What the future of SEO?

When Google entered the search engine market back in the 90’s they changed the game.

Before Google all you needed to do was stuff your web site full of keywords and as long as you had more keywords stuffed than anyone else you appeared at the top of the rankings for that particular ‘stuffed’ term.

Since Google started spreading their magic on the search landscape things have changed, suddenly keyword stuff got you absolutely nowhere and links to site became the most important factor (as links suggested that the page was liked by someone).

Then Google started to look more at the quality of the links that link to you – if a high quality, relevant and trusted site linked to you then Google rightly took more notice of this link and trusted it more than lower quality sites that linked to you.

Things are changing again with Google Panda (rolled out in 2011) and further more with Hummingbird (rolled out in 2013) – now the quality AND meaning of your content is looking more important.

So with these algorithm changes and other developments, what does the future hold?

As SEO practitioners we are still providing good quality content that answers visitor’s questions whilst chasing those important linkbacks, but will all this activity be beneficial in the next few years!

Backlines are still important and will continue to be until something else comes along which can help Google understand the reputation and trustworthiness of a site; but as links can be easily gained AND the value of link erodes over time then a new way of working out Reputation needs to be brought into play.

Reputation networks like Klout, PeerIndex and PeerReach are examples of other networks trying to understand the reputation of a site, business or individual by trying to understand the context of any engagement; predominately in a social media context.

But it’s this social context that holds the key for reputation in real-time; with the erosion of link value over time then Google admit that once a link to a piece of content is provided it almost immediately starts to become out of date (hence the erosion of value over time), so real-time analysis MUST be the way forward.

The reality of the future of SEO and the question of reputation probably lies in a mixture of the types of work; i.e. the analysis that Klout, PeerIndex and PeerReach are working on and the latest Google Hummingbird platform changes.

A merger of these two sides would mean that Google would have a idea (in real-time) of how a brand, business or individual is being talked about, and from this it could be determined whether that discussion or engagement looks to provide positive or negative reputable (lots of links/mentions from could mean that it’s a valued resource for example).

Also with the Hummingbird update Google is showing that it’s starting to understand natural language and the semantics on how question and answers can be phrased.

I imagine within the next ten years Google (or AN Other) will be able to determine the basic reputation of a site or author (by links and real-time reputation analysis) and understand the real meaning of the content on a site; with these two pieces of information a search engine provider will be able to provide search engine results that provide the very best answer to a question with a higher degree of certainty.

But as we do not live in this world right now then links and great quality content are the way to go.

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The new Lead Generation Content Strategy

If you are responsible for sales or lead generation then you will no doubt be familiar with the classic sales funnel.

Traffic or Leads are basically thrown in at the top of the funnel and due your magnificent sales and marketing nurturing you pass these leads through the different levels of your particular sales funnel all the time attempting to create a customer at the end of the process.

It’s a classic image used in business today and it works well ….. up to a point!

You see what this model doesn't adequately explain is that THIS process is a process that converts traffic or leads that have shown an active interest in your product or service.

But there are many, many more individuals or businesses that are not yet interested in you, but you can still get them into this funnel, they might not buy yet, but they will be aware of you when they are ready to purchase and by changing the way you talk to your market will help you to become “front of mind” in their future purchase decisions.

To change this mind-set within your market all you need to do is talk about something closely related to what you sell; so for example if you sell computers, then create guides to help people use them or understand common problems and how to resolve them.

This would mean that you are then likely to attract people who (whilst not ready to purchase) use computers, and your great use of associated content means that there is now a chance that when they are ready to buy you will be “front of mind”.

This is a fundamental shift on how businesses look at content and their content strategy, but this simple tweak to make content available that is closely related (and helpful) to your core business offering can bring in more prospects.

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Inbound Marketing: The SECRETS

Actually, there was a small mistake in the subject of this blog, because there isn't really a secret in great inbound marketing – other than ensuring the right people see your content at the right time!

Inbound marketing is all about your prospects finding you, which means that it’s important that your precious and brilliant content is found when it’s needed to be found.

I’m sure we've all done the same thing at some point in our careers; we've created a brilliant piece of content (website content, video, article, blog or social media post etc) we have lined up several online channels to host and promote the piece and clicked send … then sat back ….. and waited ….. and waited some more …. but nothing happens!

