I recently read an article which said SEO (Search Engine Optimization) was a victim of its own success. Let us examine this more closely and consider various schools of thought. There is internal and external SEO. Internal means to design your website so it follows the best practices proven to rank high on Google. External SEO used to mean writing articles, press releases, blogs, comments, and content with embedded keyword “backlinks” to your website. It has changed, (and this rapid transformation continues at a furious pace), to include social media strategies.

Many believe the goal of Google and every other search engine is to have quality rise to the top; so their advice is to “write great content.” However, the search engines cannot truly identify quality. What they do is associate the quality of the content with the place it appears, (example – you are more likely to come up with quality on the New York Times than on a lesser known and read publication); and they also try to predict quality based upon mechanically identifiable characteristics of the content, (example – it may be true that 500-word stories are more likely to be of higher quality that 250 word items). But what does Google want? They want relevant, real content on the internet that people want to read and tell other people about. If Google does not bring you the most relevant content when you search they are not doing their job. Google used to think if you linked to someone on the Internet they must have valuable content. Now Google seems to believe if you promote content with social media it is more indicative of relevant content and less likely to be false. Though many point out social can be phony as well. The bottom line is all external SEO efforts are bogus other than one — writing, designing, or recording, real and relevant content that benefits those who search. It is about social “shares”. With recent policy changes, Google knows who everyone is once they open themselves up on the social realm. They will be able to tell the fake people. Social signals are a much bigger part of the Google algorithm.

Click here : to be one step closer to a professionally designed website.

For your internal SEO – make sure it is found and sees the light of day. Take the time to make it compelling so people talk about it and share it.

Look to real social media community support, compelling PR, and real content, that is where true SEO practitioners are turning.

If you believe we are living in a Post-SEO world, then you need to learn how to optimize in a Post-SEO world and here are some tips I found on how to do that:

1. First of all your content needs a good home. Just putting it on your website is not enough; you should have an online newsroom. This can become the landing page where you drive traffic to your content and the place were you use some best practice SEO for websites, in order to capture searchers. One of the biggest challenges with search engine traffic is getting them to click on more than one document. Use photos, use video, and if you do not produce enough content yourself bring some in from additional quality sources.
2. You also should have a blog, whether as an individual or as an organization. A blog is one way to personalize your content.
3. You are not going to maximize your audience with search alone. Use social networks. Every new piece of content should give rise to several tweets with interesting excerpts from the document and links back to your newsroom. This personalizes the messaging and makes it more social.
4. It is important to hit every social network you can think of that is relevant to your business. However, quality beats quantity – it is better to focus on a couple where you can concentrate on building a following. By learning what types of messaging draw the most likes or follows, you can refine how you use each network.
5. Placement is another way to get lots of readers. There are numerous innovative alternatives in the market today including recommendation engines, keyword buy options, and sponsored and preferred placement on mobile and social networks. A cost effective approach for placement is to use commercial newswire services. This can enable you to reach many targeted sites that may have a selective audience specifically interested in your content.

Did You Know? A recent report from McKinsey showed that a majority of the estimated $1.3 trillion in untapped value from social technologies lies in “improved communications and collaboration within and across enterprises.” In other words, social media is poised to become an office productivity tool.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 6th, 2013 at 9:53 pm and is filed under Design and Development, SEO, Social Media - SMO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.