The power of Twitter within the SEO space

Last night I was in a Twitter discussion where SEO issues were discussed, and the issue of social signals came up.  

Many  SEO PRACTITIONERS will tell you that social signals have no influence on your search engine optimisation strategies in any shape manner or form, and personally I believe they are right.  How ever the power of  individual tweets is a whole other animal, and some tweets can have a truly astounding impact on your individual online assets in strange and devious ways that at first glance seem unrealistic.

To understand the power of an individual tweet there are many different things that need to be understood, with the two main issues bring

• Duplicate content
• Website architecture

The first thing that one must clearly come to grips with is that each tweet must be annalized and dissected as a stand alone web page.  In every social media platform, your individual posts  are actually deemed to be stand alone web pages, and most folks have great difficulty in digesting this

Now the questions start to pop into your thinking patterns and thought process.... What does the website architecture of your social media activity look like.  In this post we will deal exclusively with Twitter and how your posts on twitter carry #SEOJUICES to the rest of the internet. The SEO juices of a single tweet can be very powerful and carry a great deal of influence in ensuring that individual digital entities recieve rather serious boosts within the Search Engine Results pages

So in Twitter your user name or Twitter handle has a host of different activities, and different uses, some are easy to understand, and others are exceptionally difficult to grasp untill you realise that web site architecture can be, and is indeed used in two distinct and different ways within the twittersphere.

The first one is simple and uses a flat structure where all your tweets are chronologically placed one under the other in the space.  Twitter.com/username/tweet, most folks understand this, as that is what they see within their twitter profiles when they look online?

Think domain/folder/subfolder

The second set of twitter architecture is where all the fun and games take place. This is an exceptionally complicated space where sub domains and nested  drop down folders that can be multiple layers deep, with  rather wide sub level bases. These are found hidden in structures, much like an organisation staff organogogram 

At the top is your original tweet which lives at http://username.twitter.com/tweet

Think subdomain.domain/folder where each tweet is considered as a folder within the subdomain 


Think USER.TWITTER.COM 

Next are the first level replies / comments on this individual tweet.  This level can be very wide, as each comment / reply to your original tweet will sit in this space.

Think USER.TWITTER.COM/ORIGINAL TWEET/ REPLY

Next level down is the replies / comments to the first level of comments / replies.   Then there may be more levels going deeper down the list as each new comment / reply slots into its appropriate position within the developing nested web site architecture, leaving a mass of sub folders containing each new comment / reply in a structured drop-down set of sub folders.

 This will look very much like a company staff chart, with a single boss and a number of workers who are directly responsible to him / her.  Where each first level reply / comment will sit on this level, spreading the first level base as far as there are new replies / comments on the original tweet in question.

This is now where things get rather sneaky and very interesting, coz replies / comments to sepperate posts at this level will drop down into the second tier of the resulting website architecture. Just like the boss in the company has workers who report to him directly, So each reply / comment will have its own list of second responders.

Think   USER.TWITTER.COM/FOLDER/SUBFOLDER

Each first level response will have its own second tier, and the second tier may have its own set of responses in a third tier. These third tier responses may have their own responders who will form the next tier within that individual drop down list.

This can and does get out of hand on long twitter conversations.  So be warned that this is very complicated, and rather messy, making it difficult to put into proper perspective.

Each of these individual tweets may also have likes and shares, then also reshares of shares complicating things even further. The likes do not carry any true SEO VALUE, as they are deemed to be social signals, which most search engines tend to ignore, or give little value within the SEO environment. That being said, the share factor is some what different, with each share bring treated in much the same fashion as the original tweet

So this website architecture is looking like a simple drop-down structure that has an easy to follow make up, with the sharesand reshares taking the same structure, but being placed adjacent to the original tweet

Now that we have the website architecture under control, and can see the flow of tweets in a business staff type organogram we can get into the real meaty part of the discussion

The content of each tweet is now evaluated from a Semantic perspective, starting at the top spot, and flowing steadily through each level with all of the sepperate sublevels bring indexed and evaluated.

Standard SEO evaluation by search engines is applied to each comment in the comment stream, taking into account this list and MANY OTHER ISSUES

• where in the nested loops the comment resides
• What the semantic context of the tweet consists of
• are there any out bound links to pages that expand the conversation
• What is the site authority and page authority level of any such linked to page
• are there any inbound links to individual comments
• Is this comment stream part of an embedded twitter post
• Who are the folks commenting
• How fresh are the comments
• Are the comments relevant to the conversation
• Should the comment get spam treatment
• What was the purpose and intent of each tweet in the comment stream

Because each comment is seen by the search engine as a stand alone web page, the interlinking between each comment is evaluated, where the level within the site architecture is used as a link referral base and out bound links add tremendous value to the SEO link juice of those tweets which contain them, adding SEO value within the entire conversation chain.

This can thus add true value within the Search engine optimisation flow patterns to all the out bound links, with any out bound links in the original tweet getting the lions share of this link juice. The closer to the top of the conversation an out bound link is found, the more link juice it should carry, but this is not always true, as there are many different factors that influence the flow of link juice from a social media conversation.

It can thus be seen that the SEO value of a Twitter conversation can become a very powerful and much appreciated boost to the individual online assets which may be linked to from within the comment streams of a tweet

By on line assets I mean web pages, blog post,  social media profiles or any online content such as images, videos or PDF documents

 Twitter is thus an extremely powerful link building tool
 

What is the purpose of repurposing content ?

WHAT IS THE VALUE OF RE-PURPOSING YOUR EXISTING ONLINE CONTENT.

The topic of re-purposing content is coming up a lot these days,  and this recent post by  +Neal Schaffer  is just one example.

Most folks do not realize the SEO benefits of re-purposing your online content, and the value that this adds to your #SEMANTICFOOTPRINT

The term re-purposing is also just another way of saying that you are doing content marketing.....   just saying that words are confusing to folks who are not willing to understand the context of conversations.

