optimization

SEocial – SEO meets Social Media

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Redundant blog post starts now! Social Media and SEO have been on a collision course for the last two or three years. The Major search engines include social media results in real time on their SERPs. With the recent release of Google Plus and the +1 button showing up in almost all of google products, social will continue to play a larger role in SEO. The social and seo industries have merged into one cohesive marketing segment. There is no longer a way to differentiate between an SEO and Social expert and businesses need to keep this in mind when search for online marketing support.

How is your business utilizing social? are you just updating news, current events, and specials? Do you engage customers and answer questions? Are you providing keyword rich replies with links to quantitative content? By incorporating the same best practices for SEO into social you will see high conversions in terms of sales and followers.

  • Engage Your Customers
  • Provide Relevant Keyword Rich Content
  • Cross Promote – Don’t Just Self Promote
  • Assist Your Fellow Social-ites
  • Link, Link, Link
  • Update frequently (3-5 times a week minimum)

By following these bullets you will start to see real results with your social strategies and in doing so you will directly assist your SEO.  Obviously this is very high level. You can be doing quite a bit more in terms of Video and other Social, but for a beginner these steps will definitely get you started on the right track.

Search Engine Optimization Consulting – Dallas, TX

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Consulting for search engine optimization (SEO) can be a daunting task.  In order to be a good consultant in any industry, you must first properly set expectations.  It is going to be a much healthier relationship with potential and recurring clients if your goals are outlined and well described from the outlet.

About 8 months ago I left SEO consulting behind here in Dallas.  I Decided to focus my efforts full time working for a telco at the INFOMART.  I have to say that this has been a very pleasurable experience and I hope to continue my relationship with this company for a long time to come.  By taking a risk and leaving my consulting role, I have learned many new skills outside of Search Engine Marketing and Optimization and have a much wider marketing skillset that has expanded in to print and media buys.  I love the challenge of learning something new, but my number one joy is still seeing the pages I create or help optimize showing up on the first page of a google SERP.

Remember when choosing the right SEO for your website or company to work with someone  you trust and can relate to.  Avoid blackhat shops or anyone who makes guarantees or sets unrealistic timetables.  SEO and SEM are quantitative processes that don’t change over night.  Patience with SEO and all business is a virtue.

I am also working on a couple new and exciting projects that I hope to discuss more in the future on this blog.  I want to see if some new techniques in SEO are favorable to the Google Instant search while still implementing long-tail.

Social Media Hangover and Optimization

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I was listening to a podcast this morning and heard an interesting term referring to the Social Media Hangover that has been fatiguing customers engaging businesses through social marketing.

The marketer was discussing how the majority of marketers for business are utilizing brand and business social media including twitter, facebook, and flickr to spam brand related blogs and information into the sphere. Obviously, Businesses engaged in social media advertising are utilizing these efforts to increase branding and recognition – This is the goal of any marketing effort.

In order to be effectively engage customers through social media, businesses must figure out the magic mixture of education, promotion, and exposure. These three spices can be viewed as the soup of Social Media Optimization.

As a social media marketer, you need to educate potential and current customers about your brand while maintaining a value prop and staying noninvasive in your efforts.  How does one do this?  There is no real answer as every brand is different.

For the brands I maintain, I encourage marketers to tweet at least once a day, but no more than 5 times a day for a business with under 10,000 followers.  In those tweets you need to distinguish what content is most important to push into the space.

Customers want engaging content that adds value.  Make sure you offer something that readers will enjoy or you might loseWeight Exercise another follower.

SMB SEO – Search Engine Optimization

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SEO

Over the last decade, broadband speeds have allowed businesses and consumers to connect in new unimaginable ways. With a simple search on Google, customers have gained unparalleled access to any information they are seeking – both good and bad. This week, I will take a step back from discussing IP communications and focus on the ever-expanding industry of online marketing.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of tweaking and adjusting content to make your website more “search engine friendly.” This capability set has been around for quite some time but has recently grown in importance as companies realize the value of high search rankings for related keywords. Showing up on the first page of a Google, Bing, or Yahoo search provides your company prime real estate to connect with potential customers. Additionally, by leveraging SEO GEO targeting tactics, businesses can target customers locally or regionally based upon their business presence.

Years ago, people viewed SEO as a secretive and manipulative process where individuals could game the “system” and implement questionable tactics to maneuver websites to the top of the rankings. This was a false perspective. Google and the other search engines actually encourage companies to use SEO best practices in website design. By implementing certain techniques, businesses help increase usability and standardize web search, which creates a better experience for anyone searching for information. A quick example of this includes using an alt=”” tag when placing an image online. The alt text for images enables a company to describe the image, which is important for text-based browsers or browser readers for the blind. Without the alt description tag, there would be no way for the search engine to know what the image is.

Finally, in the arena of SEO, Google is very important. Globally, Google has an 84.8% market share and 65% in the US. Bing is on the rise, but your best bet at achieving strong SEO results is to focus your efforts on Google.

Google Maps API and SEO

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In recent months, I have been working a lot with the Google Maps API.  I have been utilizing the API to optimize landing pages for “multiple location” websites.  In customizing these sites for the API, I have discovered that Google’s organic listings absolutely love when a website utilizes their Maps API.

In less than two weeks, I have seen my organic listings skyrocket up the pages with very little additional SEO practices in place.

Obviously Google loves relevant content, but as Google expands it’s capabilities and customization techniques, geotargeting has become much more relevant.  In this particular case, creating a website encoded with the Maps API for all locations has exponentially boosted optimization at a much quicker pace that normal.

In a nutshell, if you have a geo-specific website you are developing, I highly recommend implementing a geographic KML file and implementing it into your websites using the Maps API. 

KML is an extension of XML that pertains to geographic locations in Google Maps and Google Earth.  It’s a very thorough and organized markup language that is useful in presenting data to the search engines.

Example of KML code:

KML example for Google Maps API and SEO

KML example for Google Maps API and SEO

 Utilizing this particular KML file, I was able to geocode over 20 locations on one page in the API and include, address, phone number, location image, and a link to each individual page.  This created an insane amount of relavence and quality information for Google to boost this website up the organic listings.  

 

KML based Map for Google API including relevant information

KML based Map for Google API including relevant information

As you can see above.  There is a ton of relevant information included in a very small and precise space.  This information utilized by the API is a great way to gain instant optimization.

In the next couple days, i will create a step by step tutorial on how to fully integrate this technology into any website.