Tag Archives: search engine journal

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SEO Weekly Topic: How to Use Social Media to Increase Your Search Ranking

Use Social Media to Increase Your SEO Source: http://www.smartonlinepros.com/using-social-media-seo-campaign/
As Google tightens it’s reins on search and link building efforts, Digital Marketing Managers and SEO Manager are looking for alternative SEO tactics to increase it’s search ranking, you can let your Social Media do the SEO work for you.

Earlier today, Social Media Examiner published 18 Social Media SEO Resources to Improve Your Search Ranking by Patricia Redsicker.  This article has a lot of great tips on how to use Social Media to assist your SEO efforts that I cancelled my original idea for the Digital Marker’s SEO Weekly Discussion to share this article with you.

As you gear up your social media efforts to help your SEO strategies, just remember to participate in social media networks where your target audience is located. Don’t waste your time with social media networks where your target audience does not participate.

Having a hard time convincing your boss to try social media?

Discuss Stephanie Frasco‘s 6 Reasons Social Media Is Critical To Your SEO at Social Media Today

  • Link building was always about social proofing
  • Social media allows you to crowd source your link building
  • Being social is the fastest way to multiply your presence online
  • Social signals is a real think
  • Social links bring real traffic to your website
  • Google hates link building

Now, that you have convinced your boss to pursue social media to promote your brand, you can focus executing your social media efforts to boost your SEO with some best practices.

Patricia Redsicker Shares 5 Social Media Best Practices to Increase Your Search Ranking

  1. Publish High-Quality Content – As always content is key to drive your SEO and Social Media success. After producing content that meets your target audiences needs, you can post your content in a multiple areas of the web including your website, your social media networks, your newsletters, and your blog.
  2. Make Social Sharing Easy – Produce content that your target audience wants to share.  For example, I saw the 18 Social Media SEO Resources to Improve Your Search Ranking article, and I immediately wanted to share it with you.  As you produce content, you will have alter the content based on platform where the content is posted. Quick example, if you write a blog post, you can’t post the entire blog post on Twitter, but you can type the title of your blog post with a link to your blog.  With this example, you have basically the same content shared on two different platforms with the additional benefits of SEO finding the content.
  3. Boost Your Images and Profiles – We are a visual society, and visuals help us comprehend the written word.  Therefore, we need to use images.  First, save image files using your keywords. Next, when using images for your content, write an Alt Text tag that describes the image using your keywords for search engines.
  4. Don’t Forget Authorship Metadata (Google+) – Post your content to Google+ and indicate you are the author of your content.
  5. Measure Social Media Performance – As with SEO, it is critical to measure the effectiveness of your social media efforts. Develop KPI’s and dashboards to demonstrate how your social media not only increased traffic to your site, but you should create reports showing how your social media helped increase your SEO search rank. Then, you need to develop reports how your social media and SEO efforts increased revenue.

While this blog post shows the importance of using social media to increase your search rank, take your time to read 18 Social Media SEO Resources to Improve Your Search Ranking and devise a plan on how to effectively use your social media to increase your search ranking.

Additional Resources on How to Use Social Media to Increase Your Search Ranking:

In Other SEO News:

SEO, SEM, and PPC Resources

In SEM & PPC News

Link Building News and Resources

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SEO Monday: Earning Links with High Quality Content to Increase Search Rankings instead of Relying on Link Building Strategies

Don't Build Links Earn Them! Source:http://www.seo.com/blog/earning-links-vs-building-links/In reaction to Matt Cutts, Head of Google’s Webspam Team, announcement about guest blogging not being a good link building strategy, I felt there was a need to discuss link building, and how to deploy positive SEO tactics.  Also, recently, Google has made several announcements about poor link building strategies that will begin to affect your rankings, and Digital Marketing Managers and SEO Managers are struggling to find replacement SEO tactics to assist them in ranking high on search engine result pages.

Before we continue, the heart of the matter is that you need awesome content with an authoritative voice in order for any SEO tactic to generate results.

You need to become a thought leader as well as create awesome content that does one of the following:

Content is King Source:http://techtwisted.com/good-quality-content-can-beat-google-updates/

  • Offers a solution to your target audience’s problem
  • Answers a question
  • Teaches the audience
  • Consistently provides valuable information when needed
  • Content is shared and liked on social media networks
  • Consumed by your audience

Once you become a thought leader with your target audience and create content that meets one or more of the above criteria, you can start deploying SEO tactics to increase your rank on search engine result pages.

One of those SEO tactics will be Earning Links. Per Marcela De Vivo, we need to change the terminology. Instead to referring to Link Building Strategies, we should start using the term Earning Link Strategies.

Now, let’s take a look at different ways to Earn Links and get working on your SEO tactics for 2014:

  • Build an Engaged Target Audience on Relevant Social Media Networks – Create a community that possess the characteristics of your target audience, and then, amplify your posts to expand your reach to increase your followers.
  • Share your Content on Social Media Networks – Post your content on the Social Media Networks where your brand and target audience are located.  Any of your social media followers that Like, Retweet, +1, or shares your content on their pages, will signal Google to give you credit, and these signals will be taken into account in your site’s ranking in search.
  • Guest Blogging in Places with your Target Audience – If you find relevant and useful websites whose audience match your target audience, guest blogging/posting is appropriate, and Google will not reprimand you. Google’s new guidelines just restricts guest blogging on websites that aren’t relevant. Therefore, find websites with the same target audience as you, and do some guest blogging/posting with links back to your brand to help increase your exposure, branding, and reach. This will help your audience see you as a thought leader.
  • Create Offline Relationships with Industry Influencers, Journalists, and Bloggers – you can host an event or mail a four color post card to introduce them to your brand and content. The event and post card will start conversations about them linking to you and creating partnerships.  Also, you can urge industry journalists and bloggers to quote you in their articles to demonstrate your authoritative voice.
  • Lastly, if you have awesome content, you will earn links naturally, so it pays to produce great content.

Sources:

Additional Resource: I came a across a really great Infographic to help you and your organizations SEO strategies for 2014.  Given all of Google’s changes last year, SEO has changed, and this Infographic will help you reorganize your SEO strategies. For each old SEO tactic, the Infographic tells you the new SEO tactic.  I highly encourage you to look at this Infographic to help put your SEO worries aside and start deploying on tactics to increase your search ranking. SEO Evolution 2014: Quick Tips on How to Optimize Website in 2014

Learn More about Digital Marketing Manager, Cindy Plough

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SEO Monday: Google Pushs Organic Search Results Below the Fold

Welcome to SEO Monday’s. Last week, Google changed their Search Engine Results Page (SERP) pushing your organic search results below the fold in favor of images for Product Listings.

What does this mean for you?

Include images with keyword descriptions in your product listings, and you may want to test the pricing for your PPC bidding. For more information and screen shots of the new results pages, read Search Engine Journal’s “Breaking – Google Changes the SERP – Images are King and PPC Holds the Key to the Kingdom” article.

In other search engine news, Semantic Search is gaining ground. Semantic Search or entity search, uses machine intelligence to determine the intended meaning of the words you enter for your searches to deliver you more relevant search results.

Semantic Search works behind the scenes to deliver the results you need and takes content, context, and intent in to consideration when delivering results for each search. Now, when implementing your search engine optimization strategies, you need to have a deep understanding of how your current content users are finding you.  Also, you want to understand how the target market of your content conduct their searches on search engines. For more information, go to Search Engine Journal’s “The Stealthy Rise of Semantic Search” article.

Other Articles in Search to help you and your SEO:

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Learn More about Digital Marketing Manager, Cindy Plough