Google+ is far more than just another social network

Is it yet another addition to the multitude of social channels that have sprung up and gained strength in the past few years? Yes. But is that all there is to it? Nope!

How to create a Google Plus page for your business, and why it matters

If you are asking questions like “How to create a Google Plus account for my business for best results”, or “How to create a Google Plus page for my business to get the best rankings” then you’ve come to the right place! We can tell you all of the best reasons that you need to be telling yourself and your business associates that you need “a Google Plus page for my business” right away!

Check out this great tutorial on setting up your Google Plus page for your business:  How to Create a Business Page On Google Plus - by Matthew Meyer

Video: How to Create a Business Page On Google Plus

Google Plus for business is to content what Facebook is to relationships; its aim is to connect content creators and curators and eventually become the place to go for those interested in the content side of the internet. The goal of Google Plus for small business users seems to be to collect, personalize / recommend, and share the world’s content amongst the members of the network.

It is also a Google product, and this should not be disregarded. While outright favoritism would not be wise, it does seem that Google is giving plenty of weight to the content and social signals coming from Google Plus, making Google Plus for business sign up an excellent option.

SEO and Google+

Should I create a Google Plus page for my business?

Definitely! You should sign up for Google Plus for business use, create a Google Plus account for business purposes (both content creation / sharing and networking), and then create a Google Plus page for business content pieces you publish.

One of the more interesting things about Google+ is that profiles and pages there have fairly decent PageRank right off the bat, and this can be passed on from the links you build there. Of course you’d need to be smart about utilizing this source of links with Google Plus for business best practices in mind, but when added to your total library of link building locations it can be a very valuable resource.

It’s all about YOU (and your content of course)

As far as Google is concerned, you are becoming more important than your website – your authority and relevance as a content producer and publisher is worth more than these same factors when applied to your website, though of course your Google Plus URL for business content will be taken into consideration.

The way Google views you now determines the effectiveness of Google+ for your SEO. If you can establish yourself as a valuable contributor on Google+ then the content you publish / share there will have a better chance of ranking well. Because of this, creating a Google Plus account for business use would make a lot of sense.

How important is Google Authorship for SEO?

While Google Authorship in and if itself does not seem to be a ranking factor, it can still be useful to create a Google Plus account for your business to be used for building the kind of authority that will generate more social activity around your brand and your content, thus achieving the effects mentioned above. Businesses can use a Google Plus for business login to get in on this action and set up their Authorship any time.

Which is more important, +1′s or more people in your circles?

More +1′s indicates to Google that you are legitimate and are producing valuable content. These positive signals can help to increase rankings. You can create a Google Plus page for business content publishing and create a Google Plus account for business networking – setting up a Google Plus account for business can help your business begin to garner those valuable +1′s!

More people in your circles might not have the same kind of measurable effect but like Google Authorship it doesn’t have to be a directly attributable ranking factor to help you out in the long run!

Your takeaway

While the general rule of thumb when it comes to social media is to go where your audience is and attempt to establish  presence there and focus your efforts based on the concentration of your audience on a given channel, you might want to consider breaking the rule for Google+.

It is growing fast and has the second-largest active user base, only surpassed by Facebook. This should make it a very attractive prospect for your business’ content marketing and social networking strategies.

Have you ever wondered exactly how Google determines where your website should rank? Out of the hundreds of millions of other websites out there, how does Google know where your site stands?

While we can’t give you a precise list of the over 200 different ranking factors taken into account by Google’s algorithm, we can tell you about some of the factors we are aware of and show you a few ways that you can work with them to give your website a fighting chance!

As an organic SEO services company, we know a little bit about organic SEO services and how we can help our clients get the organic SEO results they’re looking for.

Here’s what we know

According to a survey and analysis project by SEOmoz the following factors are what you need to focus on in your future SEO efforts whether you work with an organic SEO service or not. They are organized by importance from greatest to least. If you are thinking of hiring an organic search engine optimization service, ask them how this information would affect their organic search engine optimization strategy for your website.

