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

What is SEMANTIC SEARCH and why should you care?

I talk to many folks about a wide variety of topics and enjoy just discussing random issues with random folks on the street, and use the insights from these conversations to understand how the public think and what is important to folks in various different work environments,  focusing specifically on the online marketing issues that unfold when evaluating what has been discussed.

The fact that I talk to many folks about marketing, in all its forms also allows me to have an understanding of how online marketing issues which are  being promoted by so called online marketing experts, and folks who are knowledgeable within the online marketing industry  are not taking the Google Hummingbird algorithm into account.

Google Humming Bird algorithm has been around very close to three years now, (introduced August / September 2013)  but many online marketing folks still do not know what this is and have no clues as to how Google humming Bird algorithm  impacts on search results within the Google search engine.

Since the Introduction of the Google Humming Bird algorithm in August / September 2013 there have been many folks using the click bait technique of saying that a specific SEO (Search Engine Optimization) technique such as the use of keywords or page titles in the HEAD section of an HTML document is dead and no longer relevant to search engines as a tool, to evaluate the content of your page for a match to a search query.  See this post by Garenne Bigby   discussing the death of SEO

This has lead to the public believing that these issues, techniques and tactics are no longer used by Google to evaluate the context  and intentions of your online content.  It has thus come about that the public, and most online marketing folks, now ignore and neglect to use these very valuable SEO (Search Engine Optimization)  tools, with the vast majority of folks who make use of the social media as an online marketing base not even knowing of the existence of the Google Humming Bird algorithm

I have written about the impacts and some issues associated with Google Humming Bird algorithm before and here are a few links to posts discussing #googlehummingbird 

These posts were selected randomly from an internal search of this blog and you may get the full list by typing "google humming bird" into the internal search engine of this blog.

http://4ubrand.blogspot.co.za/p/blog-page.html
http://4ubrand.blogspot.co.za/2015_09_01_archive.html
http://4ubrand.blogspot.co.za/2016/06/fufism-as-marketing-philosophy-helps.html

Now to answer the question I posed "what is SEMANTIC SEARCH and why should I care"  I look at it from this angle....

SEMANTIC SEARCH within the context of Google search  is basically (at least in my mind) the complete operational output of the Google Humming Bird algorithm, where Google is trying to match the intent of a search query with the intent of an online document. Semantic search thus involves many new concepts that the old keyword style search (Pre-Google Humming Bird) could not achieve

Below is a very limited list of things that are addressed within the context of Google Humming Bird algorithm, which Google uses to improve the quality of their search results also known as #SERP or Search Engine Results Pages. Remember that the introduction of the Google Humming Bird Algorithm signaled the change from exclusively using strings, to using strings, things, and the connections between strings, things, individual identifiable  digital entities and   the understanding of the content as well as context and semantics of an online document, and includes  a host of new indicators such as but not limited to

• the semantic footprint of the online document in question
•  author credibility and the semantic footprints of identifiable contributors to the online document in question.
•  Semantic footprint and credibility of the publisher of the document in question
• identifiable  Social interactions within the public social media arena, linking to the document in question, up to a few network levels past the original posts within the social media space,
•  The semantic footprint of identifiable and verifiable online  documents which have links pointing to the online document in question.
• The semantic footprints of other online documents linked to from the online document in question  
• The semantic footprints of digital entities mentioned within the HEADER section in the HTML data of a text document or the EXIF data of a non text document if it exists
• Semantic connections between META DATA in the HEAD section of HTML documents and the perceived (Googles perspective) purpose, intent, aims and objectives of the online document in question   making the following list of meta data components important from an SEO perspective
•  page titles
• page descriptions
• keyword lists
• author  / contributors
• publisher  / document hosts
• language
• expiry date when applicable

There are a vast number of new things that search engines are  looking at today, that were not considered pre-Google Humming Bird algorithm, and most folks within the online marketing industry  are oblivious to these, even though they are using many of them very regularly. Most of these issues link back to the SEMANTICS of  the search query and the  SEMANTICS of the individual online documents within the SERP's or Search Engine Results Pages

from the perspectives of the collective semantics of all the components of the online document in question 

Now to answer the why should I care part, one needs a true description of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)    From a #FUFISM perspective SEO is ALL the work done to ensure that your intended target market audience find  your online content when searching for semantically related issues online, and then actually consume that content, and take your desired CTA (Call To Action) seriously then follow through by completing that specific stage in your  audience activity funnel, sales funnel or conversion funnel.

It thus follows that having an elementary understanding of SEMANTIC SEARCH  will be very advantageous for your online marketing success, so you really do need to get to grips with SEMANTIC SEARCH and the associated issues of Google Humming Bird Algorithm

Enjoy the rest of your day and many thanx for reading my post.

