Search engines are constantly trying to increase the search relevancy
experience for users and are updating their algorithms more frequently.
With search engines becoming stringent about link building policies and
content usage, website owners now need to cautiously plan their SEO and
digital marketing strategies.
The Twitter and Facebook revolution
has forced search engines to give additional credit to social media
activities. SEO and social media are made for each other pair. By
integrating social media with SEO, companies can definitely achieve
their digital marketing goals.
Here are some major factors you should consider while integrating SEO with social media marketing:
Picking the right keywords
Pick
keywords people would normally search on social networks. Do not make a
huge list of target keywords. More than 40% of the social network users
engage through their smartphones and cell phones and don't like to type
much while searching. Get insights from Google analytics about which
keywords are mostly used by your visitors to search you.
Creating social presence
Create
your company profile on all major social networking platforms. It is
not important to cover all the social networks. Focus on those which are
more relevant to your industry and can be easily managed. Customize
your fan pages with clear call-to-action. Creating profiles on social
networks is not just enough. You need to actively engage with your user
community with content that adds value and helps you in reaching
prospects.
Content marketing approach
Create
optimized content which can be easily shared through social channels
and can result increased visitors to your website. Content should be
compelling and include target keywords within. Blogs, videos, articles,
whitepapers, recorded events links are some of the most effective
content for social marketing. Your updates and posts should be optimized
with #hash tags on target keywords.
Website optimization for social media marketing
Link
your website and corporate blogs to all major social profiles. Also
give your visitors options to share your web pages and blog posts
easily.
Setting targets for social engagement and conversions
Setting
targets for new followers, replies/comments, favors/likes, enquiries,
leads and sales can help you measure the ROI from social activities.
Social media activities take lot of time, efforts and resources. Try
integrating these targets with SEO and sales targets and ultimately with
business goals.
Showing posts with label SEO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SEO. Show all posts
Wednesday, 14 August 2013
Monday, 5 August 2013
Social Media Optimization: The 3 Reasons To Go With It
Today, social media divides people. Some people - a great
majority in fact - cannot go through the day without logging onto their
Facebook account. This is the little gossip area where they can know at a
glance who has done what. Others not only do not use Facebook but they
have an aversion for it. The gossip cloud above it has such a negative
fingerprint on Facebook that they cannot see beyond it. The first group
of people thinks they are embracing the trend, the second one thinks
they are blessed to stay away from it.
Where is the truth in these two statements?
Let's be fair to everyone. As private person, social media is something you can totally live without. Whether you like or dislike this, tweet or not that, it has absolutely no incidence on you. However, if you are a businessman, you must step in social media. Why? Here are the 3 reasons why you do not have the choice.
You probably realize if you did not before that the social game is on. Do not worry. You will not have to go against your hatred for social networks. You always have the option to get a SEO company that offers SMO Services. Good luck and see you soon on Facebook, Twitter or Google+!
Where is the truth in these two statements?
Let's be fair to everyone. As private person, social media is something you can totally live without. Whether you like or dislike this, tweet or not that, it has absolutely no incidence on you. However, if you are a businessman, you must step in social media. Why? Here are the 3 reasons why you do not have the choice.
- People. The majority likes social networks. We are not talking here about your competitors but about all the people you want to reach with your website, your services and your products. This is precisely why you must jump into the social wave and get carried around. Your clients are very likely to use Facebook, Twitter and Google+. You must take advantage of their dynamism to share data about your company and all the things you have amazingly done for them. People are not always ready to trust a website or ads but they already trust their friends.
- Today's Search Engines. Search engines such as Google love social media as well. Ranking algorithms evolve. In the past, counting the number of backlinks was the best way to assess the popularity of a website. However, search engines got tricked by link farms. Inbound links have lost their shine, at least the way they were. Today, ranking algorithms are more and more listening at people' opinions. Search engines can use behavioral data from websites i.e. bounce rate, browsing time etc. because it cannot be manipulated. Similarly, social networks represent a tremendous amount of data. If people like a website, they talk about it and each time they share a link, they create a backlink.
- Tomorrow's Search Engines. You have probably heard about Google Knowledge Graph. This is not quite ready yet but it represents Google engineers' dream, a world where Google knows what users want and gives them the answers regardless websites & backlinks... This feature relies on the ability to precisely identify the intent behind the query, to pull out the right entity and the corresponding data. Social networks can help building the entity around your company and it brings a web 2.0 feature to your website i.e. a dynamic interface that evolves with your company and grows with it.