Your original content is already within the online environment, and re-purposing your content allows you to do all the basic SEO tricks such as but not limited to

• CONTENT MARKETING
• CROSS MEDIA MARKETING
• SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING
• LINK BUILDING
• SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING
• SEMANTIC MARKETING

Most online marketing folks use a host of tricks and big words to confuse management and business owners into believing their version of online marketing is different and has more value than others.  These are quite often the same  folks that use the phrase "SEO IS DEAD"  and similar attention grabbing or click bait tactics to enforce their new version of online marketing where Search Engine Optimization is vilified and   made to appear as irrelevant or irrational.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization has evolved from a links and keywords only issue, way back in the late 1990's,  into a vast complex set of issues that are all interconnected and impact on each other through strange and mysterious relationships within the semantic environments of the inter-webs.

Re-purposing your content and linking the new work to the original content in a manner that it expands the conversation,  in different platforms,  is not a difficult task, and the powerful influence of this within the semantic marketing space, where the depth of your semantic footprint is the issue at stake, must never be underestimated.

Search Engines are now using these issues in complex algorithms, to determine the intent of your online content,  so that they may match this intent with the intent of search queries.  This  matching of intent  is a very complex issue, but one that has become essential due to the vast amount of data and information available within the interwebs.  It thus follows that re-purposing your online content and linking the different aspects of the conversation around the actual intent of the original piece of content is very benificial to your SERPs or Search Engine Results pages.

This re-purposing will also give you more than one avenue of getting discovered in the search engine, as each piece of content will have an opportunity to feature within the SERP's, and if your marketing is done well,  you will dominate the Search Engine Rankings for your desired set of keywords and semantically related topics, with many different platforms featuring within the SERP's. 

Folks will be able to find your content within the different platforms, using the internal search engine features of each separate platform,   and if you have ensured that your social media marketing is within the public environment, then you will also have multiple listings in search engines,  making your brand, company or business seem much more important.  Multiple listings in the SERP's will elevate your marketing to unimaginable heights.  

Re-purposing your content has been around for quite some time, never being  spoken of as re-purposing but as content marketing, social media marketing and other confusing terms, specifically to make the folks who use these tactics, seem more important than they are.   SEO or Search engine Optimization, is in reality just a very complex integration of all your online marketing efforts into a single well managed online marketing effort.

I have been using the term #FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media   for some time now, and am thus greatful to all them online marketing folks who are now begining to move away from the idea of marketing silos where each marketing platform is seen as a stand alone platform to the apparently new concept of #INTEGRATEDMARKETING

How do your potential customers discover your online content?

How do your potential customers find your online content?

There are three basic ways that your intended target audience can use to find your content within the online environment.

The first is, where your intended target market audience will type your URL directly into the browser address box, because he / she knows your web address.  This is usually due to some OFF LINE MARKETING TACTIC where you inform your intended target market audience of your web address, such as news paper adverting, flyers or billboards.

The second is by pure luck or serendipity, when your intended target market audience discovers a link to your content while browsing  the internet.

The third  way that your intended target  market audience may discover your online content, is through the use of a search engine.

The first option can become  quite expensive, as you need to keep paying every month for newspaper, magazine and other expensive off line advertising, where you specify your web address and hope customers type your main landing page address (home page) into the browser's address bar.

The second  is just plain unacceptable from a business perspective, cos you have no control or management  over the serendipity or luck of  your intended Target market audience, and relying on this for your business success is just plain stupid.

The third option, using a search engine, is the most cost effective, but takes quite a bit of effort on your part.  Understanding  the basics of search engine optimization is thus an essential component  of current management skill sets. Taking a FUFISM based  marketing approach will ensure  better marketing success, as this marketing philosophy has a core focus on SEO and related marketing issues.

FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media is just plain old school marketing, extended into the internet. Knowing your customers needs, and supplying a solution, but within the online environment, is one of the cornerstones of the FUFISM MARKETING PHILOSOPHY.

Using the social media as an online supplementary marketing  tool for your web site or blog is not a difficult  thing to do, however doing this with high precision, and targeting specific keywords and related semantics, starts to get a bit complex in nature, so you do need yo have s clear well documented plan of action

Failure to document your plan makes it difficult  to measure success or failure of your marketing. A written plan also makes it easier to enlist the help of others, as your aims, objectives and intentions will be easily understood, and less likely to be misinterpreted.  Having a written plan also makes it easier to integrate the three seperate components of the SEO space.

IPSEO or in page search engine optimization is all the technical stuff that is included in the HTML of your page, and this gives search engines the basic Context and SEMANTICS of your online content.

OPSEO or off page search  engine  optimization is all the supplemental marketing,  mostly within the SOCIAL MEDIA ENVIRONMENT, and link building strategies.

OLSEO or off line search engine marketing is all your standard old school marketing within the off line environment, such as newspapers, magazines, radio, flyers  and bill boards, where you introduce your event,  product or service  specific keywords  and related semantics to your intended target  market audience.

This is why keyword  research, and related topic selection is so important, coz you need to inform your copy writer and other technical SEO team members which words and related semantics they need to focus on. Here we are talking about things like alt tags for images, anchor text in links, schema markup and other tactics.

Your off line marketing needs to focus on this same set of keywords, topics and related semantics, to ensure that your intended Target market​ audience uses this same set of criteria when formulating their online search query

IPSEO or in page search engine optimization includes  all the technical stuff that is included in the HTML of your page, and this gives search engines the basic Context and SEMANTICS of your online content.

OPSEO or off page but still online search  engine  optimization is all the supplemental marketing,  mostly within your SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING , and link building strategies, such as blog posts or online adds.

OLSEO or off line search engine marketing is all your old fashioned  physiological marketing tactics to get your intended target  market audience to use specific words (your keywords) in their search queries

SEO has evolved from a only links and link building strategy way back  in the late 1990's to a very complex state of affairs where we now need to understand our target market audience  and their approach to using online search to surface our content.