• The trust / authority of the host domain – The longer a website has been in existence, the better. The length of time that your website has been optimized and “active” will improve its chances of ranking organically, and this is one of the easiest (and yet most difficult) organic search engine optimization tips out there to implement. Search engines tend to put a lot of stock in a website’s credibility, and the age and legitimacy (often proved by activity and positive factors like a low bounce rate) of a website are used to weed out the relevant, established websites from the newer crowd. This is a technique used to serve searchers while preventing spammers from filling up the results pages with junk, and every good organic search engine optimization specialists group knows it.
• The link popularity of a given page – The more links you have pointing from outside sources to your website from relevant authority sites in your niche, the more popular a page is considered. The links coming into your website are an indicator to Google of how popular your website is and how many authority websites consider your site worth linking to. This where an organic search engine optimization SEO company can come in handy!
• The anchor text of links to the page – In the past it was all about exact match anchor text; you wanted to rank for “organic SEO optimization company” or a similar term? Just build a lot of links with this keyword as your anchor text. Simple! Then came the Penguin update, and all of that changed. There is now an emphasis on relevancy over exact match anything. Of course you don’t want to have too many links with the anchor text of “Click here” coming back at you, but the key is variety, so if there are a few of those tossed into the mix it’s not something to worry about overmuch.
• Your on-page keyword usage – Keywords are great, and they are the foundation of your organic search engine optimization efforts from the very start. There’s just one little problem with keywords – they tend to get stuffed into every little nook and cranny and that can spell bad news for your website. When you are optimizing your website’s content and code, pay attention to where and how you use your keywords. There is nothing wrong with including them in places where they fit naturally and make sense…the problem arises when your meta tags are nothing but strings of keywords as far as the eye can see.
• A website’s registration and hosting data – If you have a nation-based target market (for example your business markets primarily to people in Brazil) then your website needs to be hosted on a domain that reflects this. If you have a very diverse or global market, a .com or other common domain extension is best. The language your website is in, location of the IP address your website is associated with, and other geo-specific information are also taken into consideration.
• Traffic and CTR (Click Through Rate) data – One of the more broad-use ranking factors Google considers is user behavior in the form of who is clicking on what. The more traffic your website gets, the more popular it is, and following the logic of Google, the more potential it has to be useful and relevant to the search query that returned it. Whether or not someone clicks on your website when they see it in their search results is one of the first clues Google has about the relevance of your website to a user’s query.
• Social graph metrics – Defined by Brad Fitzpatrick as “the global mapping of everybody and how they’re related“, the social graph has since become a very big deal. While social signals might not be the most important ranking factor, the fact that they made this list should be an indicator of how far they have risen in influence. More social activity surrounding your website indicates that your website is active and engaged with the web community.

Fascinating isn’t it? And this is only the beginning!

What is organic search engine optimization?

Essentially it is search engine optimization organic style; no paid-for campaigns, no ads, no nothing. Just pure search engine optimization organic search results; good ‘ol SEO at its finest. When people talk about organic SEO, they’re talking about organic search engine optimization SEO, which is essentially the same SEO that we’ve been seeing for years now. A good organic search engine marketing agency or independent organic SEO services provider can help you get the kind of organic search engine optimization services your business needs to get ahead.

Video: Google CEO Eric Schmidt On Google’s Secret Ranking Algorithm

There is so much that we as marketers don’t know about the inner workings of the Google algorithm, and chances are even the best organic search engine optimization company out there will never really know about what goes on behind the scenes. What we can tell you is that these are some of the important factors that Google considers when ranking your website, and we hope that you can use this information to improve your organic search engine optimization strategy!

For a larger version please click on this graphic — To see the post where this graphic appeared, click here

Comments:

You know which of these factors is considered to be the most important according to the pie chart above…but which one do you think you should focus on most, and what makes that the most important factors in your eyes?

There’s more to being #1 than meets the eye

You might be thinking that a Google ranking of #1 is a reward in and of itself, after all, it means you beat out everyone else who was aiming for that top spot!

Seeing your website’s Google rank  at #1 for your keywords can be a pretty heady experience, so much so that you might not be thinking much beyond it.

There is however, more to Google rankings than bragging rights…in truth, it’s all about the traffic.