#frankie2socks

What is OPSEO, and why should you care?

OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimisation is the true driver of impressive Search Engine Results Pages more commonly referred to as  SERP's

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is divided into two separate parts, the first is #IPSEO or In Page search Engine Optimisation and the second is  #OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimisation.  

IPSEO is all the coding and HTML work, as well as the related image issues,  copy writing stuff  and other issues that are found directly within the page.

OPSEO is all the other stuff that happens off of the page in question, and included a wide variety of different issues, most of which are not easily interpreted as being directly related to a search engine in any way.

 Off Page Search engine Optimisation is very poorly understood, and when Google introduced the Hummingbird algorithm in August / September 2013 things got even more confusing because they introduced a whole new range of OPSEOVI (Off Page Search Engine Optimization Value Indicators) ,  where the STFOPSEOVI (Semantic Trust Factor Off Page Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) were totally ignored in the beginning because we as online marketers did not realise the value that Google and other search engines placed on these very sneaky and ultra devious new range of Search Engine Optimization Value Indicators

When Google attempted to force all authors to make use of the *REL = AUTHOR* tag within their online work we as marketing folks did not understand the value that they had attached to this, and many simply ignored this, and quite a large percentage of folks out there were very anti the FORCED MOVE,  and refused to take part in this exercise.  This along with the fact that the G+ or Google Plus Social media network was also not taking off as many folks thought is should,  set the Google authorship program back a lot more than most folks realise.

Google was forced to take other measures to calculate and measure topical author authority, and its connections to the value of specific online content.  These were the early days during which many of the new algorithms defining topical author authority and relevant publisher authority as #OPSEOVI (Off Page Search Engine Optimization Value Indicators)  were developed and tested.  Today Author authority and publisher values are used extensively within many different algorithms that focus on the issues around social media signals and SMSEOVI ( Social Media Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators)

Author value on its own is worth didly squat (NADER ZERO) just as publisher value on its own is worthless    That being said these two values of Author value and publisher value are two of the most importnat issues when dealing with all web pages, blog posts and social media posts within both the IPSEO (In Page Search Engine Optimisation)  and the OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation) calculations, that form  the core value indicators for each and every social media search engine optimization value indicator that is algorithmically calculated and later used in other search related algorithms.

One needs to remember that Google currently uses in excess of 250 different variables in their many different algorithms that calculate and then  make use of a vast host of different SEOVI (Search engine Optimisation Value Indicators) to match a search query to a SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

Page rank, site rank and domain rank are three of the most critical SEOVI (Search engine Optimisation Value Indicators) that need to be understood when it comes to author and publisher issues, as these three variables are all different and each has an impact on the other two within their calculations, that are done through feed back loops that run until a stable value for each is established, using extreme mathematics that use calculus and derivative limits, where author values and publisher values are also part of the equations.

Domain rank is for the whole domain.  Site rank is for the actual site, which may be  a sub web, a sub domain or the actual domain itself, depending on how your web master has set things up. Page rank is the ranking value for the specific page in question.  Here one needs to remeber that every blog post is deemed to be a stand alone web page,  and every social media post is also deemed to be a stand alone web page with its own URL (Uniform Resource locator or web page name)

This applies to all social media posts including Facebook posts, twitter posts, Google plus posts, Pinterest pins, Instagram posts, linked in posts and any other social media platform that you can think of..  The page rank, . site rank and domain rank all have a big influence on your other Search Engine Optimisation variables, where once again the mathematics involves a means to calculate limits through integrated and derivative methods within the calculus world.

Every single OPSEOVI (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicator) is generated by an author,  or a publisher, and as such carries the semantic relevance attached to that specific author or publisher or both, as determined by the search engine during the information evaluation stages, where the online information is evaluated and worked on to set up the preliminary stages of setting values for secondary  SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) which will be used by the next stage search algorithms, to calculate and store a new set of SEOVI that will be used to match a search query to a set of results in the form of a SERP (Search Engine results Page) in subsequent algorithm activities.

How you as an author use the social media, other web sites or blogs to link to the information that you want found within the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) is carefully evaluated and studied by the search engines, where a host of different things are evaluated during the OPSEO process and include but are not limited to questions like:

who you are
what do you normaly write about within the social media (all platforms)
is your social media post, blog post or other web page on topic when compared to
     the information that you are linking to
     the in image meta data of any images within your online content
    other related posts that you have made linking to the same domain, the same site or the same page
how often do you post within this specific social media platform.
how often do you post on other social media platforms
Do you comment on posts in this social media platform, and if so how often
do you comment on posts in other social media platforms, and if so how often
do you post to any blogs
    are these blogs related to each other semantically
   are these blogs related to your post in any way at all
   does this specific post contain relevant semantically linked content

There are so many more questions that are addressed and answered,  then these answers are used in  extreme mathematical equations to determine the relevant SEOVI  for this stage, and the values that will be pushed through to other algorithms that will check and compare these results for quality and correctness before storing the values for future use in the next stages of the search process.

