one example of SMO in action. SMO can track visitors to a page, the number of shares, number of likes, peak traffic times, best days to post and a whole slew of other statistics that you can use to optimize your campaign.

In other words, SMO is the systematic and scientific approach to getting more people to like your page, more shares and overall a more powerful brand effect.

What is Engagement?

Engagement on the other hand is a completely different ballgame. Engagement is the qualitative side of the social media equation.

It’s how engaged your fans are with your work. It’s how emotionally vested they are in your brand. It’s how excited they get about your product when they tell their friends about it. It’s how much they think you care about them.

Fostering engagement doesn’t come from statistics and calculations. Instead, it comes from regularly connecting with your audience in an engaging dialogue.

If you want to foster more engagement, make it a regular goal of yours to foster more activity from your users.

Ask them questions. Get them talking to you and to one another. Host contests that get them involved. Create games for your users. Ask for their feedback.

Pull them into your brand experience. Your users should feel like they’re part of your community.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

It’s important to realize that if you want to succeed on social media, you need to use both optimization and engagement.

If you only have optimization, you’ll have a very technically well run campaign, but it just won’t have that “buzz.” That “buzz” is what causes social media campaigns to take off like wildfire. It’s what gets people to stick around. It’s what people remember.

On the other hand, if you only have engagement, you’re probably not getting as many people to your pages as you could. If you’re not posting your updates at optimal times, if you’re not tracking what kinds of content your visitors like, if you’re not using systematic testing to determine what really works, you’re probably going to have a hard time succeeding in the long run.

In order for you to have a vibrant social media campaign that engages a lot of people, you need to have both optimization and engagement.

Start out in the area where you’re weakest. If you already have an engaged community but haven’t been tracking your metrics, work on your metrics first. On the other hand, if you already have a scientifically well optimized campaign but your user base lacks passion, start out by increasing engagement.

That’s the long and short of what SMO is and what engagement is. In the long run, you want to master both to get your campaigns to really take off. Your campaigns must make scientific sense, but they also need to capture the heart of your fans.

Here are seven practical & easy to execute methods on getting backlinks today.

Tip #1: Do Guest Blogging

Go to MyBlogGuest.com and sign up for an account. This is the #1 forum for people who want guest posters on their website.

If you’re an expert on a certain topic and want to get more traffic, guest blogging is truly the way to go about it.
Not only do you get high quality, high PageRank backlinks but you also get quality visitors from other websites coming to your site.

Tip #2: Analyze Your Competitor’s Strategy and Copy It

Better yet, improve on it and push them out of their position.

Use backlink checking tools to figure out what kind of places your top competitors are getting their backlinks from.

Are they using guest posting? Or are they using article submissions? Perhaps they’re paying for backlinks?

Whatever strategy they’re using, you’ll know it’s working in their industry for sure. Copy it and you’ll see similar results.

Tip #3: Contact Journalists on HARO

HARO or “Help a Reporter Out” is an online newsletter mailed once or twice a day to people who’re interested in getting interviewed.Getting interviewed for a publication is a great way to get exposure and get at least one backlink, provided you can get them to link back to your website.

Often time’s all you need to do is have a phone conversation with the reporter for them to place you in the newspaper, online publication or magazine. You don’t even need to write anything.

Tip #4: Generating Your Own Links

Generating your own links is still a very valid strategy. Although the Panda update has penalized these links somewhat, they can still be a significant part of your overall link profile.

These links include article submission links, links from sites like Squidoo or HubPages and profile backlinks.
Remember not to overdo it on any one link source, or you risk looking like you’re getting spammy links.

Tip #5: Don’t Be Afraid to Pay

Don’t be afraid to pay for either links or manpower for building links.

Buying links outright is considered blackhat and could get you penalized by Google. However, the realistic chances of you being found out are quite slim. That said, it may or may not be worth the risk.

However, paying for someone to post on forums for you or create social media profiles for you is completely within the ballpark.

Learning to outsource effectively is a big part of successfully running an online business. Don’t spend your time on work that could be farmed out for $3 an hour.

Tip #6: The Real Way to Use Blog Commenting
Blog commenting used to be a big source of backlinks. Today it’s not considered a solid source at all.

However, it’s important to realize that blog commenting’s real power doesn’t necessarily come from getting one link from the blog comment itself.

