notes on SEO

Quotes:

Keeping up with Google: SEO experts talk

• original content creation is more important than ever.
• It's now easier for Google to understand whether it's original or inserted content."
• biggest change for search this year was the introduction of Google Panda
• changes Google has made to its algorithm, it is now easier than ever to determine whether content on a business's site is now original, or if it's just taken from somewhere else. And if it's taken – you can expect your rankings to be impacted.
• if businesses were sourcing blog posts and updates from other websites, it will hurt their rankings.
• Google emphasises original content much more than ever before. As long as businesses are producing their own articles and text, then they should be fine.

• +++ need for good copy writers - Remove

if your business is using duplicate content, then you need to stop immediately.

how much you need to become a thought leader in your business.

businesses now have to become publishers

important now to try and look for well-known bloggers or guest bloggers that have good authorship across the web to come and blog about something to do with your product

You have to be out searching for this type of stuff, because that's where all the action is.

Panda update not only emphasised the creation of unique content, but combines search rankings and social media in a big way. The more your links are getting thrown around different social networks, the higher your rankings will be.

• the case for social media presence - Remove

businesses not only need to start making content that is engaging, but start pu shing that content onto social networks.

If you start a blog on your website associated with your name, then you may find that if you keep updating with rich, regular content, it will only bolster your company's search results.

new social network layer may not only be a competitor for Facebook, but will start to change the way content is indexed on search results pages.

Both Bing and Google have now combined social metrics with their rankings

looking at more engaging metrics, like the balance rate, the click-through-rate, and whether people are sharing that content on networks.

if one of your Gmail contacts clicks on a link and spends a lot of time there, that site will be more likely to rank higher in one of your searches

The lesson here for businesses is that social is not only becoming a required tool for networking and customer support, but also for your SEO. SMEs need to start sharing as many good-quality links as possible through networks like Twitter and Facebook.

important to start searching for your own business, write down what type of predictive text you're seeing, and then start using advertising campaigns based around those terms.

more SMEs need to learn how to make their mobile sites SEO-savvy.

You always need to monitor that and make sure your details are filled out.

There has been a substantial interest from many people in business to try and find out what social media is about and how best to use it to improve sales; develop a following or market themselves in. They are wary of investing the time and effort to learn and use social media to engage with their current and future customers.

The metaphor I'll like to use to help people get a grasp of social media particular to Facebook, is -
try and imagine that you are the new kid in the class room. Imagine this is the world's biggest classroom with the most distractions.
What kind of conversations are you going to have with the other kids to build relationships?
Is it going to be all about you or is it going to start off with stories about them?

Too many businesses come into the space with conversations that are all about them. How long and interesting are the conversations going to be?
A conversation becomes boring if it does not include the other person.

As our time becomes more scarce and the growth of content becomes exponential, the currency of attention becomes even more valuable. In an age where everything is abundant and of high quality, what makes your business stand out?

1. PROBLEM
   How do we do we facilitate increased interactions between us and our audience on Facebook
2. STRUGGLE
   Businesses are finding it difficult to have the strategy and resources to properly manage their social media presence. There are no guarantees of new customers and an increasing amount of time/effort needed to manage interactions. How can we be more effective in engaging our audience?
3. RESOLUTION
   This is a new arena in communications, but the principles of relationship-building still apply. Trust, attachment, credibility and emotional investment are some. Facebook is an engagement platform, and with it comes the opportunity to leverage trusted relationships, with the power of a many to many network to broadcast your message. To make you or your business stand out, the why in your business needs to be clear and memorable. People respond to meaning, and if that meaning/value is encoded within a story*, then the more likely it is to be spread through peer-to-peer conversations, thus building reputation and goodwill. So find out what moved you to start your business, the value it created, distill its essence in a story and let your customers do the talking.

* story structure which I’ve used to frame the discussion above

1. Unexpected challenge your customers are facing

2. Struggles to overcome the challenge

3. Resolution

Below is some points from Hugh Macleod that may help in creating some momentum in social engagement for your business or organisation. He talks about the creation of social objects to facilitate discussion and social memes.

NOTES

The Social Object is the not the object itself, but the conversations that happen around them.

Social Objects are for people to SHARE MEANINGFULLY with other people.

Rationale (courtesy of Hugh Macleod)

• Social Networks form around Social Objects, not the other way around.

• Being with other human beings matter.

• Another thing to remember is the world of Social Objects can have many layers.

• People socialise around objects - a product, an idea, a movement, a person - people don’t socialize in a vacuum.

• The Social Object idea is easy to get if your product is highly remarkable, highly sociable

• “Own the conversation by improving the conversation.” talking about stuff that actually matters to people

• For them to really LOVE it, somehow they’ve got to connect and empathize with the basic, primal human drives that compelled you create your product in the first place. The Purpose. The Idea

The most important word on the internet is “Share”.

The network needs the node, like flowers need sunlight. “Things change because of people interacting with other people, rather than technology or design really doing things to people.” since the dawn of time until the end of time, we use whatever tools we have at hand to make it happen. Examples of Social Objects from “Social Objects are the future of marketing.” | gapingvoid