It thus follows that ones author value along with the associated semantic trust factors that are connected to you as an individual in the form of your SEMANTIC FOOTPRINT are important issues that need to be well manged and properly understood.  Failure to interpret these issues properly and address issues that have a negative impact on your author and publisher values thus have a negative impact on your OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation) efforts, which will cause all your other online work to feature less prominently within any SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

Now the trick here is to understand the values associated with public and private shares within the social media and how these impact on your OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation)   Private shares are blocked from being included in the search indexing process, and so have a ZERO value to your OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation).  The only place that private shares have any value within Google Plus (G+) is when you are logged in to Google, then your private shares and all your public shares as well as a host of other stuff such as your other Google activities including Gmail,  your Google calendaar, your Google docs and so many other Google related issues are considered.  This includes the issues of all those within your contact lists, your G+ Circles and where you have commented on any private posts as well.

You do need to understand the very big difference between a search in Google while you are logged in and a search in Google when you are logged out.   Many do not know that there is a vast difference, as they are nearly always logged into Google through Gmail, Google Docs or some other Google service..

Now getting back to Off Page Search Engine optimisation......  OPSEO is all the work that your entire marketing team, and their many partners  do, which is both off line and online to promote your online work within the search space.  Many marketers forget that the print media, the radio, television and any other media forms part of their SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) tactics.

  I here you asking what does radio have to do with SEO.... 


Well to answer where RADIO advertising /marketing and the print media  as well as other off line marketing tactics fit  into the SEO world we need to understand WHAT IS SEO.

SEO or Search engine Optimisation is all the work done by your entire amrketing team, along with all thier partners to ensure that
1) your online work is indexed by a search engine
2) the search engine lists your online content in their SERP's (Search Engine results pages)
3) your selected target market discovers your online content when searching online
4) your desired target market audience actually clicks on the your link in the SEREP's (Search Engine results Pages)
5) your target market selects and acts on a CTA (Call To Action) within the page he / she selected from the SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

So the question arises how do you influence your intended target market audience to type those specific keywords chosen during your target market research and related semantic information into a search box ?

This is done by sneakily using the Television, radio, print media and other offline marketing platforms to use psychological tactics and put these specified key words into your interned target markets thinking patterns,  and talking styles,  to ensure the use of these words and the language that they use in general conversation,  with their family, friends or work colleges within their search query.   This step is the most vital part of any good SEO campaign especially if you are using #HASHTAGMARKETING in any way.

Many online marketers do not use this step, and have very little or in most cases ZERO input into any off line marketing campaign.  This is a very big error, which can be eliminated through the use of a #FUFISM based marketing management style.

So in conclusion #OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimsation is all the off  Page work done by your entire marketing team to ensure that your intended target market uses the correct terminology and semantic terminology when using a search engine to surface your online content within the SERP's, and then select your online content as a result of the relevant search snippet showing within the SERP (Search Engine result Page)

You need to care about your OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimisation, as this is the most appropriate  way that you can influence a search engine to take your online content seriously, and influence a search engine to apply the best snippet that matches a search query, to entice your intended target market to select your online content from the results displayed in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

Below is a list of pages discussing related issues including semantic search.  each of these posts will add some value to your understanding of the issues around OPSEO and what you can do to get better at doing Off Page Search Engine Optimisation.

READ THE COMMENTS IN THESE POSTS

http://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/do-social-signals-drive-seo/
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JasonDarrell/posts/PrNxt4xeFn4
https://plus.google.com/+SergioRedondo/posts/56nQK53kTTS
http://www.kayakonlinemarketing.com/blog/does-social-engagement-affect-search-results
https://plus.google.com/+RandyMilanovic/posts/gMH9yFqia4d
https://plus.google.com/+FrankGainsford/posts/VWoJQWPRFEr
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/103079475562443214899
https://plus.google.com/+FrankGainsford/posts/AEe4ePWRziy

Content Marketing Essentials

Content marketing is a complicated business that is mistakenly separated from the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) component of your online marketing strategy, which is a big mistake.  