Instead, you can often get a lot of people to look at your site by writing intelligent replies. If the people who land on your site like your content, they’ll start commenting on your site as well and potentially link back to you.

In other words, there’s a lot of indirect backlinking power that comes from writing good blog comments.

Tip #7: Don’t Neglect Internal Linking

Finally, don’t neglect the power of your own web pages. Remember that Google doesn’t rank “websites,” they rank “web pages.” You already have a huge and easily accessible source of high quality backlinks: Your own pages.

Each and every page or post on your site should link to 3-5 other related pages on your site. This is easy to do with a “related pages” type of plugin in WordPress.

As you can tell, there is a really wide range of different ways you can build backlinks. Some take longer and can get you higher quality links, while others are much easier but get low quality links. Your best bet is usually a mixture of different link types of with links of differing quality.
 

A great landing page will instantly grab a reader’s attention and get them interested in what you’re offering.

The following infographic sums up all the points discussed below and mastering these will help you craft an absolutely phenomenal landing page with off-the-roof conversions.

Tip #1 – The “Reader Callout” Headline

Your headline needs get your readers to feel like you’re talking to them directly. They should feel pulled towards the screen. They should instantly get the sense that their life can improve if they read your page and learned a bit more about what you’re offering.

Spend as much time as necessary on your headline. Most top copywriters write 50+ headlines and choose the best one, rather than just writing one headline.

Tip #2 – Play Up the Problem

Describe the problem and try to turn up the dial on the pain. If you can get the reader in the emotional state of being angry, frustrated or fed up with their current situation, you have a much better chance of getting them to take action to change it.

Tip #3 – Use the “You Perspective”

Write your copy from the perspective of your user’s benefits, rather than what makes your product or service great. For example, it’s much better to say “By using X, you’ll get A, B, and C benefit, solving your Z issue” than to say “Product X has E, F, G features.”

Tip #4 – Use Proof Elements

Why should someone believe the claims you’re making? Can you actually prove that you can deliver on the promises you made? Proof elements include before and after photos, celebrity endorsements, testimonials, video and audio proof and so on. The more the better.

Tip #5 – Reduce the Action Commitment

Try to make the first action you ask someone to take as easy as possible. For example, it’s much easier to just fill out a name and email than it is to fill out name, email, phone number and address.

You might get 20% of your readers to fill out the former and only 2% to fill out the latter. Make the first commitment as light as possible.

Tip #6 – Remove the Navigation

Don’t have navigation on your landing page. That directs the reader’s eyes to only the copy and the call to action that you want them to take. Pages with no navigation usually have significantly higher conversion rates than pages with navigation.

Tip #7 – Professional Design

Having good design isn’t essential for a landing page, but having unprofessional looking design will kill your landing page. If a page looks like it was built in 1995, your users aren’t going to feel comfortable typing in their credit card or even their email address.

Tip #8 – One Clear Call to Action

Don’t try to get people to take more than one action at a time. Your landing page should have just one thing you want your users to do, no more. Choices tend to reduce conversions.

Tip #9 – Use an Attention Catching Image

A before after image, an image of a celebrity using your product, or even an image of an attractive woman can often increase conversions.

The image must be relevant to your product and it should be attention catching. If it does these two things, it’s worth testing it to see how it affects your response rate.

Tip #10 – Split Test

To build a great landing page, you’ll need to test several different versions to see which converts the best. Often time’s a small change to a landing page can result in huge differences. The only way to really figure out what’s best for your landing page is to test, test, test.

There are two main ways to use videos: To bring in moore traffic to your website, or to build relationships and credibility with existing vistors.
 

Using Video Marketing to Bring in New Traffic

Websites like YouTube, DailyMotion, MetaCafe and many more have millions and millions of visitors visiting them every day. A good video can easily get a few hundred thousand visitors; and a great video can even get several million.

In addition to the “going viral” effect, you can also bring in traffic to your website simply by creating videos that people in your industry want to share.

For example, if you’re in the weight loss industry and you did a top notch video on what scientists say about the top 5 diets in the world, it’ll probably get passed around. It’ll be “shared” on Facebook, “tweeted” on Twitter and reposted on message boards all over the world.

Videos spread, whether it’s through viral marketing or through individual shares.

Using Video to Improve Brands, Relationships and Sales

Another place where videos can come in handy is in communicating with your existing customers. Using a video allows you to convey a lot more than if you were just using text.