Creating quality content on its own is no longer an option, we now need to do an awful lot more, and ensuring that your Target market audience is exposed to your selected key words within the off line environment is now an essential part of your SEO strategies. How else can you ensure that your intended Target market​ audience types your selected  keywords into the search box of a search engine?

#ISPEO, #OLSEO, #OPSEO

Content marketing, the social media and SEO

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating, distributing and maintaining valuable, relevant, and consistent online content to attract and retain a clearly-defined target market audience — and, ultimately, to drive predictable, well managed end user reactions, through careful management of conversion funnels and associated calls to action statements, that resonate with your intended target market audience, in a manner that this marketing adds value to the SEO efforts, so that your intended target market audience finds your original online content in search

Most content marketing falls within the Off Page Search Engine Optimization space, and Social media marketing forms the bulk of these efforts 

Off Page Search Engine Optimization or OPSEO  is a powerful set of  tools that allow search engines to improve their understanding of the context and semantics of your content through a variety of different techniques. The semantic linkages between the different subsets of online information and the various creators, distributors and consumers of information allows search engines to develop algorithms that interrogate ultra  large sets of data and extract trust factors as well as networked connections between different digital entities with a focus on specific elements within any individual online content, and then match these specific elements with individual search queries in ways that make sense to the individual who initiated the search query.

Off Page Search Engine Optimization is a vital element within the search industry, which allows search engines to better understand the specific purpose, aims, objectives and intentions of all online content.  Once the intentions and purpose of any online content is understood by a search engine then it has the ability to match that purpose and intent of your content to the purpose and intent of a search query.

IPSEO or In Page Search engine Optimisation is a very complex issue that allows for the application of many different tactics, and and a wide range of different criteria to be implemented within any single piece of online content, be it in a web site, a blog or any other online resource, with the primary aim to improve the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages) associated with that online content.

Nearly every item of IPSEO is reflected in the HTML code of a page, where some tactics remain in the <HEAD> section and others remain in the <BODY> section of a page. Many of these different sections are pre-coded as widgets that the web page / blog design team include with ease and little actual coding is needed by most online content creators these days.

Many web design packages these days allow for easy insertion of specially designed widgets that add a wide variety of specialist coding , such as the latest specialist mark up of SCHEMA for specific types of data. 

Your IPSEO starts with product / service research, then flows through to target market research and associated topic and keyword research. Your copywriter takes care of the textual and visual layout of the page, while a host of other specialists each contribute in various ways to the hidden aspects of the in-page content, such as the meta data and EXIF data embedded in images, video or audio files, and the extra info added to hyperlinks which include things like the REL = AUTHOR and REL = PUBLISHER tags which are inserted into the code of the hyperlink in question.

Many other issues are hidden in scripts that perform specific tasks such as including interactive spreadsheets, forms and clickable buttons that add value to the viewer experience. these items all need to be understood by the OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation) team so that they may be exploited during the social media and cross media marketing efforts of the rest of the marketing team.

These scripts and related coding issues need to be put together with your SEO in mind, where variable names and related filing and naming issues need to be adjusted or changed to reflect the keywords and topic selection processes that were conducted at the beginning of the SEO process. By using the selected keywords as variables within scripts and code, an added layer of SEO can be sneakily introduced, but this takes a deeper understanding of SEO and the implications of using file names, coding variables and related naming procedures to manage this. It also requires that those who are doing the coding attend marketing meetings where SEO and the integration of SEO into the bigger marketing picture is discussed. 

These issues need to be brought to the attention of your social media marketing team so that the IPSEO (In Page Search Engine Optimization)  issues which are in place,  can be expanded on,  within the Off Page Search Engine Optimization space,  focusing on the social media, through careful  and well managed use of the In Page Search Engine  optimization tactics that have been implemented, by making use of the research data and related  decisions, including but not limited to  the following information

• EXIF data for embedded
• images
• videos
• audio files
• text files
• alt text and related image titles, image descriptions as well as other image related info
• any specialized SCHEMA MARK UP along with notes on the implementation of this schema markup along with any research done to establish 
• all keyword and topic research notes along with decisions of what to exclude and what to include
• all target market research notes, as well as decisions made by other marketing personnel based on this information.
•  the purpose, aims, objectives and intentions of the original online content which is being marketed in the social media.

All this information needs to  accompany the marketing brief that the social media marketing team are issued, which should include  a document discussing the purpose, aims, objectives and intent of the social media marketing campaign, showing how this content marketing effort will interact with the SEO process, and how its impact will be managed.

Content marketers thus need to be well informed of all the sneaky and devious tricks used within the in page search engine optimization process, so that they may make use of these elements, by specifically referring to them within their social media posts.

Here we are talking of things such as prices which may have been added to product information within the page by making use of SCHEMA MARK UP,  so that the social media post uses the same format and actual in-page price including the specific currency used within the SCHEMA MARK UP  these exact match textual issues will add real strong SEMANTIC TRUST FACTORS to your content, both within the social media platform as well as the original on;line content in your blog or web page.

It thus follows the content marketing within the social media space can be used to improve a host of different Search Engine Optimization Value  Indicators in very powerful ways, provided that your marketing team work together and follow a #FUFISM based marketing strategy, where the power of the social media is understood and managed through careful use of selected keywords that appear in the <HEAD> section of your web page or blog post.

Many online marketers do not understand the semantic reach of the <HEAD> section of your web page or blog post, and this is because they have been hearing the rumors that these items have no value for a number of years and most marketing folks do not even know that the <HEAD> section of all online content exists.

