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Search Engine Optimization Gets Social
May 09, 2012

Energy was high at the annual Nassau Trade Show April 25th with over 150 exhibitors touting their brands and services to entrepreneurs, business executives, community leaders and marketing executives eager to work the conference hall for new leads and beneficial contacts. In a competitive marketplace one question remains at the forefront of every savvy participant’s mind -- what’s the most effective way to reach your key audience?

Digital marketing strategists maintain combining Search Engine Optimization techniques with relevant content is a sure-fire technique to direct consumer attention your way. The mathematical powers of strategic key word placement and consistent brand messaging will drive customers looking for products and services in your direction as search engines crunch billions of linkable data to your site.

Employing tricks of the trade to pull your web pages from a haystack of competitors, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts boast conversion rates up to four times higher than the .5 to 2 percent industry standard experienced by non-optimized web participants. When you consider website click-thrus in 2012 are tantamount to successful telemarketing calls in 1975, it stands to reason that you give search engine optimization a try.

By all accounts digital marketing is still on the climb as nearly 1 billion searches are logged on the web each day. Tapping into that massive audience is the frontier of SEO exploration. As SEO spikes translate to conversions for the market savvy, industry experts predict more select linkages will emerge, weaving social influences into the mix.

According to Michael Bray, in his column, “The Future Of Search” at OpenMic, the competitive world of search optimization is being corralled. “Google is reportedly gearing up for another update to their infamous algorithm, which determines the best results to provide for a given search,” he reports. “The head of Google’s web spam team explained how they’re adjusting the algorithm to better combat over-optimizers (a.k.a. spammers) and “level the playing field” for those that are producing great, relevant content.

“As web content grows exponentially, it’s becoming essential for search engines to go beyond indexing and ranking, to review and summarize results so they’re more relevant and easier to find,” he explains. According to Bray’s calculations, every day, 60,000 new websites are added to the web, 140 million tweets are sent, 1.5 billion Facebook posts are made, 1.6 billion blog posts are published, 2 million videos and 5 million photos are uploaded. “How can we navigate our way through the growing expanse of web content to find what we need?” he asks. The answer: social integration and smart search results.

As search engines become more entangled in the untangling of web connections, and new social linkages create a never-ending trail of bread crumbs (cookies) connecting our favorite restaurants, movies, clothing brands, toothpaste and automobiles to everything we touch, our searches will become more personalized over time, narrowing the likelihood of random results. Making a strong argument for “building in” searchable associations at the ground floor of your web structure, SEO experts quickly back up their claims with track-able data to prove their case.

“In today's search world there are countless more variables at play in addition to things that have always been associated with SEO, such as title tags, H1 tags, and everyone's favorite topic thanks to Google, links. But many tasks that once were outside of the realm of what we used to consider SEO no longer are,” Search Engine Watch’s Ray “Catfish” Comstock reports. “Social media signals from sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and others are now gaining in stature. Social media platforms like blogs and communities need to be aligned with SEO best practices to fully leverage SEO potential. Leveraging your social media program for link building is critical.”

Understanding how to interpret all this smart data is key to decoding the web’s maze. The ability to not only mine data, but also understand and use it effectively is our new challenge.

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