Content marketing is a division of your SEO

 

Once you realise that Content Marketing is one of the primary components of your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and take this very seriously, then you are onto the right track and will begin to understand the essential components of content marketing.  The biggest issue is to define your intended target market audience, and determine how best to write for this group in a manner that best suits your intended purpose of the content that you wish to put in front of their eyes.

Those who tell you that content marketing is not a sub division of your SEO need to be treated with caution.

Many SEO experts will try to convince you that content marketing does not fall under the management umbrella of your Search Engine Optimisation manager, but these people are very mistaken, and in my personal opinion need to be shown the way to your back door, then asked to leave very quietly, and told to never set foot in your office again.  Take a minute or two and think about content marketing and the purpose that you as an individual  would want to do any content marketing.  Next do the same for SEO and write down (document these issues clearly)  the similarities and differences.  compare this then evaluate your decision to separate SEO and Content marketing or keep them connected.

Usually the purpose of content marketing is to ensure that your content gets better traction with your target audience, but every business will have a slightly different perspective of the purpose of content marketing.  With out a clear well defined purpose for your content marketing you have no way of understanding the potential impacts of content marketing, or even  the intended aims and objectives of your content marketing.

Content marketing is not an add on issue, but is something that needs to be considered early in the content design stages. 

 

When defining the purpose of your content marketing you should be using the following documents as guide lines and references.

1. the purpose of your online marketing
2. the aims and objectives of your  online marketing plan
3. the aims and objectives of you web site if you have one
4. the aims and objectives of your blog if you have one
5. the aims and objectives of your social media policy if you have one
6. the purpose, aims and objectives  of the specific content that you will be marketing

These documents along with the documentation supplied discussing the intended target market groups, as well as related marketing campaigns that have already been run and those that are either currently being run or planned for the near future will dictate the way forward within any specific content marketing campaign.

Your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)  has the same identical target audience but is mostly focused on ensuring that

1) your content is located within the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)
2) your target audience will select your link in the SERP's
3) those who clicked on your result in the SERP's actually clicks on a CTA (Call To Action) within the page that they chose to open.  (note that links in your navigation structure are also considered as CTA's)

If your content marketing was poorly done, then step (2) and (3) in the above list of essential steps may perhaps  not  be completed, as your viewers may be expecting different information or not be pleased at what they are exposed to within the page, because they have been mislead by your content marketing.  It thus follows that content marketing is a very essential and critical part of the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) process, and that your content marketing needs to be aligned with, and integrated into your SEO process.

Failure here will lead to many interconnected and related issues that impact on your over all success within your online marketing efforts. Things like BOUNCE RATES, conversion rates,  market share retention,  customer satisfaction as well as many others are at stake.  This means that CONTENT MARKETING is a very big issue and that you need to pay careful attention to detail during this process.

The essential elements that need to be considered when doing content marketing are

1. target market research and understanding the various target market groups needs, desires and aspirations as well as cultural and language  issues
2. product / service research
3.  platform research
4. key word and general information management
5. content management issues specific to platform
6. co-operation with other marketing divisions including but not limited to:

• SEO team
• copy writing team
• image development team
• blogging team
• web site design team
• print media team
• digital media team
• social media teams for each platform
• public relations team

Content marketing can not be done in isolation as many content marketing folks are currently trying to do, purely because they do not understand that content marketing is subservient to SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).  Once one takes the #FUFISM (Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media) approach to online marketing then the many different #SEOVI  ( Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) that need to be considered will be included within the content marketing stages of preparing your online content.

FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media is a new marketing philosophy where the social media forms the core communication element that binds all your marketing both online and off line into one single well balance marketing effort.

This article was written after reading articles by    +Ryan Hanley     
see   1) http://www.ryanhanley.com/7-ways-to-fail-at-content-marketing/  
2) http://www.ryanhanley.com/does-content-marketing-work/

These articles did not stress that content marketing is subservient to your SEO but I am sure that Ryan understands this, as he is very involved within the SEO industry.  Ryan is one of the few guys that is upfront and blunt when he describes what it is that you need to know, and why he believes that this is important.

Please leave a comment below...

Is great content enough to get good SERP's?

   This Post has been written in response to a comment on this Google plus post

+Rand Fishkin  of +Moz  posed the question : Is It Possible to Have Good SEO Simply by Having Great Content and there were many comments on the post in question.  How ever many questions were left un-answered because of the individuals involved specific agendas.  see the post and follow the link there for a deeper understanding of the issues discussed here.

First we need to remind those who know, and inform those who have not heard, that #FUFISM is a new marketing term which is an acronym for Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media  which every person who does any form of online marketing needs to understand and put into practice.