You probably realize if you did not before that the social game is on. Do not worry. You will not have to go against your hatred for social networks. You always have the option to get a SEO company that offers SMO Services. Good luck and see you soon on Facebook, Twitter or Google+!
Thursday, 12 May 2011
The top SEO tips for social media profiles
SEO (search engine optimisation) and social media have been moving closer together over the past couple of years. Now it seems they’re more integrated than ever, particularly as Google increasingly experiments with bringing in social elements into search results.
You can’t really afford to know one without the other, as you risk doing half a job or missing out on potential traffic. To help with this, we’ve compiled some of the top SEO tips across social media profiles, so you can make sure you have your house in order. Bear in mind that all of the below are recommended as general good practices to stick to – not promises of top positions for your keywords. I would always recommend that you run your social media profiles with your community in mind first and foremost, then consider best practices for SEO after.
These are tips to implement alongside the natural conversations in your community. Many of these tips apply for internal search, such as through Facebook Pages as there will be certain restrictions on the content Google will and can index.
Keywords in Facebook Page updates
It can often be a bit of a push and pull between writing content purely with the user in mind, and writing content that has one eye firmly on SEO. Good practice for SEO copywriting can still apply when you write your updates on your Facebook Page. Since everyone that searches on Facebook has the ability to show results by ‘everyone’, individual posts you write on your Facebook Page could be crucial for getting found by people searching for something current. I wouldn’t advise you let this guide your content strategy overall. Don’t try and write about the royal wedding if it bears no relevance to your brand or community, but when you’re writing updates, think about the keywords that other people might be looking for that could lead them to your Page.
Writing anchor text on your Facebook Page
The same rules of good linking still apply on your Facebook Page, such as linking often and to relevant Pages. In certain places, Facebook also gives you the option to use anchor text in your links, which is a good practice to adhere to. You can do this in the ‘notes’ section of your Page for example. Here you simply write out the code for anchor text as you would normally, replacing the content with your own website and desired anchor text:
When you publish this it will appear as anchor text on your wall. Remember to use relevant keywords in the anchor text, that relate to the page you’re pointing to.
Link often on your Facebook Page
Sending links out from your Facebook Page in general is important in helping to improve your SEO rankings within Facebook search. You should take advantage of the places that Facebook gives you to do this, including the wall and Info text. One of the most important places to link from your Page is in the ‘About’ box on the side of your Page. While you can’t put anchor text here, you can include a standard link, such as in the screenshot below:
Keywords in Facebook photo captions
Even though certain activity within a Facebook page is ‘no follow’ by Google, you should still retain good keyword and linking strategies in all places. This is often overlooked in the ‘photos’ section of your Page, where it can be tempting to stick it up quickly and share it on your wall. The description is on your photo permanently however, so remember to include relevant keywords in the photo description text. Again bear in mind meeting the needs of the user and the search engine. You’re talking to your fans first and foremost so include the keywords naturally in the text, but paying careful attention to those keywords you might want to be found for, both in Facebook and Google search.
Keywords in your Twitter bio
In your Twitter profile, your ‘bio’ is actually the meta description of your Page, making it an incredibly important aspect of SEO on your Twitter profile. Make sure you’re including relevant keywords here that relate both to the general content of your tweets as well as the website you want to promote. This can often be overlooked in terms of keyword optimisation, but should be well-considered, albeit within 160 characters!
Use bit.ly or tiny to shorten links on Twitter
Using URL shorteners is often done on Twitter profiles mainly as a way of making links more readable and easily sharable as they reduce the amount of characters used within the tweet. They are also incredibly important in terms of SEO as well. Using url services such as bit.ly or tiny.url use permanent 301 redirects to your content, meaning that your original url benefits from the SEO juice, and not just the tiny url itself.
Keywords early in tweets
In an individual tweet, the first 27-40 characters count as the title tag within a Google search result. It’s important therefore to include your desired keywords early on in the tweet itself to make it more likely to rank in searches. This is what will be indexed by Google so it’s important to keep to this structure as much as possible, while not distracting from the actual conversation in Twitter. Keep these keywords relevant to the rest of the tweet and any URL you include for consideration of the user as well as search engines.
