SEO Tips – It’s Not Just About A Top Spot On Google
For many companies, getting to the top of Google is the Holy Grail in their SEO strategy and how you get there is certainly a common question asked of SEO agencies.
It’s definitely not a bad starting point, but as with everything in life, it’s not quite as simple as that and isn’t the answer to all your online marketing prayers. Search has changed so much in recent years and there is a whole raft of pitfalls to watch out for as well as things to consider.
Food for thought: these days, YouTube is the second most searched engine, Facebook has more than 500 million users worldwide, LinkedIn has 60 million users, Twitter sees nearly 50 million tweets a day and Wikipedia boasts 16.9 million articles. Those are just a few of the sites that have an impact on your search results these days. Getting your site url top of the search listing is one thing and something that you can control or at least influence to a degree, but how about the results from social networks that reference your site, your company or your brand/products? Imagine your brand topping the search listings for your relevant keywords and underneath it a YouTube link to a video rubbishing your brand, or a facebook group of brand dissenters. For a user searching your services, it’s hard to resist seeing what other people have to say about your brand, particularly if it’s controversial and so that may very well be their first point of call rather than clicking on your own link.
That’s just one example of outside factors impacting your SEO strategy. Here are a few other things to bear in mind:
1. Content
Firstly, the good old adage of Content is King still rings true. All too often, I have seen solid SEO and PPC campaigns created with the right call to action that drive people to a good-looking site which doesn’t repeat the call to action, doesn’t offer what it promised in a search listing, or is simply too hard to navigate. All you get then is potential customers bouncing off the site. Creating campaign tailored landing pages is a good start, as is ensuring content is well written, relevant, original and regularly refreshed. Doing this will engage your readers and customers, make other sites and readers more likely to create links to your site (facebook like, addthis etc.) and in doing all of that help your SEO and traffic.
2. Social media integration and online reputation management
Building on what I talked about above, it is absolutely critical that social media isn’t just something that companies “dabble in” or get a junior to manage the content, because its in-vogue and they feel they should be doing “something”; not only are there huge dangers in that if the pages aren’t monitored and managed properly, but it also serves to waste valuable time and money unless it becomes an integral part of your search strategy.
First off, your social media pages, if properly optimized, will show up in your search listings. So, quality videos on YouTube to convey your brand message can be a great start, for example, as can a well-supported fan page on Facebook.
But secondly, and often more importantly, there is the issue of reputation management. Social media can and should be used to create a buzz around your brand. But, monitoring it is key. What you don’t want to see are disgruntled customers tweeting about your poor quality of service and if you do, you want to be able to manage it, respond to it and make sure your own search strategy keeps these sorts of posts further down the search log.
3. Local search
These days, locality can play a large part in people’s search habits. Despite the global nature of the web, many people still look locally to source products and services – not least those people conscious of their carbon footprint, or those wanting to support their local businesses. Google, in particular have responded to this with their local business results in search listings, which also allows for user reviews – another element to include in your online reputation management. Local search strategies are still an underused resource and in that sense a real opportunity to gain a competitive advantage.
5. Tracking and optimising
An advanced tracking and analytics strategy and approach will help guide, tailor and optimise your SEO. For example, if you run an ecommerce facility on your site, you should be tracking your click-throughs all the way from the search engine to the final purchase. That allows you to measure the cost per acquisition effectively and track when and where people are bouncing off your site – if it’s the minute they get there, it might be a landing page or content issue, if it’s part way through the booking process, it could be the cost, the offering or the difficulty of navigation. Either way, it allows you to tell what element of your online strategy needs tweaking.
Of course, there’s much more than this that goes into an effective SEO strategy, but it’s certainly a start. Watch out on my future blogs for more SEO tips.
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