• the meta tag - page title
• the meta tag page description
• the meta tag  keywords
• other devious and sneaky stuff inserted in the <HEAD> section of your page by the web site or blog design team

The issues relating to the <HEAD> section of your web page or blog post are seldom discussed, but this is one of the main reasons that bloggers make use of their own custom domains instead of using the free services such as blogspot.com.  Unfortunately there are many hidden costs involved in hosting your own domain, and having your blog on a sub domain or subweb within your primary web site.

having your own domain and hosting your own online content instead of using a free service has many strange and powerful advantages within the SEO industry, but these all come at a price.  Out sourcing your hoisting is an issue that needs careful attention, and unless you are a very large business that has the necessary security staff who are able to perform the necessary network security functions, you should out source your web site hosting.  this needs careful attention and you do need to discuss this with a number of different folks to get their views, and take a decision based on your needs and resources available

Having your own domain gives you many advantages within the SEO industry, and most of them are new trust factors where semantic trust is the most important issue. You also need to remember to link to deeper pages and specific blog posts,  as well as specific ever green pages in both your blog and your web site.  This is a vital part of content marketing, where you need to remember to perform cross platform marketing, where your would mention your Facebook post in a tweet, and your twitter profile in your Facebook posts.   Performing this action in other social media platforms and mentioning your other social media profiles should be done at least once every two weeks, and if you have a busy blog or web site, your should consider doing this more often, even once a day.

If your blog or web site gets fewer than 1 000 visitors every day, then keep your cross platform posting to once or twice a month.  Always remember to document all your social media posts, with a time line and other relevant data in a spreadsheet so that you can evaluate the impact of your social media posts on your SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) and your web site / blog traffic flow stats.

You should make a habit of keep records of all your content marketing efforts in a spread sheet, with time lines and other relaxant data . this will allow for better management and control of  any traffic flow audits that you may perform.

Remember that Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach, and that this is not a stand alone strategy.  

Content marketing is a subset of your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and those who tell you different need to explain very clearly how and why content marketing is excluded from the SEO stable.

Understanding what SEO is and how the different sections of your SEO strategy  interact with each other is not an easy task. the three SEO sections are

1. IPSEO or  In Page SEO
2. OPSEO or Off Page SEO
3. OLSEO or Off Line SEO

Online Content marketing allows you to integrate your IPSEO (In Page stuff) with your OPSEO (Off Page stuff) through your social media posts, where link building is the primary SEO feature, that binds your social media posts to the content that is being marketed with a hyperlink. 

Off Line Content marketing allows you to introduce your selected keywords and related semantic terminology to your target market audience.  Here we are talking of using TV, Radio, news papers, magazines, flyers, bill boards and other adverting  or marketing to get your intended target market audience to talk about your product, service, company, web site, blog or other online content.

If done right,  both your off line content marketing and your online content marketing will use your In Page Search Engine Optimization notes and data research conclusions  to construct the required information flow patterns within your intended target market audience.

This  should l result in your intended target market  audience using a search engine to locate more information about your business, using the keywords and semantically linked words, within their search query.  This use of your selected keywords and semantically related linked terminology will result in better SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages.

#IPSEO  #OPSEO  #OLSEO #FUFISM #CONTENTMARKETING #SEO

What is the SEO value of offline marketing?

OFF LINE MARKETING HAS EXTREME VALUE WITHIN THE ONLINE MARKETING BUSINESS!

Those who do not understand the connections between off line marketing and online content need to listen up and take action!!!!!

SEO or search engine optimisation changed very radical when Google introduced their HUMMINGBIRD ALGORITHM.  Before Google hummingbird and all its cousins in other search engines the main items in all SEO were your keywords and links, both inbound and out bound, with inbound links carrying more value, but out bound links being an essential issue.  The value of key words was stressed and used extensively by Search engines.

In the post hummingbird era all search engines introduced a very large number of new SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) which ran along side the old SEOVI and added extra value to your keywords in ways that enhance the context and intent of your online content. These new Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators are mostly in the form of Semantic Trust and associated inter-connectivity of different digital entities, and come from the OPSEO side of things.

OPSEO or off page Search Engine Optimisation is not that well understood, and most do not comprehend that OPSEO has two separate components.  The first is ONLINE and the second is OFF LINE. So from a #FUFISM based marketing perspective we have three sectors of Search engine Optimisation that need to be considered and then integrated into your total marketing plan. These are

1) #IPSEO or In Page Search Engine Optimisation

2) #OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimisation

3) #OLSEO or Off Line Search Engine Optimisation

The value of In page and off page search engine optimisation is discussed in many places but who talks of the value of Off Line Search Engine Optimisation? 

Off Line Search engine Optimisation or OLSEO,  is the part where you use your off line marketing to PLANT SEMANTIC SEEDS into the thinking patterns and thought processes of your intended target market, hoping that these seeds will grow into so called GOLDEN SEARCH QUERIES.  Golden search queries are those search queries where your intended target market audience uses your KEY WORDS and semantically related terms in their search queries, which result in your online content being at the top of the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)

As always understanding your target market audience in great depth is the core issue that needs to be addressed here,   because you want them (your target audience) to be exposed to your key words, so that you can expand on this in your social media marketing and other related online areas to nurture and nourish the semantic seeds that you planted in the off line media.  In other words you need to ensure that your target audience knows what your business, organization or event  is all about, so that they can use the correct terminology in their search queries to surface your online content.

If you simply assume that your intended target market are experts on your subject matter, then you are losing out.  You need to encourage your intended target market to use your desired key words in their search queries, and this process starts by introducing these words and related terminology within the off line world.  Here we are talking about 

• news  paper advertising and marketing
• magazines and industry specific periodicals
• radio interviews and talk shows
• speaking events and road shows
• flyers and bill boards 
• business cards and brouchers
• any other off line opportunity where you have face tine with your customers, clients, suppliers and other interested parties

 Your SEO starts with the creation of your In Page content, and is then enhanced by your off page work which is basically supplemental marketing, or marketing that supplements your online marketing.  Your supplemental marketing uses all the same research as your original online content and here we are talking of things like  the list below, but include many not mentioned.