Look out below

The #1 Google page ranking is seen by most clients as the holy grail of SEO. If they can just get there, everything else will fall into place. But what if their website falls short and ranks lower than they planned? What if they were #1 for a time, but then lost their position to a competitor? What kind of traffic can they expect to get since they are not #1?

As you can see, after you leave the realm of #1, everything else drops dramatically until you reach Page 2… but let’s be honest, how many of us know people who go to Page 2 looking for anything? We might because we know that sometimes the good information is hiding just behind Page 1, but for most people Page 1 is it.

For a larger version please click on this image — To see the post where this image appeared, please click here

Sometimes there’s nothing you can do

Interestingly enough, Google has a funny way of handling their search results for some things. Take a look at this post by Dr. Pete on SEOmoz and let us know what you think of the things he shows in his post. We’ll give you a hint, it’ll make you shake your head and wonder how in the heck organic search survives for some keywords!

How can your business be #1?

Obviously being #1 is kind of important; sometimes it’s the only way you can be on Page 1 at all.

How can your business get to this coveted position?

If you want to see your website in the #1 spot someday, you’ll need to improve Google ranking for your site with organic SEO right now and never really stop. You don’t have to slave away at it, but you cannot afford to neglect it either.

How does Google rank websites?

If you really want to know how to increase Google page rank, turn your eye to sustainable practices like content marketing, social channel activity, and responsible link building; these are all Google ranking factors that will all help your website build the solid foundation that it needs for a good Google search ranking. If you find that you cannot do all of this on your own, but still have dreams of having the #1 Google website ranking spot on Page 1 someday, why not consider signing on with an organic search engine optimization company? Having someone else handle your SEO really takes the pressure off of you and lets you get back to taking care of your business. So while you’re working to improve your Google keyword rank through other aspects of your business, an organic SEO company is working hard to increase Google page rank for your website and get you there you want to go, which is your case is straight to the top!

Video: Ranking reports

In this video, Matt Cutts talks about not focusing so much on ranking reports or Google keywords ranking, but rather the amount of traffic you’re getting, how many visitors are converting, and those sorts of numbers. He makes some very good points that can be applied to the logic behind seeking out the #1 Google site ranking spot on Page 1. The higher you rank, the better your chances are of getting noticed, getting traffic, and starting visitors down the road to becoming customers.

Comments:

Has your website ever been in the #1 spot for your top keyword(s)? We’d love to see just how many people who read this blog have hit the mark! If you still want to increase Google ranking for your website and haven’t gotten there yet we’d still love to hear from you! Let us know how your journey to the top is going and how you’re planning on achieving your goal.

It’s been brewing for quite some time now, this thing between Bing and Facebook.

Bing might not be the biggest search engine out there, but it’s big enough to give Google pause and to consider it a major rival. For a long time now, Google and Bing have been battling for absolute search supremacy. Obviously Google has the edge of an overwhelming market share and a hefty purse with which to finance their various initiative, but Bing is also the child of Microsoft, long thought to be one of the biggest players in the tech game. It would seem that the two are doomed to be locked in their battle until the end of search…but then came social media.

Social and search come together

Bing and Facebook have been working together for quite some time now. Some reports say as early as 2008 Bing had its fingers in the Facebook game, while others plant the real start of their relationship about mid 2010. Regardless of the when, we’re certain that things are progressing right along.

This image has been cropped in the interest of space – To see the full graphic, click on the image here.
To see the post where the entire graphic was originally featured, click here.

There has been some confusion about exactly how Bing works with Facebook, and we’d like to help clear some of that up today.

• While Bing is a part of Facebook’s search functionality, it does not affect Graph Search. Essentially if someone searches for something on Facebook, but Facebook can’t find anything to return for the query, it turns to Bing. Bing also supplies additional web results for Facebook searches that are able to return results from within the network. More or less Bing is playing second fiddle to Graph Search, but in case it is needed, it is there to step in and return some sort of results so users aren’t left staring at a blank page.