 Read more about +fufism  as discussed in this blog  or in our web pages here

Engagement within the social media, in most cases,  involves some form of passive link building, as you offer links to your web pages, blog or other online resource, and hope that your target audience and those who have an interest, share your social media posts further, and most of these have links that are useful or offer your target audience specific information relating to your online discussion, or where to find more information on an item that has been requested in the ongoing social media conversation.

Link building is a very delicate affair, and building your social audience is directly linked to your social media policy, especially where your social media policy discusses link building and related issues that need to be avoided such as  inadvertently spamming your influencers with requests to share your posts further.



 

An earlier post discussing link building can be found here

 Influencer marketing (new terminology for public relations management activity)   is also directly linked to your link building strategies and should be discussed in your social media policy statements which every employee needs to be aware of.   This awareness should be done through   your own in-house workshops where you ensure that your staff are knowledgeable of your company or organisational social media policies, and what impact their social media activities will have on your total online marketing effort.

If you have more than 5 people working on your online marketing then this is a very critical issue.  failure here can and will lead to many issues where your online marketing will have a negative impact on your SERP's through errors that are made by your staff  which could easily have been avoided through proper communication.  This is where #FUFISM based marketing strategies come into their own, and ensure better co-operation between the various different departments who each play a different role and have a different impact on your toatal marketing strategies.

Things like a junior member of the team, or a new employee making use of a link farm, because he / she thinks that this will help, but is not aware of the impact of this type of marketing.

Other issues are when people within your online marketing use different structures for their NAT issues (NAT= Name Address and Phone Number)   A set NAT format that should be used across all platforms, especially within the link building activities on social media, as this  is a very sneaky and devious issue, which  comes to play with Google Humming Bird and Google pigeon as well as a few other un-named algorithms.

SEO is an aful lot more than doing inpage coding, and involves many off page activities, some of which are even off line, such as adverts in the news paper, adverts on the radio or even television advertising, all of which influence how your target market searches for your info online and which words they type into the search engine. 

Are your pages optimized for these specific words used in your offline marketing?

Things like   industry specific words which you push out there into the public space (cyberspace) hoping to influence your target markets choice of words when searching online are also part of the SEO industries problems, and link building around these specific sets of terminology are of extreme importance, especially the passive type of link building where these words are used in the social media posts that are put out there with links to pages in your online resources that expand on the conversation around your hash tags and other industry specific terminology.

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a vastly complex issue that has three criteria that need to be met

1) your pages must be found within the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)

2) Your intended target market must click on your link in the SERP's

3) Those who found your listing in the SERP's and then selected your link there must either click on a CTA (Call Ta Action) within the page  or stay on page long enough to satisfy the search engine that they benefited from the information on that page

If any one of these criteria are not met then your SEO has failed.  poor link building, especially that of the passive kind, leads to poor conversion rates and has a very big impact on increasing the bounce rate for your pages, as those who have been mislead by your social media posts that have been shared by your influencers, will not stay on page long enough to satisfy a search engine that they have gained any benifit from your content within that specific page.   This is where CO or Content Optimisation becomes one of the most critical elements of your SEO efforts.  

YES YOU READ RIGHT CONTENT OPTIMISATION (CO) IS A SUB SET OF SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION and any body that tells you different should in my opinion never be trusted with your SEO, or any other part of your online marketing in any way.

Your bounce rate is a very critical issue and all search engines are now looking at ways to use this as a tool to push pages with poor bounce rates lower down the SERP's over time, and lift those which have better bounce rates higher up the SERP's.  Google's Humming Bird algo is very active here, and those who do not take this seriously will soon discover that their rankings are slipping and they may not be able to fix this untill they fix their Content Optimisation.  Your link building, and especially your link building within the social media plays a very critical role in your Conversion Optimisation (CO) as this leads to an expectation of what the viewer will find when they land on your page, and if their expectations which have been developed within your social media marketing are not met when they land on your page, you will not get any clicks and the end user (your intended target market) will depart in a very short time.

Your bounce rate is a very important #SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicator) that you need to keep under control. This is not an easy task as there are so many factors involved, and your link building through the social media is one of the primary areas that need your attention, as the impact on your CO (Conversion Optimisation) coming from your social media link building activities, both active and passive are extreme in nature.

The CTA's (Call To Action) statements within your online content must match the expectations of your intended target market which you have created within your social media marketing, through your link building and influence marketing tactics, which should all be included within your company social media policies and directives issued to your staff.  

It thus follows that what +Rand Fishkin  discussed in this WHITE BOARD FRIDAY is very important and you need to watch closely, and listen clearly because he talks around this issue with great care not to offend those who have niche markets such as CO (Content Optimisation) , CM (Content Marketing) SEM (Search Engine Marketers) as well as many others, all of which in my humble opinion are sub sections of Search Engine Optimisation.

