SEO and what it really means

SEO or Search Engine optimisation is clearly a misunderstood concept, and this is very evident when you talk to marketers who use FB (Face Book) to promote their products or services.

The first question that needs to be cleared up and put on the table for discussion when dealing with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is who is your target market and how do you expect this group (your target market) to find your information, product or service on the Internet.

Next step is which platform do you expect your intended target market to use to locate your information.

• will they use a social media platform
• will they use a search engine like google, yahoo or another found here
• will they go directly to your page cause they found your link in the printed media
• will they go directly to your page cause they heard it on radio or saw it on TV
• will they access your page through a link found in their email

This is one of the most important steps in any SEO (Search Engine Optinisation) effort, if you fail to do this your are planning to ensure your pages get no (zero) visitors. Your copy (the words you use in your article or post) are chosen according to the platform as well as  your intended target market, with their language use and vocabulary base

You also need to remember that every social media platform (SMP) you use has its own built in search engine that uses an algorithm to supply you with the best matches in their data base for your search.

How these internal search engines allocate points or establish a ranking order for the matches within their system is a mystery, just as the algorithm used by Google, Yahoo and others is a mystery. But be sure there are methods and tricks to ensure your information is placed higher up in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Positions) than others.

In face book the number of likes (often called social signals) is a prime factor, and the more likes a specific post has received the higher up the author and related information gets in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Positions). Other factors in FB include but are not limited to

• the number of friends one has,  
• the number of common friends one has with the person who placed the article
• your likes of similar articles or posts
• the number of your listed friends who have liked the relevant post or article
• the total number of posts you have made
• the total number of external links to the relevant article and their positions within other search engines.

So how do you get likes in face book?  simple answer is write what the public want to hear about, and they will like your post. If that fails then you need to specifically request individuals to read your post and click like. The same applies to all other social media platforms, just likes are replaced by terms such as" PIN IT" in pinterest, follow or re-tweet in Twitter, +1 in Google Plus and similar in other SMP's (Social Media Platforms)

Facebook does look at links from other SMP's (Socaial Media Platforms) for their SERP's (Search Engine Results Positions), and so does twitter and pinterest, but what  the value of this is unclear as their algorithms are kept secret, just as in Google, Yahoo and others.

Bottom line is that good, well written copy, that is unique to your product, service or related information is essential to your viewers. All the search engines understand this, even the internal search engines within the many SMP's (social media platforms).

So a clear definition of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) would be

The techniques and methods used in generating good copy written with the intended target market in mind and the related subsequent online promotion of the copy once it is placed within the desired platform so as to ensure good SERP's (Search Engine Results Positions) within that specific platform.  

 The purpose of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is to ensure that your information is found by your intended target market when they use their preferred search engine on their preferred platform.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is not only for big business and big websites, and if you do not use basic SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) in your online marketing then your online marketing  will fail and you will have wasted your time and effort.

Once again SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) starts with defining your target market, and this should be the first step in any marketing campaign, thus by default your marketing strategy already includes the first steps of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) Once you have come to grips with this very elementary statement you will soon realise the value of basic SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and just how easy it is to perform the very minimum SEO which requires no technical skill at all.

The related subsequent online promotion of your posts on any social media platform are essential to ensuring better SERP's (Search Engine Results Positions) in all platforms. Web sites allow for more technical SEO techniques and methods than social media platforms (SMP's) and Web Site search engine optimisation (WSSEO) needs to be treated very differently to Social Media Search Engine Optimisation. (SMSEO)

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