Video: LATEST NEWS : Facebook Announces Partnership With Microsoft

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTUGkenrx0s

• It might not seem like Bing has much to gain from this relationship based on what we mentioned, but think of it this way: Bing is in on the action, which means that Google isn’t. Bing has one-upped the search giant in that they have an inside relationship with Facebook, even if it isn’t much to brag about in it’s own right. There is also one little thing that falls through the cracks when most people go to take a closer look at why Bing and Facebook play so well together: Bing is getting quite a bit of traffic coming from those web results they return as a part of Facebook searches. And as well all know, every little bit helps when it comes to the traffic that keeps our brands alive.

What’s in store for the future?

Lately there has been a lot of talk and speculation as to how the relationship between Bing and Facebook will affect Google – what will happen to the way Google handles social signals from Facebook when returning search results?

IOn the other side of the coin, is it true that Facebook signals are being given more importance over on the Bing side of search? Is Facebook being seen as a more trustworthy source of links?

These are the big questions we as SEOs and marketers need to be finding the answers to, and fast. If there is is going to be a change in how Facebook’s signals are interpreted and dealt with by either Google or Bing, we need to be in the know so that we can provide the best possible services to our clients!

Comments:

What do you think of the relationship between Facebook and Bing? Is it a good thing, a bad thing, or not something we should really be concerned with?

Online representation is everything. If you are doing business in any form or fashion you need to be properly represented online, especially at a local level.

Video: How can a legitimate business compete online?

Think of local SEO while watching this video; local SEO is just the thing that businesses need to level the playing field and compete for the eyes and attention spans of today’s web users.

Google has begun placing even greater importance on the results of local SEO. This means that the more visible you can make your business, the more you will benefit.

Local versus national SEO

Local traffic is different from national traffic – not only can your results vary based on your browser settings, but there are differences in the very foundations of each kind of SEO.

Local SEO and national SEO have very different approaches when it comes to keyword research, and any online representation that follows. Local SEO focuses specifically on the area surrounding a business and makes an effort to bring that business to prominence in the search results for that area. Often users search for a more general term such as “organic SEO company” and add the name of their local area either before or after the general term, hoping to receive results for the general term that are directly related to their local area.

In contrast to national SEO, local organic SEO is a process that aims to enhance the ranking and authority of a business’ website using a variety of on and off page optimization techniques. A growing number of businesses are choosing focus more of their SEO efforts on locally-oriented campaigns.

Making local organic SEO work for your business

If you want your local organic SEO efforts to succeed, you need to learn more about citations.

A citation is defined as a mention of your business’ name, address, phone number, or combination of these and other contact details. Even if there isn’t a link to your website included with this mention it can still be valuable. Citations can be found in places like local business directories, chamber of commerce websites, or other local business associations. Citations can also be referred to as “web references”  – so if you see this term when researching more information on local SEO you can know that this post and what you find are addressing the same thing.

If all other factors are equal, businesses with more citations to their credit are likely to rank better than those who do not have as many.

As with other organic SEO techniques, authority matters. Citations from websites that have been around for several years and are well-indexed are going to be worth more than citations from newer, less established websites. Authority signals like citations from high-ranking sites with plenty of their own authority tell search engines that the businesses they mention are who they claim to be and are legitimate businesses that are active in their communities.

Your takeaway

If you haven’t been paying much attention to local organic SEO, now is the time to take action!

Google is paying more and more attention to links and citations with a local flavor, so it is very important that you begin working on generating more local organic representation for your business. You can do this by altering your national organic SEO strategy to accommodate more local elements such as local business directories. This doesn’t mean to stop working on national SEO altogether, but rather that you should definitely consider focusing more of your efforts on local SEO in order to take advantage of the benefits it can offer.

To see the original post where this image appeared, click here — To see a larger version of this image, click on it.

In a great sea of competition, does your site stand out?

If you’re a new start-up or even a small to mid-sized business that hasn’t been around more than a few years, the answer is likely not going to be one that puts a smile on your face. The simple fact is that there are hundreds of millions of websites out there right now, and most of them are trying to sell something. Whether it’s an idea, a product, a service, or a cause, a sale is a sale. The goal of most websites is to convert a visitor from a prospect into a satisfied customer, and everything from the structure to the media components of a website are geared towards this end.