Many thanx for reading this post. please leave a comment as this is a very controversial matter and the more people that discuss this the better for all.

The value of Conversion Optimisation from a FUFISM perspective

Because we are looking at Conversion Optimisation from a #FUFISM perspective we firstly need to remind you what we mean by the term +fufism   

FUFISM is an acronym for Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media and also a marketing philosophy where SEO and your target market research are two of the primary areas that need to be integrated into your total marketing strategy through effective and properly  managed use of the social media

Next we need to describe what we mean when we talk about Conversion optimisation, and how this works

 

In internet marketing, conversion optimization, or conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the method of creating an experience for a website or landing page visitor with the goal of increasing the percentage of visitors that convert into customers. It is also commonly referred to as CRO.

Conversion Rate Optimization is the process of increasing website leads and sales without spending money on attracting more visitors by reducing your visitor "bounce rate". A conversion rate is defined as the percentage of visitors who complete a goal, as set by the site owner. Some test methods, such as split testing or A/B testing, enable one to monitor which headlines, images and content help one convert more visitors into customers.

There are several approaches to conversion optimization with two main schools of thought prevailing in the last few years. One school is more focused on testing as an approach to discover the best way to increase a website, a campaign or a landing page conversion rates. The other school is focused more on the pretesting stage of the optimization process. In this second approach, the optimization company will invest a considerable amount of time understanding the audience and then creating a targeted message that appeals to that particular audience. Only then would it be willing to deploy testing mechanisms to increase conversion rates.

Next we need to understand the term BOUNCE RATE

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Bounce rate (sometimes confused with exit rate is an Internet marketing term used in web traffic analysis. It represents the percentage of visitors who enter the site and "bounce" (leave the site) rather than continue viewing other pages within the same site. Bounce rate is a measure of the effectiveness of a website in encouraging visitors to continue with their visit. It is expressed as a percentage and represents the proportion of visits that end on the first page of the website that the visitor sees

Search engines also use this, but they have a timed version where a user is allocated a time to click on a call to action statement within the page, and if this time exceeds the predetermined time then a bounce is recorded. This time factor is set by the search engines, and us as site owners and marketing professionals have zero input to determine this time factor.  We also have no clue as to what this time factor is. 

From my research it appears that partial bounce rates do exist (at least for Google)  and that the time is not set in stone, and may vary according to the complexity of the search term as well as the polarity of the search term.

Next we  need to understand the term CTA or Call to action,

 In terms of online marketing a CALL TO ACTION is a reference to a link within the content which the marketing team has placed strategically to entice the end user (your target market) to click on so that they may proceed to the next stage of the conversion funnel.

Using the above definition, we must assume that every navigational link on the page is also a CTA. These navigational links may not necessarily be part of the sales  or conversion funnel, but they are never the less important CTA's which allow your end user (your target audience) to move between pages and gather the information that they are looking for.

Next issue to confront is what is a #SERP

A SERP is basically the result that a search engine returns when an end user types a query into the search box and either clicks on search or presses the return key.  This result is mostly pre-calculated by a search engine after your pages are indexed, using a host of different criteria, such as  but not limited to:

• page rank, 
• domain rank, 
• your key words in page,
•  your inbound marketing, 
• your social media marketing, 
• your content marketing,
•  your SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
• The semantics relating to your in-page content
• All your other SEO efforts, both #IPSEO (Inpage Search Engine Optimisation) and #OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation)

Now that we have an understanding of the terminology used here, lets get to grips with  the value of Conversion Optimisation in terms of the bounce rate, and as such your SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)  If an end user does not stay on a page long enough (in terms of the search engines perspective) to gain any value from their visit to the page then this will have a negative impact on the bounce rate from the Search engines perspective.  One way to eliminate this negative perspective from a search engine is to have the end user click on any CTA within the page.  The search engine does not care of your perceived value of this click in terms of your sales funnel  or conversion funnel, and NO CLICK = bad news for bounce rates

Bounce rates are currently (October 2014) one of the primary signals being used by many search engines including Google as SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) to determine their SERP's

It thus follows that CO or Conversion Optimisation is a key element in your SEO strategy,  and if not done properly, the damage to your online marketing can and will be considerable.  What most SEO practitioners forget to tell you is that any bad bonce rates have a culminate impact on your domain rank, your page rank, your site's trust factor issues and some other ares that are critical to getting top notch SERP's

My advice to you is thus that you should monitor all your bounce rate issues, and ensure that any pages with a high bounce rate be evaluated in terms of your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and CO (Conversion Optimisation) policies and that you rectify these as soon as you can