No interest at all in our lovely, well crafted content, but it was perfect, what went wrong?

Well the chances are that simply your excellent message just didn't rise above the rubbish and the clutter – image this from a social media perspective, as soon as you click the send button your piece of content is the freshest and newest piece out there and it appears at the top of the stream, but second later it’s buried in a pool of noise.

As an experiment I simply tweeted the hashtag #Marketing and within just two minutes it was buried in my own twitter stream with by all the other stuff I follow, Even when I searched Twitter for my update after only 10 minutes my tweet has disappeared under 187 tweets – for all intents and purposes this post was now gone.

So what could I have done differently?

Very simply I just needed to make my post rise above the clutter and this is easiest done with my advocates – and virtually everyone and every business has some of these. These are your greatest fans, your enthusiastic followers.

These people serve two key functions:

1. They a can extend the life of any content by simply sharing it for you, but more importantly, 
2. They take on a valuable “word of mouth” presence.

What you might not realise is that a large percentage of new business comes from some sort of referral (whether these be Friends, Relatives, Acquaintances or Unknown online networks etc), and word of mouth has always been the most trusted form of advertising.

And whats even better is that these advocates are still working for you when you aren't around, constantly posting, sharing, and mentioning your brand.

How do you find your advocates?

They should be fairly obvious to spot if your close to your online marketing channels, these are the people that will readily retweet, like, favourite or share your content; they respond to your requests, they comment and talk about you (and often without being prompted).

The trick is to recognise these traits in your social networks and recognise the individuals - network with them, thank them, provide easier access to your best staff, provide extra content, training or even prizes. If your industry is suitable for it then try rewarding with gamification (providing points and badges etc).

Numerous big businesses understand the importance of their advocates and work with them – Google have supplied advocates with freebies in the past as a thank you; Samsung provide special events for their advocates and chances to get their hands on the latest devices (the recent Samsung Unpacked 2014 in Barcelona was a great example; Walmat creates specialised online communities of shoppers to help spread their messages. It is everywhere.

It’s the very importance of these advocates is the reason that I seem to find the constant need to explain to people that it’s not the number of Followers or Friends, Retweets or Likes that important, but who Follows and Likes you, who Retweets or Likes your posts.

One good advocate is worth more than 1,000 Followers that don’t listen to you.

Summary:

So listen to your channels, discover your advocates and build a relationship with them, then the life of your precious content will be lengthened allowing your important messages to reach more people.

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Keyword Stuffing

A huge mistake made by marketers, business owners and bloggers every day is the practice of stuffing irrelevant keywords (keyword stuffing) into web pages and articles in an attempt to dominate Google search for particular search terms.

You need to know that Google’ has grown very wise to this practice, and as soon as they consider that you have undertaken any form of keyword stuffing you will get a Google ranking penalty and in severe case be delisted from their index (i.e. no-one will be able to find you from a Google search).

Avoid keyword stuffing at all costs, and only include the major keywords that will assist your pages in being indexed properly by ALL search engines.

For an example of an overstuffed web page, take a look at this >> keyword stuffing.

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So what does Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) give you?

SEO utilises modern search engines (such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing etc) to increase the visibility of your website or individual web page which in turn ensures that your potential customers find your website rather than your competitors when they are searching for a solution you provide.

Typically a SEO professional will handle and provide on website design, content marketing and website optimisation tactics - all designed to provide the search engine visibility that you need.

Bottom line with search results is that the higher your site appears in the search results, the more people will come and see your site, the more visitors you get, the more customers you will get.

KEY BENEFITS OF MY SEO SERVICES IN YORKSHIRE

• Expert advice on how to achieve desired results
• Drives high-quality, profitable traffic to your website or individual web pages
• Gives your business long-term visibility, never short term hope.
• Introduces your brand to a much wider audience
• Increases traffic to your website
• Provides a cost-effective method of reaching your target market
• Establishes trust and credibility in the marketplace

Contact me for further details.

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Don’t forget your keywords in your Social Media

Most webmasters and (hopefully) all internet marketers know the importance of properly understanding keywords for website ranking, but that nugget of knowledge seems to be forgotten when thinking about and posting on social media channels.