Videos where you’re actually on camera talking to the audience can do a lot to build trust. People now actually have a face they can put to the brand. They have someone they can relate to.

When it comes time to make a decision on which product to buy, they’re much more likely to buy from someone who they feel like they know than someone who they’ve only interacted with over text.

Even if you’re only using PowerPoint-style presentations, videos can be very powerful. It allows you to communicate in images, audio, sub-videos and more.

How to Create an Effective Video

The most important part of getting good video is to get good audio. If you produce a video where the image is a little fuzzy, it won’t kill the video. However, if the audio is fuzzy and people can’t hear what you’re saying, your whole video goes down the drain.

Invest in a good set of microphones. If you’re appearing on camera, consider investing in wireless mics.
Filming the video can be as easy as creating a PowerPoint presentation or using other presentation software to create the video while you do a voiceover. You can also have someone film you speaking from one or more angles.

The whole production can be done for under $500.

Editing can be done on high end software like Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premier by a professional editor, or using free software like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker. For simple videos, the quality difference won’t be big, though it’ll make a big difference for more complex projects.

Once you’ve filmed and edited the video, the final step is to launch your video with a kickoff. Send it off to your email list, as well as your Twitter feed and Facebook page. If you have a blog, post it on there as well.

Are you using videos in your business yet? If not, now might be a good time to look into it. Video marketing is an exciting way to both bring in new traffic, as well as to build a relationship with your existing fans.

From SEO pros with years of experience to relatively new website owners, a host of people with varying levels of expertise turn to Directory Submission everyday, because they all realize that it is one of the first few steps needed for a website to get indexed by the search engines.

Many of us forget to consider just what Directory Submission involves and how it can best aid our SEO efforts – indiscriminately submitting a site to a bunch of directories will hardly prove to be effective or helpful. There are a number of of factors to consider before you have your site submitted to a directory. Smarter search engines, tougher-than-ever competition and ever-changing SEO trends have made it very important that directory submissions are done with a lot of care and any possible help from experts.

Listed below are the basic do's to consider while submitting to a directory, follow the pointers below to make your submissions more effective.

Directory Submission Tactics

1. Submit only to directories that are recognized by the search engines. The directory should not have their link pages with the 'rel=no follow' attribute for a link, this will prevent the search engines from finding your site in the directory.

2. Submit to the most appropriate category available in the directory. Sites submitted to inappropriate or unrelated categories may be rejected or removed.

3. Read and follow the guidelines before you begin the submission process.

4. Include your target keywords in your anchor text, but don't resort to 'keyword stuffing'.

5. Keep a detailed record of your submissions. You want to avoid submitting to the same directories again.

6. Use relevant targeted keywords instead of popular broad-based keywords as your title. E.g. "Duplex Houses for Sale in Florida" instead of 'Real Estate – Florida'.

7. Have as many titles and descriptions as possible.

8. Keep submitting to directories from time to time – do not stop.

If you find all this too complicated and cumbersome, you could consider using a directory submission company like Directory Maximizer to have all this taken care of you while you focus on other methods of promoting your site.

Anyone can get lost in the world of SEO, it doesn’t matter how experienced you are, there are so many things that you might not know still. With so many sites dedicated to SEO, searching for relevant (and more importantly correct) information is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Of course, there is no dearth of information but they’re usually outdated myths or just a repetition of 1-2 articles.

I decided to compile a list of informative and useful SEO resources. I’m sharing it with you so that you need never go back to those days when you spent hours looking up a single piece of information. This list is going to give you each and every conceivable bit of information about everything from A-Z of SEO. The list includes free sites as well as professional sites that charge for information, tools or services.

To make things easier for you, I’ve listed them under the following headings: Basic Info, Video Tutorials, Forums, Blogs, Articles and News, Tools and Conferences.

So, instead of Googling and checking out random sites, you can now use this list for all your SEO needs!

FREE RESOURCES

Basic Info

1. SE Roundtable

You no longer have to hunt for interesting information and discussions, hopping from one site to another. SE Roundtable chooses reports on interesting threads from many SEM forums all across the web, in addition to providing a forum for its own members. The mission of the Search Engine Roundtable is to provide you with a single source to locate the best search engine marketing threads on the Internet. It also adds its own synopsis, giving you greater details on these threads.

We recommend:
•   On Page SEO VS. Off Page SEO: Which Trumps?
•   Are Competitors Stealing Your Links?

