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Outlook for Search – Building High Rankings in 2012

January 5, 2012 By

Well, a New Year has passed and we bid farewell to 2011. It was certainly an exciting year, especially in search and online marketing which saw changes occur at warp speed.

Over the last few weeks of 2011, we took a break to assess the state of search engine optimization and where things were headed going into 2012. We do this in order to help our clients (…and readers of this blog) better understand where they should focus their online marketing efforts.

After reflecting on where we’ve been and where we’re going, we quickly realized that the lines between different types of search – namely organic, local, mobile and social – are now being blurred more than ever. Rather than web search strictly being the center of activity online, social is increasingly becoming the focus.

According to an exclusive web tutorial from Planet Ocean, web search was the sun and other types of search (…or planets) revolved around it. Now, instead of web search being the sun, social is quickly becoming the center of the universe with other types of search (…or planets) revolving around it.

As we’ve said here many times over the last year, being social is a critical strategy to being successful online – this will become even more critical in the coming year. A cursory review of search results for a variety of terms shows social mentions and engagement alongside traditional webpages.

Social is being aggressively integrated in Bing, who has partnerships with Facebook, Skype and Twitter. Google has basically bet the farm on its new social network Google +.

From these arrangements and others, we can ascertain that social sharing will increasingly integrate with web search. Going forward, social shares or votes will increasingly be the new links.

How many have liked, +1’d or otherwise made a comment regarding content on your site?

So how can I ensure my site continues to rank high in 2012?

Dominating your market online in the new year will require some tried and true methods mixed with some new ways of engaging your audience online.

Since the web has become increasingly social, it’s become increasingly democratized as well. Users will more and more be the driving force in determining which social networking platforms you ultimately adopt.

The key to all of this though is content – as in years past, successful online marketing will be driven by your ability to create reference grade content that helps the reader. In turn, this can lead to true engagement that builds trust and value.

Rather than a few pages earning links, success online will hinge more on how socially engaging your content is.

The more likes, +1s and buzz your content has, the better your business will do.

Besides content itself, freshness will also be a driving factor in maintaining and building high search rankings. It’s increasingly become clear that Google and others are placing a high value on ‘fresh’ content. Just in the last two months, we’ve seen Google make updates to its algorithms to reward sites with fresh content, especially in areas that are always changing.

This update though has sadly penalized some sites with great ‘evergreen’ content that’s been around awhile but still valuable. Repurposing this content will help you get around this ‘freshness’ problem, especially if you experienced a drop in rankings due to this latest update.

Also in 2012, expect to see more firms using social media tools for product development and testing as well as technical support.

What about mobile-based search? Will it continue to grow in 2012?

An emphatic yes!! It’s projected that by 2015, more users in the U.S. will access the Internet through their smartphones or tablets than a regular computer.

Mobile search is deeply tied into local search with over 40% of searches on a mobile device being for something local like a restaurant, doctor’s office or brick and mortar store. According to Google, 44% of searches from a mobile device in the 2011 holiday shopping season were for store locations and last-minute gifts.

With mobile devices, users can seamlessly float between mobile, local and product search as well as their social media activities.

In 2012, it’s imperative that local business establish their presence on places like Bing Local, Google Places, Foursquare and others. Don’t be hesitant to allow reviews – customer reviews give you an opportunity to address grievances and open yourself up to new ways of engaging customers.

So there you have it – things will continue to move at wharp speed in this new year – social and mobile is most certainly revolutionizing how people interact and find things they need.

Stay tuned to our search engine optimization blog as we slice and dice the trends and developments in the search marketing world. Most of all relax and have fun with the possibilities the online sphere will bring in 2012.

Other Posts You May Be Interested In

7 Strategies for Maintaining ‘Fresh’ Content

Preparing for the Mobile Revolution – Part I

Preparing for the Mobile Revolution – Part II

3 Ways Social Media, SEO and Content Marketing Work Together

Reputation Management – Maintaining & Enhancing your Company’s Good Name

Filed Under: Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

7 Strategies for Maintaining ‘Fresh’ Content

December 13, 2011 By

Just over a month ago, Google announced an update to its Caffeine indexing system known as the “freshness update.” As you know, Caffeine was rolled out last year and changed the way the search engine crawls and indexes pages.

This latest update is known as the ‘freshness update’ because of its stated goal – rank newer content higher in search results.

The search giant says these changes should affect around 35% of searches, mainly in areas where the most recent content matters – current events, hot topics, celebrity gossip, product/movie reviews and breaking news are examples of where this principal would apply. See further explanation and a list of the winners & losers in this great post from TechCrunch.

Here are a few searches you can look at for an example – “Black Friday 2011,” “Penn State scandal” or “NBA lock-out”

One thing you will notice is how top results are time-stamped and annotated more visually than before. Some of these annotations are in days while others are notated in minutes or even seconds. From these ‘time-stamps,’ we can tell that date-specific content is being served now more than ever.

Considering this emphasis on placing newer content higher in search results, consider the following 7 strategies to ‘evergreen’ your content and increase your chances of a ‘freshness’ boost in search results.