To take your website from shrimp to shark you will need some search engine optimization tips & techniques.

Don’t know much about website search engine optimization tips? Never really tried your hand at learning any free SEO tips like the ones we offer? No worries!

Video:Don’t Fall for SEO Cons

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc1tX4xBFwU&list=UUm6zEmr_Q2IakNgpWAhMawg&index=70

Steer clear of things like this – if you’re working with RankPop you can rest assured that none of this shady business is going on here!

We have three free search engine optimization tips right here that anyone can apply to their website right now and start seeing results.

Organic search engine optimization tips for your website

If you’re interested in getting things off the ground or making an impact (and who isn’t?) take a look at these three search engine optimization tips and tricks:

1. Look to on-page optimizers – If you can only take advantage of one search engine optimization tip, make sure that you focus on your page titles. Make sure your titles include any relevant keywords that belong to a particular page, but write them first and foremost for people, not search engines; as any good search engine optimization tips blog will tell you, don’t cram your titles full of keywords, instead use them when and where they make sense!
2. Create share-worthy content – One of the most commonly shared SEO tips and tricks is to create content that is unique to you and your website. While there might not be anything new under the sun, there is always a different angle to present something from. If you can’t or don’t want to create a bunch of text content, why not create a few videos or infographics? Relevancy and information are the keys, everything after that is simply extra value for your audience. This is one of the best search engine optimization tips for dummies that we’ve ever found because just about anyone can create some form of content their visitors will love.
3. Focus on building “natural” links – And by natural we mean the kind you’ve built “by hand” as opposed to through an automated system. Automated link-building is rapidly becoming not only undesirable but downright dangerous as the links built this way can easily make a website a target for search engine penalties; avoiding a penalty is one of our best Google search engine optimization tips. Instead of automated methods that could get you in trouble, work on local search engine optimization tips like local blogger outreach and community networking, and the links will come naturally through opportunities such as guest posting on other blogs.

You + Us = SEO Gold

Generally speaking, the kind of SEO you can do yourself is the same kind that an SEO company like RankPop can do for you.

The real difference comes from the variety and volume that a professional can produce and provide that most small businesses simply cannot match. And it’s not because you don’t want to or can’t, but rather that if you’re going to turn a profit there are other aspects of your business that demand your attention. How can you give these other things the attention they deserve while still paying attention to learning new search engine optimization tips, especially when mastering a few good SEO tips will surely pay for itself if you can just keep it going?

The answer is to partner with an SEO company to help you enhance and expand your efforts.

Does this mean you can’t participate and be involved with your SEO whenever you’re able?

Absolutely not!

At least here at RankPop we encourage businesses to get involved and keep a line of communication open so that even while we’re handling their SEO they can still be involved in the process and participate whenever they’re able.

Comments:

What sort of relationship do you have with the SEO company you work with? What would you change about this relationship if you could choose one thing?

SEO site optimization can be divided into two very broad and basic categories: on page and off page techniques.

Today we’re going to be giving our attention to on page website optimization – It is a very important element of the success of your website.

Video: Will Mullins – Case Study Part 3 – On Page Optimisation – the finer details

Essential or optional?

Essential, absolutely essential.

We really cannot say this enough: you need to optimize your pages and you need to do it right now.

Think of it this way: Your website is a grand, gorgeous new building.

People are coming from all over to see it, especially a group of reviewers from big-time architectural and interior design magazines. They want to see what you have to offer and tell people about your building, maybe even ranking it in their top ten lists in future issues. “Regular” people are coming to see it too, but not many. If you can get good reviews and rank well in future issues of the big magazines, you will undoubtedly get a lot more traffic in the future. But in order to get the reviews and rankings you want, you have to have things in order and dress your building to impress everyone who sees it.

Meta tags

Web site search engine optimization starts at the very foundations of your website. Like a building, without a good foundation a website will not stand the test of time. One area in particular deserves your attention, and those are your meta tags. Meta tags appear at the head of your website’s code and should be optimized to reflect your top keywords and provide a brief, targeted description of what your brand has to offer. Don’t stuff these tags full of every keyword you can think of, but definitely don’t neglect them or leave them to chance because they are a very important part of site optimization. Search engines still use meta tags to deliver their results; they are not an influential ranking factor as they were in the past, but they are still worth polishing.