Video Tutorials

2. Google Webmaster
This is a collection of all videos in which Google’s most famous and visible anti-spam engineer Matt Cutts answers questions sent to him by people.  He discusses how to optimize your site and what you should avoid while optimizing.  Matt Cutts has released many Webmaster Help videos that are simple and clear to understand even for beginners. His videos are one of the most sought-after resources in the SEO world.

We recommend:
•   Is there such a thing as building too many links?
•   What is the best way to check your own site for keyword rankings?

Forums

3. SEO Chat

At SEO chat forum, you can discuss search engine news and website marketing. It has over 120,000 members who discuss their issues and share their insights on any SEO-related topic. You can get quality information about how you can optimize your website from other users, and even get your queries answered here.

4. Digital Point

Digital point forum contains different threads under these sections and you can get your queries answered by experts. You can participate in discussions related to search engines including optimization, marketing, tools etc.

Blogs

5. SEOmoz
Here, you can learn from blogs written by SEO experts like Rand Fishkin, Danny Drover and Dr Pete. The site also gives step by step explanations on topics varying from how search engines operate to measuring and tracking success.

We recommend:

Rand Fishkin

o  Yup, SEO can be a Competitive Advantage

o  Reversing the SEO Process

Danny Drover
o  SEO Guide: International Versions of Websites
o  The Beginner’s Guide to Getting Links From Bloggers (Video)

Dr Pete
o  A Natural Link Love Story
o  7 Types of SEO Evidence

6. Matt Cutts’ Blog

Matt Cutts, the renowned Google engineer, gives you insight into the company, search engine index updates and SEO issues in his blog. You can read about developments in online marketing and SEO. He comments on emerging trends and also about talks about his personal life.

We recommend:
•   Google incorporating site speed in search rankings
•   SEO Advice: Make a web page for each store location

Articles and News

7. SE Land
Journalist Danny Sullivan has been covering search for the past 11 years and he gives us his information here. In Search Engine Land, he helps webmasters, marketers and everyday web users understand how search engines work and change with time.

We recommend:
•   Creating and Maintaining An SEO Timeline

8. SE Guide

This is an educational website aimed at translating the online marketing world into something that small business owners can understand. It is known for a down-to-earth style of teaching with a special focus on educating small business owners. The blog offers search engine news, resources and tools for search marketing professionals and industry media.

We recommend:
•   How to Know Your Site Needs SEO before Social Media
•   29 Queries for Content-Based Link Builders

9. SEO Book

Aaron Wall, the author of The SEO Book helps webmasters make money and increase their profits through driving targeted traffic to their sites. You can access blogs, forums, videos, training courses and tools like ‘SEO for Firefox’ and ‘Rank Checker’.

We recommend:
•   Why Search is Such a Powerful Marketing Channel
•   How to do SEO for Blogs

10. Marketing Pilgrim

Marketing pilgrim brings the latest news, rumors and reviews of all things related to internet marketing and online advertising. It gives an interesting insight into Google’s latest activities and keeps a close watch on what Google does.

We recommend:
•   Google Admits SEO’s are Smarter than It is
•   With Facebook Open Graph Search, Is Facebook SEO Next?

Tools

11. iWeb Tool

This site offers many webmaster tools under categories like domain check up, search engine, HTML and miscellaneous – almost every tool you need to build the perfect website.

We recommend: Backlink Checker

12. Going Up

Going Up offers fun and useful tools to track the number of visitors, analyze your site and to optimize pages. You can install the badges they offer, place them on your site and constantly keep track of the changes in your website statistics. It even has a Page Rank 8.

We recommend: Site Analyzer

13. We Build Pages

The name says it all. The site offers an assortment of tools like Search combination and Spider viewer that will help you optimize your site at the building stages itself.

We recommend: Header Checker Tool

14. SEO Tool Set

The tools on this site help you improve the quality, quantity, clarity and value of the content on your website. It provides easy-to-use tools that help in checking server issues, and analyzing competition and links.

We recommend: Competition Research (6th tool on the page)

Conferences

15. Search Engine Strategies
This site gives you the details about search engine-related conferences held all around the world. It includes global conference and expo series on SEM, SEO, advertising strategies, tactics and practices for beginners and professionals. With a Google Page Rank of 7, it’s like a one-stop shop for information on SEO conferences.