1) Start and maintain a blog

It’s clear from this update that more timely content is better. Therefore, one of the best ways to accomplish this ‘timely’ requirement is to publish content on a variety of topics on a regular, even daily basis. A blog is one of the best ways to easily get this content online.

2) Generate ‘Link Bait’ pieces

Content pieces that are informative and entertaining sometimes bring in thousands of visitors, hundreds of social media impressions and dozens of links each day. When these types of pieces are published on your blog, you will certainly see higher rankings. Seeing the popularity and relevancy for so many people will be a strong signal to Google.

3) Use Time Stamps to your advantage

Take a look at the top results in our sample searches and you’ll notice that each one has a time stamp. Each ‘freshness’ result has a clear publication date pulled by Google from the piece. Time stamping is easy to do and automatic on many blog platforms like WordPress. Google recommends the YYYY-MM-DD format (…2011-12-12).

4) Maximize Your Use of Social Media

Make sure you’re using social media tools to ‘push out’ new content as well as ‘pull in’ traffic     and social signals to that same content. Nothing says ‘fresh’ like a Tweet, Facebook comment or a +1 on Google’s new social network. Also, you can tap into your social networks to help write more content for you. If that isn’t possible, getting your friends to simply promote your content or leave comments will dramatically boost your ‘freshness quotient’ with Google.

5) Dynamically Update XML Sitemaps

By default, XML sitemaps include time stamps for each crawled URL within the sitemap.      Making sure these time stamps are updated regularly when new content is posted is now a pretty big deal. Blogging platforms like WordPress do this automatically but for your regular site content, it’s recommended you install a standalone XML sitemap generator that will automatically update your pages when you do.

6) Publish more Press Releases

Press releases scream ‘fresh’ and timely. In this new era of freshness though, press releases just may be the best and fastest way to feed the search engine a steady stream of the type of content they’re displaying high in search results. However, a press release will only remain fresh for a couple days up to a week so think about ways you can ‘update’ a prior press release with new, more detailed information when possible.

7) Get into Google News

Although it’s extremely difficult for a lone blogger to get into Google News, doing so can have a tremendous influence in how/if your content will find its way to the top of these ‘freshness’ results.

After reading about Google’s new fascination with freshness, you may be thinking that you can simply make changes to a previously published piece of content. According to Google’s statements though, one of the more important factors affecting which content they serve is when they first crawled a page. Making changes to your content in the hope of getting a ‘freshness boost’ will not work.

Therefore, be sure your content is correct the first time!!

One observation about these changes that we and others like our friends at Search Engine News have noticed – freshness doesn’t always equate to ‘most relevant’ in terms of returned search results. Down the road, this distinction may cause problems for Google…we’ll see of course.

Related Posts

Google “Caffeine” Goes Completely Live

Press Release Optimization – Why Your Press Release May Not Be Ranking

5 Common Mistakes that Stop Press Releases Cold

Getting Wisdom from the True Masters of Social Media

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , ,

Content Marketing over Traditional Advertising – Making the Case

October 31, 2011 By

Trying to explain the virtues of search engine and content marketing to an executive internally or a prospective client can be quite a challenge to say the least. Many business owners generally still think advertising first – whether it be online (PPC) or through more traditional means.

Justifying the virtue of content marketing over traditional advertising can be difficult for some.

How can an online marketing professional effectively convince executives within their company (as part of a marketing team) or prospective clients (outside executives) of the value of developing informative content?

Content Marketing Institute recently compiled some tips from some of the best content marketers around on how to do this.

Here’s a couple of their responses to the question – “Content marketing can be a new way of thinking for some marketing teams. How would you explain the value of content marketing to a manager or executive who is primarily familiar with traditional advertising approaches?”

“Content Marketing has significant value in a few different ways.  For one, the content you create and distribute on the web has a much longer shelf life at a lower cost then any traditional campaigns you will run.  Each object of content you create can add the the total poll of content that represents your brand and works to get your customers talking back to you.  Over time when your collection of content grows larger, you will notice increases in online traffic and engagement.  A bigger collection attracts more interest.” Nate Riggs

“The value of content marketing lies in the engagement between the customer and your company. Traditional advertising shouts at prospect customers whereas content marketing talks with them. Essentially, it is about the creation and participation in meaningful conversations and development of relationships. Content marketing can benefit your company by increasing sales leads and positioning your company/brand as a thought leader, in addition to increasing the number of visitors to your website.” Amanda Maksymiw

Nate and Amanda hit on probably the two biggest advantages of content marketing over traditional advertising. One being cost – which one commenter says is one of the best ways to talk to someone clung to traditional advertising – and the other being the fact traditional advertising is not about the customer but about you.

As Amanda says, traditional advertising shouts while content marketing pulls up a chair and talks.

Other reasons you can provide your superiors or prospective clients include:

  • Draw customers in through relevant content rather than one-size fits all materials
  • More dynamic, easier to change
  • Has a longer shelf life
  • Easier to measure, more metrics and tools available
  • Fewer risks and costs
  • Reaches a wider audience
  • …and more

Besides discussing the benefits of content marketing over traditional advertising, we also get a glimpse into some of the ways you can show your boss or prospective client the advantages of building content rather than using traditional advertising.