Sources of research for this article

THIS LIST IS NOT EXHAUSTIVE  AND EXCLUDES ALL INTERNAL SOURCE AT INFO4U

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_Rate_Optimization
2_ http://www.meteorsite.com/search-engine-optimization-seo
3) http://www.meteorsite.com/conversion-optimization
4) http://www.meteorsite.com/blog`
5)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounce_rate
6) http://www.web1marketing.com/glossary.php?term=bounce+rate
7) http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/B/bounce_rate.html
8) https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1009409?hl=en
9) http://www.epower.com/google-analytics-glossary.php


J also evaluated many Google plus posts and conversations  mainly with these profiles but also many others  +fufism +David Amerland +Eric Enge +Joshua Berg +Jaana Nyström +Plus Your Business! +John Dietrich  +SEO  +SEO on Google+ - Search Engine Optimization  +ReelSEO +Mark Robertson +Jeff Huber  +Ammon Johns +Rand Fishkin 

What link building tactics do you use?

Is link building  dead?

in short link building is not dead, and will not die any time soon!

That being said we do need to understand the many issues that surround link building, and the implications of your personal link building strategies.  In the past when things in search first started out links were the primary SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicator) and links were gamed to the extent that Google and other search engines started showing very distorted and poor SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)

see previous post discussing the value of a link in 2014

The search engines thus introduced algorithms that started to look for patterns that these so called BLACK HAT search engine optimisation practitioners were using, and started penalizing those who they thought were cheating or gaming the system.  Google now has a number of NAMED ALGORITHMS , as well as many un-named algorithms,  that look into these matters and related matters where Search Engine Optimisation Technical staff and online marketing practitioners SPAM the search engines in a variety of different ways using many different techniques.

Some of these named algorithms include :

>>  PANDA

>>  PENGUIN

>>  HUMMING BIRD

>>  PIGEON

These algorithms help to improve the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) and some are punitive, while others add value to the work of those who apply recommended tactics that are rather technical and difficult to implement, such as Google's author and publisher programs that are connected to Google plus.

This short video below will help you understand why I say that link building will not die any time soon, but link building has changed and it is now necessary to selectively screen out bad links and focus exclusively on high quality links from reputable sources when ever possible.  The question asked was does Google have a version of search where back links are excluded.  listen to what  +Matt Cutts had to say then evaluate your own situation.

The question thus becomes  What is link building and why is it important?

In short links, some times called HYPERLINKS are the tools that you use to allow  the end user, or your audience to move from one place on the internet to another, and are the only tool that search engines have of locating your online content.  If there are no links pointing to your page, then a search engine has no means of locating your page, and it will thus never be found in search.  In the past the more inbound links a page had the better it did in search results.

Link building is the process that you follow to ensure that your web pages or blog posts acquire in bound links, be they internally from   pages within your own web site /  blog or externally from some other online resource.

Today, due to the amount of SPAM generated by so called BLACK HAT SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION this is no longer true, and Google as well as all other search engines now use the quality of links more than the quantity of links.  Then  within Google search there is the issue of PANDA and PENGUIN  which both have negative or punitive tools that tackle SPAM and bad quality web pages

It is thus important that you understand the  need to have a link building policy in place, and that this link building policy needs to be well documented and shared with every person who has anything to do with your total marketing plan.  Bad links can come from a number of sources, and those who do not know about these issues can very inadvertently make use of a link building farm or some other bad tactic, thinking that they are helping your marketing efforts.   New employees or  junior marketers who have not been exposed to the impacts of bad links may not understand what a link farm is, and believe they are being helpful in getting traffic to your pages.

DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF BAD LINKS TO SINK YOUR ONLINE MARKETING EFFORTS,  BE CAREFUL WHEN DEVELOPING YOUR LINK BUILDING POLICY

The social media is currently a very big source of links to your online content, and as such you do need to have a social media policy in place to deal with these issues. Once again Your social media policy needs to be well documented and shared with everybody who has anything to do with your marketing, be it online or not.  You need to remember that all your offline marketing has a very big impact on your online marketing in many ways, especially when it comes to issues around search. You will need to include your link building policy within your social media marketing policy,as they are very interconnected.

Off line marketing has strange impacts on your intended target audience, and this is where you should use terminology and language that is specific to your business interests.  Your target audience will be induced to use the words and language in your off line marketing to search online to discover more about your company, your products or your services, and you need to be aware of this in your online marketing, especially in your social media marketing, as this is where you will have direct one on one conversations with your target audience as well as many others who may or may not have a direct interest in your product, service or business proposition.