• product, event, company or subject matter research
• purpose
• what this is used for
• how this is used
• what will the end user needs this for
• what are the benefits
• what are the detraction's
• who should use this and why
• costs,
• shelf life
• availability
• origins
• so many other research issues  most of which are subject matter dependent
• target market research
• who should read your content and why
• language issues
• culture issues
• demographic issues
• male / female
• target market groups and lay out preferences
• education and literacy skills
• Target market selection process
• Topic research
• key word research
• Image selection
• Additional meta data
• Additional mark up such as schema
• Author and publisher issues
• design criteria for online content

Your off line marketing team needs to be aware of  these issues and make wise use of the research notes and other related documentation of both previous as well as future online content.  This will assist them in their choice of words, images, context and related marketing issues, so as to ensure that they are able to plant your desired semantic seeds in meaningful ways,  which will encourage your intended target market audience to use specific words (your key words) when they construct their search queries.  Your social media team will also need these same notes and research data, as they will be expanding on this within their marketing efforts.  Your blogging team will also be using the same set of notes to develop their online content.

It is thus of extreme importance. especially from a #FUFISM based marketing perspective to get all your marketing folks around the same table,  at the same time,  to discuss your total marketing plan, and show each different marketing team, where and how their part of the puzzle fits into the big picture.  This will ensure better documentation of all processes, and enhance cross media marketing efforts.

It is of extreme importance that all your marketing is done within this basic outline, so that each marketing effort can be seen as a stand alone effort, but that it also fits into and augments or supplements your online marketing efforts.  This is an awful lot more important today than it was just a few years back, and the reason is the rapid expansion of the smart phone market and the volume of search traffic that comes from smart phones and other mobile devices.

You should not forget that mobile search is now larger than desktop search, and that many searchers are using last minute searches when in your brick and mortar establishment to ensure that they are getting the best deal, be it price, product support or after sales care.

What this means is that your target market is more educated and more aware of your competition, so you need to ensure that your online content is found above that of your competition, and that your social media team are on the ball, and ready to answer questions at the drop of a hat.

Once again your customers journey starts when they first discover your off line content, and then use the info found within your off line content to venture further, by searching online to discover more about you and your business.  The next step along the way is usually your social media space, and that is the reason that you need to expose your target market to your social media presence within the off line environment, and associate your social media presence with your product, service, event or other information.

Your Off Line marketing thus has an awful lot of value and importance to your online marketing, and needs to be taken seriously.  You need to ensure that all three of the SEO sectors are addressed and properly integrated into your total marketing plan at the highest level.  preferably at the C-SUIT  (Chief Something Officers) level

Once again these three sectors of SEO are, 1) IPSEO, 2) OPSEO, 3) OLSEO

What is the purpose of your online strategy and why should it be documented?

What is an online strategy?

During my research for the book I am writing on FUFISM I have spoken to many folks, in a variety of different environments from random folks in shopping malls, to focused online communities where SEO and online marketing are discussed in the most serious ways you can think of.  The question posed here  "What is the purpose of your online strategy"  always gets a strange answer.

Most ask do you not mean your online marketing strategy, and my stock answer is NO I am not talking about online marketing, I am talking about your online strategy and why you have an online presence in the first place.  Online marketing is only a small portion of your online presence, what about all the associated stuff like customer service,  public relations, event management, research and other business related issues?

So what is the purpose of your online strategy?

Sure sales and marketing are part of the mix of reasons for having an online presence, but they are not the only reasons that you need to have an online presence.  As you document the purpose, aims and objectives for your online presence, many more issues will come to mind, and these can then be added to your documented planning for your online presence.  An unplanned online presence is a very dangerous affair for many different reasons, and  these will surface as you progress through the methodology of setting up your online presence, documenting the procedure and actions as you go along.

From a #FUFISM based  marketing perspective,   planing and documenting your plans is one of the core elements that need to be addressed,  and done right, because your entire online marketing effort will hinge around and be influenced by these documents and associated activities.

Having an online strategy is the first step in your online marketing efforts, as this documented general online strategy will  inform your online marketing strategy, and discuss how your online marketing efforts will dovetail and mix with your off line marketing strategy. Understanding how your off line marketing and online marketing mix and influence each other is also a very important part of your planing strategy.

Before you formulate your online marketing strategy you need a clear understanding of all the components of an online marketing campaign, and a very deep understanding of SEO or Search Engine Optimisation.  Remember that SEO is the primary issue that needs to be integrated into all your marketing efforts both online and off line. Other components are more subject matter intensive, and require deeper planing around the issue at stake.  An online marketing campaign should, at least in my mind have the following components as bear minimum

1)  a website
2) a blog
3) a social media platform
4) a documented  off line marketing component
5) a documented management strategy
6) a documented collaborative strategy to ensure cross media and cross platform integration.
7) an SEO strategy that links this campaign to your other online work.

These seven basic components need to be well integrated, and shared across company divisions and marketing departments, both online and offline.

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation has three distinct layers that need to be clearly understood, with a proper focus on how they need to be integrated  into your marketing strategy, both within the off line as well as the online environment.  I have discussed these issues before  in the 4u brand blog, and you can read these posts later by following the links at the end of the article.

From a FUFISM based\ marketing perspective the three SEO layers are

1) IPSEO or In Page Search Engine Optimisation
2) OPSEO or Off Page but still online Search Engine Optimisation.
3)OLSEO or Off Page and also off line search engine optimisation

These three layers of search engine optimisation all have the same target market audience, and the target market research done should be shared by all three layers.  Each of these three layers also needs to be documented and shared across platforms, across media and across departments. The two main purposes here, are to ensure that research is not duplicated in silos, and that any silos within your marketing structure are removed and reduced to common shared documentation.

The online environment has changed radically over the last few years, and the introduction of the Google Hummingbird algorithm, along with its cousins in other search engines, has changed the online search environment in more ways than most people could possibly imagine.

 Search went form strings and links to now include this list and many other seemingly unrelated  issues.....