But the keywords are king rule is as equally important in social media, and this is why.

At the moment Google views everything online as if it was a website – in fact in essence that’s all your social channels are.

Take your Twitter account for example – it’s just a page (albeit a long one) of content, same for your Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest accounts etc.

So if Google does see your social streams as a web page element, doesn't it make sense that these also contain your best keywords - just as your web pages do!

So when you post, think carefully about what you want to say and craft them carefully to get your valuable keywords in.

This will ensure that in search these could be more easily picked up by search engines, but also your brilliantly crafted accounts start to show your authority, which will be passed to your website and web pages when you link back to them.

AND like your web pages, please don’t add posts purely to spam your keywords, Google is wise to this trick just as it is with websites and it could lead to a social penalty!

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3 minutes to a better website

There are a couple of things that websites MUST DO.

1. Visitors MUST be able to understand instantly what products/services you provide. 
2. Visitors MUST be able to find products or services to buy from you. 
3. Visitors MUST be able to understand your value proposition 

MINUTE 1:

Choose a close friend; choose someone who isn't close to your business.
Get them to look at your website and get them to write down what product/service they think you provide.
They have 1 minute to complete this task.

MINUTE 2:

Choose another friend; again, someone who isn’t close to your business.
Give them 4-5 products of yours to find and see if they can easily find them on your website.
They have 1 minute to complete this task.

MINUTE 3:

This is about your Value Proposition.

A Value Proposition helps you to connect to your customers; it says to them ‘we know you’, ‘we know what you’re looking for’. It’s the value proposition that makes them love you and your products. A good value proposition explains how you can solve your prospects problems, it tells your prospects why they should buy from you.

Choose yet another friend; again, someone who isn’t close to your business.
Get them to look at your website and get them to write down 3-4 reasons why they think they should buy from you.
They have 1 minute to complete this task.

You're done!

OK, that’s your 3 minutes. Take a look at the results and see if it tells you anything.

• Is your offering obvious?
• Can people find your products/services easily?
• Are reasons obvious as to why visitors should buy from you? 

The answers to these questions should help you to amend your website to make it more relevant to your visitors.

Good luck

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Old skool SEO still works

Matt Cutts and the team at Google have had a lot of press lately about how SEO should be done; a lot of people took some of Matts comments the wrong way and seemed to suddenly stop wanting to do any old school SEO in fear that Google would find out and deindex their website or pages.

Matt was only really repeating what he has basically said from day one, and that is that you can do pretty much anything that is ethical to help promote your website, but just don’t be spammy about it. Rule number one always has been and always will be – think about your market first and ranking second.

So what “old school” SEO still works?

The truth is that pretty much everything!

Guest blogging

Ok, this was the recent big topic that started to get webmasters a bit jittery, you can still be a guest blogger for someone else, there are just some very simple ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’ that you need to follow.

Do guess blogging as it can drive targeted visitors to your own site. Always add value to the blog that you are writing for – consider their audience AND yours. Consider creating a separate landing page for this guest blog post that adds value to the post.

Don’t use the same article that you have used elsewhere, this simply doesn't work. If you like the theme of a previous article you have written then consider a heavy rewrite of it. Don’t write a heavily weighted keyword article. Neither should you expect a link to your website, if this is your only motivation then don’t guest blog.

Forum backlinks

Do try to get links back from forums – there still is SEO value in doing this, but ensure that the forum is highly relevant to the pages that you want to link to. As with guest blogging consider creating a landing page that provides additional value to the forum comment you post – give the readers a real reason to click on your link.

Don’t create lots of spammy low value comments on Forums with a link back to your site, and don’t put your keywords in the Name field, and NEVER use automatic blogging software – that is so 1990’s and it will get you a Google penalty.

Directories

Do continue to use directory sites, but ensure that you are listing your website in a high quality directory that is likely to delivery good quality traffic to your site. Look for Directories that have strict submission guidelines. If you are a local business then local business directories can work well.

Don’t bulk submit your details to every directory that you can find, and NEVER use automated listing software.

Your own link pages

Do have quality outbound links to relevant websites, use pages that are highly themed and only consider links that are relevant to your audience.

Don’t have pages full of random outbound links, Google know that this type of activity is usually from link exchange programs and it could get you a penalty.

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