Alt tags, etc

Structure is also important when it comes to how you optimize web site pages. For example, make sure that you are filling out the “alt” tags for any media you embed in your pages. Images and videos will have tags that allow you to describe the contents of your media for search engines and screen readers. You can optimize these descriptions with your keywords and solve two problems at once (optimization and accessibility.)

To see the post where this image originally appeared, click here

Body copy, captions, etc

Any place that there is text on your website, there is an opportunity for optimization. We can’t really stress how much you need to use caution when inserting your keywords into your text – think of how much better you feel when you end your meal when you feel pleasantly full as opposed to after you have eaten so much you feel a bit ill. This is the concept you need to keep in mind when optimizing your text content; search engines like to see your keywords to a point as they help tell what your website is about, but beyond that they begin to get suspicious when keywords are just scattered all over the place.

Your text content should also be full-bodied and relevant / informative. Fluff content or content that is too brief or random is not appreciated, and search engines will not appreciate such pieces. Neither will anyone who visits your website, and this is something that you need to pay careful attention to when putting your website together. It might be tempting to put something quick and generic together, especially if you have a number of pages that will have similar content. In the long run it is better to optimize each page and take the time to do everything correctly. Cutting corners will only cut into your rankings in the future!

Your website should be robust and complete – no shallow content or thin pages! It should accurately reflect who you are as a brand and what sorts of products and services you offer. When you apply these principles with the judicious inclusion of your keywords you will enjoy much greater success in the search engine results than if you had not taken these steps to optimize site pages to the fullest.

Your takeaway

On page optimization is seriously important. It is the foundation of your SEO efforts and can be of enormous help when bringing in traffic and impressing both search engines and potential customers. Good web site optimization services will recognize this and work with you to produce results that are beneficial to the ranking success of your website. Ask yourself “How will I optimize my site?”

Making your website stand out from the crowd

While it’s not possible pinpoint the exact number of websites in existence today, it’s safe to say that there are hundreds of millions of other websites in existence, including your own. Think on that for a moment…… pretty amazing isn’t it? And a large percentage of those sites are blogs just like yours (assuming your website has a blog, if not, make sure to get one set up ASAP) competing for the same pool of readers.

At first thinking about these numbers might discourage you, after all how can your website / blog really compete with so many other sites?

It can be done, it’s just going to take a little bit of hard work and dedication to your goal of having a truly outstanding website.

Video: MYTH #1: If You Build It, They Will Come [Top 10 Business Website Myths]

Are you up to the challenge?

You are? Good, let’s talk about content marketing, one of the primary tools you will be using to shone the spotlight on your website.

What is content marketing?

In short, it is a type of marketing where you are marketing content instead of a product or service. Web content marketing often occurs on blogs which is why we mention them here in this post. The first step is to have a content marketing strategy in place, even if it is just a simple content marketing plan involving your own business blog and a bit of social outreach.

If you don’t think that this is something that you can handle in-house, there are content marketing strategies that include purchasing content marketing services from a content marketing agency.

Now that you know a little more about content marketing and how it can help your website shine, let’s move on to putting a coat of polish on your site that will serve it well for a long time to come.

A truly great website has its act together

A great website is created with a goal in mind. Some websites share information, some sell things, and some merely serve as a virtual brochure or portfolio for a business. And that’s fine, as long as everyone realizes that the heart of a website is its content. A well-designed website with great content is going to stand out and shine far more than a generic site with so-so or unremarkable content. In order to win you’re going to have to break out of the mold and do something special to get your site noticed.

For example, if you have an ecommerce website, how can you make your website stand out?

• Instead of just offering your products in a basic grid format, why not give each product it’s own page and some content to go along with it?
• Make your content interesting and include a call to action encouraging visitors to take the next step and become satisfied buyers.

What if you have a blog and need to bring it to the front of the crowd and get it noticed?