• strings, 
• links,
• things, 
• context of content,
• people, 
• places, 
• activities and 
• many other  hidden issues as associated \with semantic footprints and related human social media  issues.

The old set of SEOVI or Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators that search engines used before Google introduced the HUMMINGBIRD algorithm did not vanish or become redundant,  but are still very much part of the primary search picture. What did how ever happen is that a brand new set of search variables or  SEOVI were introduced which run along side the old variables, and are factored into new and updated search algorithms which  enhance and contextualize the old variables so that your online content may be better matched to search queries

SEO or Search Engine Optimization now includes  a vast array of new SEOVI (search engine Optimisation Value Indicators) and understanding the Google Hummingbird algorithm will help you better recognize these new SEOVI so that you can deal with them in the most appropriate\manner, as they are very varied, and pop up in un-thought of locations, such as the new Google Collections, which has  many folks debating a host of related\ marketing issues that have come to light through the use of Google collections.  see link at end of document.

From a FUFISM based\marketing perspective you have three elements  that make up search, which need to be addressed\in your SEO. these are

1) your online content and all other world wide online content
2) the search engines
3) the world population which includes your target market audience

It is the function of a search engine to match search queries to online content in ways that satisfy the end user who typed in or other wise placed a search query for the search engine to reply with a SERP or Search engine results page.

It is your duty as a publisher, author or marketer to ensure that a search engine is supplied with the necessary tools and knowledge to  enable the search engine to construct a bridge between your desired target market audience and your online content,  with well laid out approaches and road\ maps that make it easy for your target market audience to access your online content across these bridges, (read SERP's) in high traffic volume loads.


So when drafting your document discussing the purpose of your online presence you need to be clear on your online marketing needs and aspirations, so that this may be introduced to the rest of your staff in ways that they can understand the match between your purpose of being online and how much of this is for marketing.  You must also be clear to mention the other purposes of your online strategies, along with how these will interact with,  and influence your online marketing strategies.

Take your time and do a good job here.  Remember that this document is a living document that needs to be revised and updated\ on a regular basis, with a minimum of One month between updates or revisions.  If there have not been enough changes to your marketing structures or your target market research, then just say so in your monthly update, but be sure to do this at least once every month.  The middle of the month is in my opinion the best time to do this, as it is usually a bit quieter and there is no demand for reports on success / failure of your various marketing efforts at this time.

Once you understand what you want to achieve within the online environment, and have documented this clearly in ways that all staff members can read and understand, you will be ready to start drafting your online marketing policies, along with who is responsible to ensure that your SEO is integrated into all your marketing plans, both online and offline.

Remember that your online strategy  is a live growing document, and keep it updated and relevant.  

You documented online strategy needs to be very clear and have a minimum of the following issues discussed in detail, the more you add here the better your online marketing results will be.

• The purpose of your online strategy
• the aims of your online strategy
• the objectives of your online strategy
• a guide line to your online policies for 

• your web site
• your blog
• social media
• internal office use  
• research issues
• online marketing
• Integrating SEO with 
• your web site
• your blog
• your social media  marketing
• your print media marketing
• your radio marketing
• event planing and related marketing
• other  marketing strategies such as hashtag marketing

Discovery of your online presence is a very complex and complicated  matter that has many twist,  turns and strange deviations.  There are basically three avenues that your online content can be discovered by your intended target market audience. these are listed here.......

1) BY PURE ACCIDENT  WHILE SURFING THE WEB

2) BY MEANS OF YOUR ADVERTISING, either online or off line.

3) BY FINDING YOUR CONTENT IN A SERP (SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS PAGE)

The first, discovery by accident,  is not a good option, the second, discovery through your advertising / marketing efforts,  is a bit better, but can be very costly, the third, using a search engine,  is the best option. Unfortunately this option  requires lots of understanding and co-operation from many different folks in a  wide range of separate disciplines. 

For these folks to have an understanding of how they need to cooperate and  work together as a team they need to understand your online strategy, and where their efforts fit into the picture, as well as how their work will impact on others efforts so that they can maximize these different areas, which each will impact on their own associated SEOVI as well as other independent but related SEOVI (Search engine Optimisation Value Indicators.)

This documented purpose of your online presence will inform many different activities, actions as well as  interactions and then ensure that every marketing project, whether online or offline,  knows how their efforts are impacting on your online presence, what needs to be done to improve both the project in question and your online exposure in general with a focus on the specific project.

From a FUFISM based  marketing perspective the purpose of your online strategy is to improve your visibility both within the online environment and the off line environment and ensure that your intended target market audience  discovers your online presence, then follows through and completes your desired CTA's or Calls To Action within your online content, be it 

• in the social media,
•  within the pages of your blog,
• within your  web pages,
•  in an online forum or 
•  in any other online resource, or off line area where you may be active with your supplemental  marketing efforts

LINKS  to related  blog posts discussing SEO related  issues.

what is FUFISM and why should you care http://4ubrand.blogspot.com/2015/06/what-is-fufism-and-why-should-you-care.html

  

 +fufism   http://4ubrand.blogspot.com/p/fufism-functional-user-firendly.html

What is OLSEO ans why should you use it http://4ubrand.blogspot.com/2015/04/what-is-olseo-and-why-should-you-know.html

Is SEO important to your company http://4ubrand.blogspot.com/2015/05/is-seo-important-to-your-company.html

key words versus query: what is the difference?  http://4ubrand.blogspot.com/2015/04/key-words-versus-query-what-is.html

Link to a google collection where #FUFISM, SEO and semantic search are the core focal element https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/UqTcX

 Semantic value of a Google plus collection http://4ubrand.blogspot.com/2015/05/semantic-value-of-google-collection.html
Googlwe collections as an SEO tool http://4ubrand.blogspot.com/2015/05/google-collections-as-seo-tool.html

Is SEO important to your company ?