This is where testing comes in – nothing is more convincing than data to backup your claims of increased traffic, conversions and revenues. Show your prospect data from previously successful content marketing campaigns, provide word-of-mouth referrals and more.

Traditional advertising has been on a consistent downward trend for quite some time now. There are still some instances where it can work but as CMI and others say, there’s only one way to measure progress and that’s sales.

Providing these reasons along with some data to back it up will go a long way toward convincing your bosses or prospective clients that content marketing is an effective way to spend their marketing dollar.

Other Posts You May Be Interested In

3 Ways Social Media, SEO and Content Marketing Work Together

Top 10 Ways to Connect your Customers with Good Content

Making your Content Work for You in Better, More Valuable Ways

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, Online Marketing, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Reputation Management – Maintaining & Enhancing your Company’s Good Name

October 20, 2011 By

A good reputation can take years to develop, but can be lost in the blink of an eye.

In today’s fast-paced online world, negative press can spread like wildfire – and decimate your business in the process. This principle applies not only to online businesses, but brick & mortar outlets as well since many people research a business online before making purchasing decisions.

Just think about when you’re looking for products and services – would you trade with someone who has a lot of negative comments prominently displayed online?

Probably not…

So whether negative comments are legitimate or not, they can do great harm to your reputation and by extension, your business. That’s why adopting a comprehensive online reputation management strategy is an important, but often overlooked part of marketing a business.

Online reputation management can be broken down into two types – proactive and reactive

Proactive is just that…you go out and find where people are discussing issues relevant to your industry. You add to the conversation through blog comments, forum & social media discussions and targeted content to other sites. Syndicating content helps build your company as a thought leader in your industry, which builds trust and credibility among prospective buyers. Participating in the online discussion signals to prospective customers that you care, and are available to address their concerns.

In addition being a positive for your online reputation, participating in the discussion and adding unique content to external sites yields better search rankings for your firm.

Reactive reputation management is just the opposite. When someone posts a negative comment or complaint about your firm, you address their concerns promptly. Many of these comments though may be initiated by your competition, in which case you can contact the forum or blog and ask the comment be removed.

It doesn’t matter where negative comments come from – the effects are devastating just the same if they’re not addressed.

Promptly addressing complaints accomplishes two goals – one, it shows others that you’re prompt in addressing any concerns. Customers can rest easy knowing you’re there to help if anything goes wrong.

The other benefit to responding to negative comments is to dilute the negative press in search rankings. It’s commonly known that the vast majority of web searchers pay no attention to results past page 1, and especially past page 2.

If page 1 results for terms related to your firm are packed with negative publicity, that’s all anyone is likely to see about your firm. Responding to negative criticism and taking proactive steps outlined above pushes these negative reviews past page 2.

You may be asking…reputation management seems awfully similar to SEO?

In a big way it is. You’re trying to ensure that top results pose your company in a positive light. Proactive reputation management reinforces your on-site efforts to ensure you not only reach the top of the rankings, but stay there as well.

Check back often as we discuss different tools and methods for effectively managing your company’s online reputation.

SEO Buzz Marketing services from SEO Advantage help companies like yours harness these tools to effectively manage your online reputation. Check with us today to see how you can save money, enhance revenues and build a long-term basis for future growth.

 

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, Online Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Partnership with SEO Advantage Yields Six-Fold Increase in Web Traffic

October 18, 2011 By

Strategic partnerships between firms are one important way businesses grow market share and revenues – especially in today’s troubled economy.

One partnership our search engine marketing firm engaged in last year with gold bullion dealer Provident Metals has seen tremendous success.

When we start working with a firm to grow their online presence and by extension, traffic and revenues, we set realistic goals to accomplish the desired end. In the case of Provident Metals, traffic and search rankings for the bullion dealer’s site increased well beyond anyone’s expectations.

Since formation of the partnership in mid-2010, Provident Metals’ website has seen over a 600% increase in web traffic. Much of this traffic has been driven by the exponential increase in the company’s page 1 Google rankings. Coupled with social media engagement and a re-designed online store, the bullion dealer has experienced much success since teaming up with our firm.

Now that the new site design is complete and a large catalog of informative content is established, we’re now working to target some super-competitive phrases related to PM’s industry – think ‘gold bullion’, ‘silver bullion’ and others.

Dominating these keyword phrases will vault Provident Metals into the elite circles of the bullion industry.

We’ll continue to work with Provident Metals to build informative web content that builds search rankings and engages the reader to act. Providing timely and informative content is key to building thought leadership and trust with customers.

We’re excited to be working with such a reputable company that prides itself on superior customer service. Stay tuned for more important updates on our exciting work. In the meantime, read more about the partnership in our latest press release.

And if you’re searching for an online partner dedicated to helping businesses grow, contact search marketing consultants at SEO Advantage today to find out how you can effectively harness online channels to build website traffic and revenues.

Filed Under: SEO Advantage Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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