Followers boost your PageRank
This might not be a direct tip, but it’s an important consideration. The more high profile you are judging by the number of Twitter followers you have, the more your PageRank will improve within Google, having a positive effect on your search results. These followers are indexed as ‘inlinks’ to your profile – i.e. Google recognises one Twitter account as linking to yours as a relevant link. Try and attract these followers by tweeting popular, relevant content, which sits very much in line with your natural Twitter strategy.
Use Twitter directories
There are some very easy ways that you can build links to your Twitter profile, while also getting in front of new followers that may be interested in your content: Twitter directories. Through different sites you can link to your Twitter profile, often with the option to add in additional keywords, that should strongly relate to the page you’re linking to. Check out this article from CNET, for a great list of Twitter directories you can add your profile to.
Tweet Often
As much as this is a consideration for your natural Twitter activity, it’s also important for Google search results, now that they integrate tweets into their main search results. If you’re tweeting often about current topics then you can help improve your chances of appearing in Google results. These Twitter links are also contained prominently above the fold in Google search engine result pages, so is a great way to attract new followers, provided the content is in some way related to your core product or service.
Name your Twitter profile picture
A nice little SEO tip to follow here. When uploading your Twitter profile picture, make sure to name it with a relavant keyword that relates to your Twitter profile. The image file name is contained within the link when you click to expand, so avoid just using the file number, as shown in the example above. You can see this yourself by hovering over your profile image in Twitter. Also be sure to use hyphens in between words in the file name, not spaces.
Double keywords in a Youtube video
Obviously, using relevant keywords throughout the title, description and keyword section of your video on Youtube is important. But a good tip to follow is including a keyword twice within a title, such as ‘Facebook Tips: SEO Facebook tips for your business page’. This is good in terms of SEO to get an incredibly important keyword listed twice, but is also good from a usability point of view, as you provide an easy to read format, telling people what your content is about. This is the perfect balance between writing for people and SEO.
Repeat keywords in the video title
Often when it comes to adding in keywords to your Youtube video, you try to add as many relevant keywords that you can think of. While this is good practice, help Youtube out a bit when it comes to displaying your video by repeating words contained in your video title throughout the description and keyword section, as it will help your video to be shown both within Youtube and Google search as this pulls in Youtube video results as standard.
Leave a video reply
Google and Youtube like video pages that have a lot of links built into them, as it shows the relevance of the video content. A great way to do this, which also provides a new organic community around your video content, is by leaving a video reply to related videos within Youtube. You can do this while you’re logged into the correct profile for your Youtube video channel. When you’ve found the video you want to reply to, click on ‘Leave a video reply’ on the right hand side. This will bring up your videos, which you can select and leave as a video response on the page. Use this according to best practice and avoid being too spammy a this could have an adverse effect on your actual content!
Write a full script for your videos
A great way of adding in extra text around your video is to consider writing a full script in the description. Here you can put in additional keywords that are featured in the video and it also allows people to find out more about the content of the video. Next to the title, the description is the second most important thing about your video so make sure it’s well optimised.
Get active on Quora
Google recently announced that they were adding activity on Quora such as asking questions or adding answers into their indexed realtime search results. Quora is a great place to network and build your community anyway, but now that this has such as direct effect on Google search, it should be considered by most marketers and businesses. As these feature in the ‘realtime’ section of a Google SERP (Search Result Position Tool), best practice both for search and your community is to make sure you’re answering and asking questions often.
What Social Media SEO tips do you love? Share them in the comments!
You can’t really afford to know one without the other, as you risk doing half a job or missing out on potential traffic. To help with this, we’ve compiled some of the top SEO tips across social media profiles, so you can make sure you have your house in order. Bear in mind that all of the below are recommended as general good practices to stick to – not promises of top positions for your keywords. I would always recommend that you run your social media profiles with your community in mind first and foremost, then consider best practices for SEO after.
These are tips to implement alongside the natural conversations in your community. Many of these tips apply for internal search, such as through Facebook Pages as there will be certain restrictions on the content Google will and can index.
Keywords in Facebook Page updates
It can often be a bit of a push and pull between writing content purely with the user in mind, and writing content that has one eye firmly on SEO. Good practice for SEO copywriting can still apply when you write your updates on your Facebook Page. Since everyone that searches on Facebook has the ability to show results by ‘everyone’, individual posts you write on your Facebook Page could be crucial for getting found by people searching for something current. I wouldn’t advise you let this guide your content strategy overall. Don’t try and write about the royal wedding if it bears no relevance to your brand or community, but when you’re writing updates, think about the keywords that other people might be looking for that could lead them to your Page.