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is the toolkit that you supply to the search engines so that they may build bridges between your online content and your intended target market audience.

 

If your SEO is done right then the search engines will be able to build  bridges with Good well mapped access points that allow free flow of high volume traffic between the search engine and your online content for your end users.

 

Doing SEO right is such a difficult task, as there are so many different components that need to work together as a team, with many that are in a constant state of flux.  Understanding these different components and how they interact within each other is the key to good well managed information flow patterns that are used by your marketing team to ensure a constant demand for  your products, services and related information.

It thus follows that SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is the most vital component of your online marketing, as if this is not done right your online content will not reach your intended target market audience. 

The power of SEO or Search Engine Optimisation to influence your  online penetration must never be underestimated. Over the last few years the SEO industry has evolved from a purely technical in page only issue,  to now include all your marketing channels, and invade every corner of your marketing environment, both online and offline.  We need to get you to understand that  SEO now has three primary focal areas that need to be well integrated into your total marketing plan.  If this integration does not take place then you will have very poor  penetration within the  online marketing industry.

These three focal areas of SEO are 

1) IPSEO or In Page Search Engine Optimisation

2) OPSEO or Off Page (but online) Search Engine Optimisation

3) OLSEO or Off Line Search Engine Optimisation.

IPSEO or In Page Search Engine Optimisation is all the technical stuff that is hidden within the HTML code of the page in question,  as well as a host of other related issues that are both seen and unseen by your intended target market,  when they consume the online content made available to them,  through your page in question.   There are many folks that do a wide variety of different things here, but it starts with   a marketing brief from the marketing manager.  The list below is a partial list, and only includes some the more important In Page issues that need to be addressed after target market and keyword research has been documented and shared with the relevant folks.

• the textual content or copy writing
• any images
• any audio files
• any video files
• navigation structure
• internal links
• out bound links
• the page lay out and colour scheme
• micro data added to improve contextual issues
• meta data in the page <HEADER> section
• java scripts or any other hidden scripts

OPSEO or Off Page Search engine Optimisation is the next step, but some of this may need to be done prior to actual publication of your page to ensure proper information flow patterns.  OPSEO is all the online marketing done that links to the page in question, as well as associated online information which is called by a variety of different names as in the partial list below.

link building

relationship marketing

content marketing

search engine marketing

social media markleting

email marketing

These marketing channels are sometimes seen as independent marketing channels, but that is a misconception that needs to be addressed at the top level within your marketing structure, as these all have a very significant impact on a variety of different STFSEOVI or Semantic Trust Factor Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators.  Google as well as most other Search engines are now using these so called Semantic Trust Factors and Semantic Footprints in a number of different algorithms that impact on the SERP's or Search Engine Results Pages.

OLSEO or Off Line Search Engine Optimization is  the art of applying psychological tactics to plant semantic seeds in your intended target market audience's thinking patterns and thought processes, through the use of off line marketing channels such as but not limited to:

news papers

magazines

radio

Television 

road shows

speaking events

These SEMANTIC SEEDS then need to be germinated and nurtured through clever use of your OPSEO or Off Page, but online search engine Optimisation tactics, so that your intended target market will use your desired key words within their search queries. It thus follows that these three different layers of Search engine Optimisation need to be properly understood by your marketing team, so that each person within your marketing team can understand where their efforts fit into the picture, and how their individual efforts need to be integrated into the total marketing picture for best impact on the SERP's

 watch this HOA  (BILL and AMMON's BOGUS HANGOUTS) with +Bill Slawski  and +Ammon Johns for some great tips on SEO issues.

SEMANTIC VALUE of a Google Collection

The SEMANTIC VALUE of collections is currently very under estimated, and few actually realise that these Google Collections give Google (and other search engines if your collection is public)  a brand new set of #STFSEOVI or Semantic Trust Factor Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators to use in their algorithms.

 

This blog post has been constructed  to augment this Google plus post discussing Google Collections https://plus.google.com/+FrankGainsford/posts/TLDjBuPapbs

 

These Semantic Trust Factors are the core element in establishing validity, authenticity and truthfulness of the content in question. Search engines do this through a variety of methods which +Bill Slawski  describes in his many efforts to inform us of the tricks and tools that Google uses within their algorithms.

When  using Google collections these SEMANTIC TRUST FACTOR SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION VALUE INDICATORS are attached to the collector who maintains these collections, and then shared down the line with every identifiable digital entity in the posts that are added to the collection.

If you take care and have a very niche and well focused collection then this will reflect so much better on your personal value as an authority or knowledgeable person on the content and context of each collection that you as an individual mange within your Google plus profile, and Google will be able to extrapolate this further into your author value and the publisher value of any online resource where you actively contribute.

The fact that you as an individual digital entity are the sole curator of your Google Collections needs to be well understood and properly integrated into your other online marketing efforts.  Embedding a link to any specific Google Collection within other online content will add some very powerful STFSEOVI to this new resource, and as such you should not be very liberal where you personally share any links to your collections. when others share the link to your collection is of less concern to you, but should never be left out of the picture completely.  Google and other search engines understand who has shared this link to your collection, and add STFSEOVI accordingly.

If your collection get lots of shares, you had better hope that these shares are meaningful and are within reputable web sites that are topic or niche specific.  You should never encourage your intended target market audience to share links to your collections in a hap hazard manner, as shares to unrelated online resources will dilute the semantic power / value  that these collections will gain over time.

Your collections need to be well managed at all times, and you need to ensure that they are listed within your about me section of every social media profile where  you are active, as each of these listings will add value in the form of STFSEOVI.  these SEOVI will not be restricted to your G+ profile but will also rub off onto all the other social media profiles where you have taken the time to list your collections.  It is thus also very important that you list all your other social media profiles where you are active in your Google plus profile within the ABOUT ME SECTION.

The next issue is have you, or your SEO team,  ensured that the REL = AUTHOR and REL = PUBLISHER attributes within the HTML code of the content that you put out there for your audience, or the brand audience where you contribute to a blog or web site, is in place and functional, especially on the content that you wish to add to any specific collection.