Search Engine Blogs

16. Yahoo Search Blog

The official Yahoo Search blog give you access to news and insight on consumer search trends, organic search optimization, social search and social media. They also have articles on news related to search engines.

17. Google Blog

What could be a better place to learn from than the search engine’s own blog? Google blog gives Googlers an insight into their products, technology and the Google culture. It could be a product, a feature launch or a cool new initiative; chances are that you’ll read about most news from Google on their blogs first.

PAID RESOURCES

Apart from the sites mentioned above, you can also refer to the following paid sites which will give you good value for your money. With their help, you’ll be equipped with the best SEO information and tools that will give your site its well-deserved visibility.

Tools

18. SEOmoz

The SEOmoz tutorial is perfect for beginners and the information guide has been divided into 10 elaborate chapters. The Beginner’s Guide to SEO has been read over 1 million times and provides comprehensive information you need to get on the road to professional quality SEO.

19. Word Tracker

Word Tracker offers tools that make it easier to choose keywords for SEO, PPC, link building and blogging. Its services include keyword suggestion, keyword research, keyword reports etc.

We recommend: Wordtracker Keywords

20. Bruce Clay

The site offers tools to identify competitor keywords, link building, and analyze single pages, even in its tutorials for beginners. This site is owned and operated by Bruce Clay, a well known search marketing veteran.

We recommend: Path Maps

21. SEO Intelligence

You don’t have to be an SEO expert to understand this website. The tools that SEO Intelligence offers to marketers, agents and webmasters are easy to use. SEO Intelligence even offers tools with which you can check how your site ranks against your competitors.

We recommend: Instant Action Tooltips

The sites listed here have helped many become the proficient SEO professionals they are today, and I know you will surely remember me when you become one too! If you have any queries, or if you wish to add a useful site here, feel free to mention it in your Comments.

1.   Oleole.com
Oleole.com has managed to bring the football community closer on the web. It was created in 2006 and has stayed active to witness and hold discussions on all major football Cups. The World Cup section offers live scores, travel info, and interesting facts about the game and matches. More than anything else, you have an ultimate community for football lovers to hold discussions which is full of football-driven content. You can join fan clubs for Football Leagues, podcasts, wallpapers, blogs and videos about football.

2.   Southafrica.info
We have seen South Africa tourism steer towards the World Cup as their new tourism mantra. World Cup 2010 is expected to be a turning point for South Africa in terms of tourism and development. Southafrica.info, a site which gives information for investors, tourists, citizens and South Africans abroad, has an exclusive page for the World Cup – www.southafrica.info/2010/. It includes an SA 2010 Fan kit which gives information about African culture and football, informative articles, match schedule and news about the World Cup.

3.   Twitter
Who could miss this one? There’s an official profile for FIFA World Cup 2010 with over 70,000 followers. It gives instant updates on the matches and comments on performances. Twitter has also come up with FIFA backgrounds for users. There’s also another profile for FIFAWorldCupTM, which gives unofficial FIFA soccer world cup tweets. This user has much more followers than the original profile with over 100,000 members following so far.

4.   Livesoccertv.com
I was so smitten by the crystal clear coverage of live action on Livesoccertv.com that I don’t regret not making a trip to South Africa to see the matches live. It also provides updates on scores, schedules, video, interesting info about various teams and even includes info on the best Soccer Pubs in the USA and Canada.

5.   Last, but definitely not the least, World Cup Songs on YouTube
Waka Waka and Wavin’ Flag are infectious! Whether it was Shakira’s moves or K’naan’s powerful lyrics, it spread like wildfire on the Internet. Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) is the new football anthem that was written and performed by Shakira. The song captures the spirit of Africa and the football festival, and with its rhythmical African sounds, the song represents the vitality and energy of the host continent.

Wavin Flag (The Celebration Mix) has been chosen as the official song of Coca-Cola for their 2010 FIFA World Cup. K’naan, who had composed the original song to show his support for the Haitian earthquake relief effort, has collaborated with artistes from various countries like Spain, Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia etc to produce new versions of the song for different regions. David Bisbel, Skank, Nancy Ajram, David Guetta and many others feature in these videos.

These examples show us that you can take a universally celebrated event, optimize the idea, and convert it into better traffic for your site. They have managed to get non-football-fans like me excited about the World Cup after all! If you know of any more sites that have used a simple idea like this to make it big, share it with us in the Comments section.  Also, don’t forget to mention the team who you think will win the Cup this time!