In February 2011, Google made big news on the Internet earlier this year by publishing an algorithm change for search engine relevancy. This was designed to punish duplicate content farms that re-purpose the same written content over and over on different sites.
The losers in this game were those that aggregate informational content and are now scrambling to learn what has happened and re-strategize ways to defeat the Google changes..
Keyword positioning has increased their relevance in the world of Google. Take a look at the following portion of a spreadsheet, taken from wisetartupblog.com and originally compiled by Systrix:
This is only a partial snippet of an extensive table. What you need to focus on is the percentage win column. Some sites according to Google got their butts kicked and the better, content rich sites like the sampling above benefit in SEO rank as a result. Take a look at the social media sites that are ‘X’d’ on the chart. So why are these important to you?
Because, you can participate in those sites at literally no cost if you can spare the time to commit to a social media strategy. Remember, a rising tide lifts all the boats and these “boats” are free to use, but to effectively capitalize on the use of them, you need to dedicate some time or assign or hire someone to do it. I’d strongly advise that you include this social media strategy as a part of your overall marketing budget, even if it means reducing your traditional media like print or radio advertising. You will see a payback that will be higher and grow over time.
Facebook is the biggest player. Make sure you have a personal listing and a company listing, and post your updates and upcoming events on your Facebook page and also promote your company Facebook page on your site. Soon you will build a following that you can bring with you as you grow your business.
This works very well for businesses with a local model, like retail or specialty stores, resorts, etc. Facebook is rapidly becoming the number one online means of organizing events like socials, customer appreciations, learning seminars and the like. People set their calendars around stuff they ‘Like’ on Facebook.
The table above also shows that LinkedIn is becoming more relevant in the eyes of Google, the biggest search engine of all time, with a 15% boost in keyword dominance.
You should:
- Put your profile on LinkedIn and that of your top company personnel
- Put up a company profile for your business on LinkedIn
- Assign someone to enlist your people in target LinkedIn Groups and participate
- Enhance your basic profile with Applications especially posting video to your profile(s). Google loves video.
YouTube
You saw in the table that YouTube is also doing well under the new Google rules of the game. This is not surprising, as Google owns YouTube.
Get some quality video content on your website, Facebook and LinkedIn pages. This does not have to cost a lot.
Post your videos on YouTube on your channel. This is free. Let YouTube host your videos and embed them in your site as discussed above. This gets the video on your site and takes advantage of the relationship between Google and YouTube, including the obvious search engine optimization gains.
The world is changing and you can ignore it or try to exploit what it is given to you. Social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn are all rising in popularity by an extraordinary degree. These are solid strategies to promote yourself or your business. You can’t run your business based upon the whims of Google, but you can take advantage of what Google has done. If you’re not on board with these social media outlets, start thinking about it now. Begin with one of them, get it right and then move onto others.
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