Writing anchor text on your Facebook Page
The same rules of good linking still apply on your Facebook Page, such as linking often and to relevant Pages. In certain places, Facebook also gives you the option to use anchor text in your links, which is a good practice to adhere to. You can do this in the ‘notes’ section of your Page for example. Here you simply write out the code for anchor text as you would normally, replacing the content with your own website and desired anchor text:
When you publish this it will appear as anchor text on your wall. Remember to use relevant keywords in the anchor text, that relate to the page you’re pointing to.
Link often on your Facebook Page
Sending links out from your Facebook Page in general is important in helping to improve your SEO rankings within Facebook search. You should take advantage of the places that Facebook gives you to do this, including the wall and Info text. One of the most important places to link from your Page is in the ‘About’ box on the side of your Page. While you can’t put anchor text here, you can include a standard link, such as in the screenshot below:
Keywords in Facebook photo captions
Even though certain activity within a Facebook page is ‘no follow’ by Google, you should still retain good keyword and linking strategies in all places. This is often overlooked in the ‘photos’ section of your Page, where it can be tempting to stick it up quickly and share it on your wall. The description is on your photo permanently however, so remember to include relevant keywords in the photo description text. Again bear in mind meeting the needs of the user and the search engine. You’re talking to your fans first and foremost so include the keywords naturally in the text, but paying careful attention to those keywords you might want to be found for, both in Facebook and Google search.
Keywords in your Twitter bio
In your Twitter profile, your ‘bio’ is actually the meta description of your Page, making it an incredibly important aspect of SEO on your Twitter profile. Make sure you’re including relevant keywords here that relate both to the general content of your tweets as well as the website you want to promote. This can often be overlooked in terms of keyword optimisation, but should be well-considered, albeit within 160 characters!
Use bit.ly or tiny to shorten links on Twitter
Using URL shorteners is often done on Twitter profiles mainly as a way of making links more readable and easily sharable as they reduce the amount of characters used within the tweet. They are also incredibly important in terms of SEO as well. Using url services such as bit.ly or tiny.url use permanent 301 redirects to your content, meaning that your original url benefits from the SEO juice, and not just the tiny url itself.
Keywords early in tweets
In an individual tweet, the first 27-40 characters count as the title tag within a Google search result. It’s important therefore to include your desired keywords early on in the tweet itself to make it more likely to rank in searches. This is what will be indexed by Google so it’s important to keep to this structure as much as possible, while not distracting from the actual conversation in Twitter. Keep these keywords relevant to the rest of the tweet and any URL you include for consideration of the user as well as search engines.
Followers boost your PageRank
This might not be a direct tip, but it’s an important consideration. The more high profile you are judging by the number of Twitter followers you have, the more your PageRank will improve within Google, having a positive effect on your search results. These followers are indexed as ‘inlinks’ to your profile – i.e. Google recognises one Twitter account as linking to yours as a relevant link. Try and attract these followers by tweeting popular, relevant content, which sits very much in line with your natural Twitter strategy.
Use Twitter directories
There are some very easy ways that you can build links to your Twitter profile, while also getting in front of new followers that may be interested in your content: Twitter directories. Through different sites you can link to your Twitter profile, often with the option to add in additional keywords, that should strongly relate to the page you’re linking to. Check out this article from CNET, for a great list of Twitter directories you can add your profile to.
Tweet Often
As much as this is a consideration for your natural Twitter activity, it’s also important for Google search results, now that they integrate tweets into their main search results. If you’re tweeting often about current topics then you can help improve your chances of appearing in Google results. These Twitter links are also contained prominently above the fold in Google search engine result pages, so is a great way to attract new followers, provided the content is in some way related to your core product or service.
Name your Twitter profile picture
A nice little SEO tip to follow here. When uploading your Twitter profile picture, make sure to name it with a relavant keyword that relates to your Twitter profile. The image file name is contained within the link when you click to expand, so avoid just using the file number, as shown in the example above. You can see this yourself by hovering over your profile image in Twitter. Also be sure to use hyphens in between words in the file name, not spaces.