• Offer something free to your readers – you could create a whitepaper from popular past posts, offer a webinar based on a popular or trending topic, or offer your posts as podcasts.
• Keep the reader first in your mind and give them something they will stick around to see – this can increase the time they spend on your site and decrease your bounce rates (which are important to your SEO.)
• Write with a purpose – hook readers with a great headline, get straight to the point, and let your readers know what you’d like them to do when they reach the end of your post like buy something or leave a comment.

Regardless of what sort of site you have or what its goal is, in order to be classified as a great site, you need to be credible. No one is going to trust a word you say unless you have a good reputation to back up what you’re publishing. A good reputation can be gained by working on a little reputation management from time to time while you are helping your website, shop, or blog to grow.

Your takeaway

Google likes sites that publish and share high-quality content. Content that is interesting and useful to users and relevant to both your website’s overall subject matter and your top keywords is the kind of content you want to aim for. It may seem like a tall order but it is not an impossible task to create such content. Whether you are selling, informing, or a little bit of both, remember that content is what people come to your website to find and it is your job to give it to them in a way that encourages them to stay on your site as long as possible.

Treat the content on your website or blog like the resource that it is and soon you’ll see your site rising above others in your niche to stand tall among them.

Great content marketing begins at home! Think of it in terms of being a new, improved form of marketing that beats traditional marketing hands down. Just check out this content marketing infographic!

For a larger version, click on this graphic – To see the post where this graphic was published, click here.

Dispelling the Myths

Despite what many people might believe, SEO isn’t some sort of mystical search engine manipulation.

When undertaken in an honest and sustainable manner, SEO is just another tool that ends with your site providing your customers with what they want while your brand is getting something in return. You get traffic and (hopefully) conversions / sales, as well as traffic to your website. Your visitors and customers get the information they were seeking when they types their query into their favorite search engine. Everybody wins!

In the case of poorly done or low-quality SEO, this may not be the case. This is the kind of SEO that people think of when they visualize the industry. Would you expect to see a quality SEO services company scuttling around behind the curtain, showing a smiling face and flashy presentation to clients while fiddling with dozens of knobs and levers, deploying automatic harvesting, spinning, and submission tools that render content and links that are little better than junk? No, you wouldn’t. These fly-by-night operations are buying and selling links, scraping and spinning and spamming their hearts out. They have packages that claim they can get you 10,000 backlinks in the next 48 hours and get you to Page 1 of Google in less than a month guaranteed. That is manipulation both of you as a customer as well as the search engines, and none of these are quality SEO services.

What a high-quality SEO company actually does

The truth is, SEO isn’t a simple black and white proposition.

By nature, SEO is a constantly changing thing that lives and grows as time passes; it is not a one-time thing or a static concept by any means!

Video: SEO Myth 5 of 50 Video – SEO is a One-Time Task

For more SEO myths, check out the playlist here.

As a discipline it requires an open mind and a willingness to perform research, analyze the data, and do what we can to make great things happen. If this means going a bit outside of the box and seeking solutions outside of our comfort zones, so be it!

We’ve put together a brief checklist that you can use to evaluate SEO firms to see what kind of quality you are likely to be dealing with. The more items on this list the firm can claim, the higher quality SEO service you can expect!

1. Competition analysis
2. Keyword research
3. Proactive vs. Reactive SEO
4. Performance tracking
5. Customer service
6. On-page analysis

Why are these things important? Analysis and research are essential for discovering strengths and flaws that will need to be addressed throughout your project. If your competition has a weakness such as failure to target a popular keyword, you can discover this through research and take advantage of the opportunity. Proactive SEO does not wait for the next algorithm change or trend, instead it goes out into the wide world of the internet and makes its mark through high-quality content marketing, social activity, and excellent outreach and response programs.

Analayzing a site page by page and tracking how well optimization measures are performing are essential to making sure everything possible is being done to help your site, and anything that isn’t a good use of your investment is discontinued in search of something better. As for customer service, any business that isn’t top-notch in this area, especially an SEO firm, is asking for trouble! It is the responsibility of the best quality affordable SEO firms to take care of their customers and see to their needs within the scope of their projects. Those who are willing to do this and do it well are the ones who will provide the best quality affordable SEO service and produce the best work and operate using only the highest-quality methods in order to produce the results you desire.