These two HTML attributes are a vital part of search engines attributing the STFSEOVI (Semantic Trust Factor Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) to you as an individual as well as distributing any STFSEOVI that you as an author may have,  further down the line,  to your online content where ever it may be recognized and attributed to you as an author.

You do need to understand the difference between the author tag and the publisher tag and ensure that these are properly inserted, and only on the pages where they should be.  Using the rel = author tag on pages that they should not be may cause some issues, and a serious dilution of the power that your STF's (Semantic Trust Factors) actually carry through to other areas.

If your collections are in place to promote specific sections within your blog and web pages such as product, services and topic specific information  at the granular level, then this use of the REL = AUTHOR tag is of great SEMANTIC value and should be investigated to ensure that it is correctly formatted, and in some cases as appropriate to the context of the content not present.   The author tags should be reserved for content that can be authored, and not placed on product info pages, forms that an end user may fill out and similar non author related content,  where only publisher tags should be used.

Without proper cross discipline co - operation between the different marketing departments and the SEO team, these very powerful STFSEOVI . (Semantic Trust Factor Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators)  that are attached to your Google Collections will be lost and valueless.  It thus follows that marketing needs to be clearly understood, and your target market well defined, before you run off and just add stuff to a Google collections.

To get the most SEO value from the SEMANTIC VALUE of your GOOGLE COLLECTION you will need to do quite a bit of in-house work-shopping around the issues of SEMANTIC MARKETING and the fact that there are three separate areas that SEO should be functionally implemented.

Each of these three separate areas of functional implementation of your SEO need to be properly co-ordinated and managed by your marketing team, in conjunction with the sales and various  SEO teams. Your SEO needs to be the lead marketing component at the meetings where these issues are discussed, but it must at all times be remembered  that

THE PURPOSE  OF  MARKETING IS TO GENERATE SALES

Once again the purpose of marketing is to generate sales... Now the purpose of SEO is to ensure that your online marketing is found by your intended target market when searching online, and we do need to remind you (the reader here) that there are many different definitions of SEO, so we will need to point out the fact that  this is a #FUFISM based marketing issue, so we need to use a +fufism based marketing definition of SEO


SEO or Search engine Optimisation is all he work done by your entire marketing team to ensure that your online content is found by your intended target market when they search online.



 With this in mind lets describe the three separate areas of Search engine Optimisation that you need to ensure are implemented and functional

1) IPSEO or In Page search Engine Optimisation
2) OPSEO or Off page Search Engine Optimisation
3) OLSEO or Off Line Search engine Optimisation

We all know about In page Search Engine Optimisation which is all the In Page stuff that is included in the HTML code and includes but is not limited to

• the meta tags in the head section
• the meta data embeded in image files, audio files, video files and other attachments
• out bound links, internal links as well as title, description and  related REL = XXX tags
• the text and copy writing
• any specif mark up coding that is added to the HTML structure
• navigation structure and related user experience

The OPSEO is also not a surprise as this is all the supplemental marketing, with a primary focus on link building done within social media, blogs and other web sites that informs search engines in more detail about the context and intentions of the online content in question.

Then there is the big surprise of OFF LINE SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION  which is where true marketing skills are married to your SEO giving you the tools and opportunity to PSYCHOLOGICALLY ATTACK your intended target market audience through the print media, radio or any other offline marketing avenue at your disposal, so as  to plant the SEMANTIC SEEDS that will grow and bear the fruits of great GOLDEN SEARCH QUERIES from your intended target market audience.

Your online Google collections need to fit into this scheme of things very clearly, and the naming of these collections is thus not a haphazard affair, but requires intense target market research that is shared with all your marketing team, followed up by some well managed think tank consulting to determine the best names for your Google collections that will have the highest semantic values, as well as what type of posts to curate in which Google collection, along with which digital entity will own each collection, and why that individual digital entity  should be tasked with managing and curating that specific Google Collection.

Your Google collections need to fit into,  and be part of your OLSEO or Off line search engine optimisation in ways that would encourage your intended target market to use the selected topics and related keyword  as well as topic infrastructure that was   chosen to be the selected  criteria for which G+ Posts were added to your individual Google plus collection

It thus follows that you need to do some considerable research around specific topics and select these very carefully to include in a policy document for each of your envisioned Google collections to get the best Semantic value out of any Google Collection.

Without a well planned and properly managed policy for each individual Google Collection  you will be wasting your efforts, and not be as successful as desired,  as far as SEMANTIC MARKETING is concerned.

 

The semantic value of Google Collections is an awful lot bigger than most realise, and you should take care to do this in a well managed manner and ensure that your Google collections is integrated into your total marketing plan through properly instituted Search engine optimization policies that include #IPSEO, #OPSEO, OLSEO and related marketing policies. 

 

having policies that are not implemented is a very big issue, so you do need to appoint a person to oversee these issues and pass feed back at top level marketing meetings on the impacts of your individual marketing efforts and how they are working together as a team

List of G+ posts and other online pages referenced

http://4ubrand.blogspot.com/2015/05/google-collections-as-seo-tool.html
http://semanticxray.quora.com/The-meaning-of-Semantic?__snids__=1136846580&__nsrc__=2
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/UB_dX
https://plus.google.com/communities/103048251221048356778
https://plus.google.com/+BillSlawski/posts/X23kfyZjuX2
https://plus.google.com/+DavidAmerland/posts/MJqfrXf8duf


list of G+ users who have been involved in conversations around the SEMANTIC VALUE OF GOOGLE COLLECTIONS  in no particular order

 +Padraig Ó Raghaill
+Jason Darrell
+Zara Altair
+David Amerland
+Mark Traphagen
+Bill Slawski
+fufism
+Frank Gainsford  (yours truly)
+Denver Prophit Jr.
+Peter Hatherley