Double keywords in a Youtube video
Obviously, using relevant keywords throughout the title, description and keyword section of your video on Youtube is important. But a good tip to follow is including a keyword twice within a title, such as ‘Facebook Tips: SEO Facebook tips for your business page’. This is good in terms of SEO to get an incredibly important keyword listed twice, but is also good from a usability point of view, as you provide an easy to read format, telling people what your content is about. This is the perfect balance between writing for people and SEO.
Repeat keywords in the video title
Often when it comes to adding in keywords to your Youtube video, you try to add as many relevant keywords that you can think of. While this is good practice, help Youtube out a bit when it comes to displaying your video by repeating words contained in your video title throughout the description and keyword section, as it will help your video to be shown both within Youtube and Google search as this pulls in Youtube video results as standard.
Leave a video reply
Google and Youtube like video pages that have a lot of links built into them, as it shows the relevance of the video content. A great way to do this, which also provides a new organic community around your video content, is by leaving a video reply to related videos within Youtube. You can do this while you’re logged into the correct profile for your Youtube video channel. When you’ve found the video you want to reply to, click on ‘Leave a video reply’ on the right hand side. This will bring up your videos, which you can select and leave as a video response on the page. Use this according to best practice and avoid being too spammy a this could have an adverse effect on your actual content!
Write a full script for your videos
A great way of adding in extra text around your video is to consider writing a full script in the description. Here you can put in additional keywords that are featured in the video and it also allows people to find out more about the content of the video. Next to the title, the description is the second most important thing about your video so make sure it’s well optimised.
Get active on Quora
Google recently announced that they were adding activity on Quora such as asking questions or adding answers into their indexed realtime search results. Quora is a great place to network and build your community anyway, but now that this has such as direct effect on Google search, it should be considered by most marketers and businesses. As these feature in the ‘realtime’ section of a Google SERP (Search Result Position Tool), best practice both for search and your community is to make sure you’re answering and asking questions often.
What Social Media SEO tips do you love? Share them in the comments!
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Following Google's lead, Bing incorporates social media into search results
Shortly after rival Google began integrating social media into its online search results, Microsoft's Bing search engine made a similar announcement that it will start including a user's social media "likes" with results.
This latest announcement builds upon Bing's previous efforts to integrate social media into its search results. Now, whenever a user searches certain terms, results will include any related items his or her friends have liked on Facebook. Such results will be accompanied by a thumbnail image of the friend.
"As people spend more time online and integrate their offline and online worlds, they will want their friends' social activity and their social data to help them in making better decisions," Lawrence Kim, from Microsoft's Bing social team, wrote for a company blog post.
Last year, Microsoft incorporated information from users' Twitter accounts into search results.
Google, the online search market leader, now incorporates posts from websites, such as Flickr, YouTube and Twitter, into its search results. Privacy settings on Facebook don't allow information from the site to be incorporated
This latest announcement builds upon Bing's previous efforts to integrate social media into its search results. Now, whenever a user searches certain terms, results will include any related items his or her friends have liked on Facebook. Such results will be accompanied by a thumbnail image of the friend.
"As people spend more time online and integrate their offline and online worlds, they will want their friends' social activity and their social data to help them in making better decisions," Lawrence Kim, from Microsoft's Bing social team, wrote for a company blog post.
Last year, Microsoft incorporated information from users' Twitter accounts into search results.
Google, the online search market leader, now incorporates posts from websites, such as Flickr, YouTube and Twitter, into its search results. Privacy settings on Facebook don't allow information from the site to be incorporated
Friday, 18 June 2010
MAJOR NEWS FOR TWITTER .... the end of paid SEO?
I don't know if you heard about this, but there was a very exciting announcement recently from Google about Twitter!
And it is FANTASTIC NEWS for us Twitter users :-)
Google, who as we know are the "Internet Gods" have said that they are now indexing tweets!
What this means is that when you type what you are searching for into the Google search icon, Google will now also check "tweets" from Twitter for responses to your search as well as the usual websites, blogs and articles. This means that Twitter is now not only a major free traffic generator but also an amazing free tool for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
------> Click here to watch the Demonstration
And it is FANTASTIC NEWS for us Twitter users :-)
Google, who as we know are the "Internet Gods" have said that they are now indexing tweets!
What this means is that when you type what you are searching for into the Google search icon, Google will now also check "tweets" from Twitter for responses to your search as well as the usual websites, blogs and articles. This means that Twitter is now not only a major free traffic generator but also an amazing free tool for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
------> Click here to watch the Demonstration
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