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Comments:

What do you think of when you hear the words “quality search engine optimization?”

Do any specifics come to mind, or do you simply get a gut feeling about what is right?

We’d love to hear what you have to say!

Welcome to Part Two of our post on new Facebook features, changes, and upgrades to existing features. If you haven’t yet had a chance to check out Part One, please let a look if you have a moment as we discuss different features in each of these two posts and you don’t want to miss anything!

More Facebook features that could prove to be wonderful opportunities for marketers and brands

There is a good reason for Facebook’s meteoric rise to success and its subsequent reign as one of the top social networks of all time. On a regular basis Facebook reevaluates its current features and makes every effort to improve them for the better while also considering and developing new features for its users to enjoy.

Video: Facebook Camera Application Similar to Instagram

This video shows how users can benefit from the stand-alone Facebook Camera app.

Video: Episode #325: Facebook Promoted Posts Review After 2 Weeks

This video describes one users positive experience with using the Promoted Posts feature. Many users have negative experiences so we felt it was important to hunt down a positive review to give you access to opinions from both isdes of the debate.

While the majority of these changes are fairly well-received, there are those such as the Promotion feature for posts that have ruffled a few features in the social marketing community. Take a look at some of the highlights of the features below and consider how you might put them to use for your brand!

• Separate Facebook Camera and Messenger mobile apps – In an effort to diversify their offerings, Facebook also maintains separate mobile apps for photos and its messenger service. Facebook Camera allows users to take and upload their own photos and view the photos of their friends; think of it as a photo-only version of your typical Facebook Newsfeed! The stand-alone Facebook Messenger app is also rather convenient for users who would like to keep their messaging separate from their regular mobile usage of Facebook’s primary app. Messages and images can still be viewed from the primary app of course, but for users more interested in separating these things the stand-alone apps are awfully attractive. Marketers can benefit from the Camera app by focusing on a more visual approach to their updates which is a recommended strategy regardless.
• Replies and threaded comments available to Page owners – One of Facebook’s most interesting new features is the ability for Page owners to enable replies and threaded comments on their updates. For example, if a customer made a post on a brand’s timeline with a complaint, not only could the brand respond in the typical fashion, the brand and other users could respond to individual comments, creating a threaded conversation and making responding directly individual comments more easy and efficient. No longer do brands need to worry about their responses being lost in the often rapid-fire response and escalation of a conversation as is often the case in Facebook discussions, making this an ideal improvement that can really benefit a brand’s use of Facebook as a customer monitoring and service tool.
• The Promoted Posts feature – One of Facebook’s more controversial features introduced in recent memory, the ability to promote a post has received mixed reviews. Some marketers who have tested the system have found that it has little to no impact, while others have serious questions about the people that are actually receiving their promoted posts and whether or not these individuals are really members of their target audiences. Still other users have experienced great results. While the feature sounds beneficial in theory, it also has a stigma attached to it; is this a way for Facebook to prompt brands to pay to reach the audience members they have spent quite a long time cultivating only to lose access to thanks to EdgeRank changes? Only time will tell with this one…
• Facebook’s “Events” feature – If your brand would like to organize an event such a charity benefit, a sale / promotion, or any other sort of event that you would like to promote to your friends and fans then this is the feature for you! After an event is created users can be invited and then there is the possibility for these users to invite some of their friends, and so forth. There is a limitation to how many users you can invite initially (100) and you can only have a maximum of 300 outstanding invitations (those who have not said yes, no, or maybe) at one time and some of these users will need to respond to their invites in one way or another before you can issue new invitations.

How you make use of these features and enhancements depends entirely on your brand, your industry, and your ability to work within the boundaries of an ever-changing social channel that seems to be evolving each time you log in.

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Just imagine what kinds of things could be included if this were updated to show the changes Facebook has made in the past two years? Based on the evolution seen in this image, it would be an amazing sight to see!

Comments:

How do you think these changes will affect how your brand uses Facebook?

Do you forsee any of these things increasing your ability to reach out to and interact with your target audience?