The people who you have conversations with online within the social media space, may or may not decide to place links within their posts to your web pages or blogs, and as such you need to influence these OUT SIDERS in a positive manner so that any links that they may place within their social media posts are positive and  relevant to pages within your web site or blog.

These issues are also confounded and confused when marketers say that you should not be doing any link building at all.  Link building as a term is also a very difficult term to come to grips with in the current scenario where past link building practices have destroyed web sites through their spam attacks and the use of link farms.  Link building has definitely changed a great deal over the last few years, and is now a very delicate art that is not properly understood.  On the one hand an online resource must have inbound links, these links need to be of high quality and carry some authority to have any success in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) and on the other hand excessive links as well as links of low quality can cause a web site or blog some serious damage within the SERP's.

The guys at +Moz recently published an article called The beginners guide to link building   which I have found very helpful, and shared with my audience in other places.  The G+ post embedded below is actually what inspired this post, as I commented there  and had an interesting conversation with both  +Mike Gracia and +William Rock   Take some time and read the comments as I believe they will help you to understand the great difficulties that we as online marketers have in dealing with the changes in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) issues as well as how different people interpret the terminology within the  search engine optimisation world.  Please remember that these are sensitive issues, and need great care, so ask for second and third opinions, then apply your own mind and be aware of those who are willing to game the system.
  

THERE IS LOTS OF BAD ADVICE OUT THERE 

The value of LOCAL SEO from a FUFISM perspective

author : Frank Gainsford

To understand the issues connected to LOCAL SEO we need to put a few things into perspective. 

 

What is SEO is the first thing, and believe you me, this is a very big issue as many people have the wrong impression of SEO.  Quotes  from our pages discussing SEO follow to help you understand the issue.

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation should be defined as the collective effort of your entire marketing team in their efforts to ensure that your online information is found by your intended target market when they search for your information, products or services online.

 

a different explanation of what is SEO

SEO or Search engine optimisation is the collective online effort of your entire marketing team to ensure  that your pages are indexed in search engines in a manner that ensures that you get qualified visitors who are looking for your products, services or related information. 

So SEO  is thus not just the sneaky coded stuff that the technical guys add to your page, but includes, though is not limited to 

• In page SEO through a variety of coding techniques within the HTML.as well as  context applicable content  that is target market orientated and well written by a good copy writer.
• SMO (Social Media Optimisation) where the social signals and related links to your online information is worked on to maximize the SEOVI that are associated with social media
• SEM (Search Engine Marketing) where search engine results pages or SERP's are the primary concern, and your online content is focused for search engines and not the end users of your content
• SMM (Social Media Marketing) similar to SMO but focused on your social networks and not their social interactions with your content.
• Content marketing where the content appreciation by your  target market is the focal area and not the search engines or social media platforms.
• Link building and related tactics to generate inbound links

Managers need to understand that SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a very big issue and it needs to be integrated into the company marketing policy and managed from the top in a co-ordinated and integrated fashion. SEO is no longer the stand alone department that it used to be, but should now be an integral part of any online  marketing strategy.
 
There have been many statements saying that SEO is dead, but these are just smoke screens to get you to follow some new approach to SEO in  disguised and minimized format.

The fact that SEO is not dead, but rather very active and growing is discussed on the 4u brand blog here

These tactics and many others are discussed in our blog page discussing SEO 

So what is GEO LOCATION,   #geolocation and #geolocationmarketing 

 

First thing we need to establish about local SEO is that it is GEO based and thus has a local Geographically  exclusive targeted audience. GEO based means that it is based on Geographical co-ordinates which are based on latitude and longitude readings,  as in map reading, with a two figure reading reflecting the exact geographical location of your brick and mortar shop, office, restaurant or business premisses by latitude and longitude

So for local SEO to be implemented the first steps are to establish some means for Google and other search engines to know the GEO Based information about your Brick and mortar location or physical location as in street address. This is best done by having a Google Local page where your business is indicated by a pin, or other marker, that you place on the map yourself, and backed up by doing similar on BING and Yahoo's platforms, as well as any other that you deem necessary.

You also need to ensure that you are consistent with your NAP info... (Name Address Phone  = NAP) across all platforms and in all online marketing strategies. This is vitally important especially since Google Humming Bird has flown into the picture where the semantics of all your online efforts are examined and utalised to determine your semantic mapping issues and related SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators)

Google now places great emphasis on your GEO LOCATION for the context of an end users search, and if searching for a restaurant will return the closest listed restaurants in the SERP's, using your geo location, because of the semantic associations of your content to the context of the search.  see this INFOGRAPHIC for a better understanding

Geo Location Based Marketing ( #geolocationmarketing ) is thus marketing that takes your latitude and longitude into account, and focuses primarily on local SEO marketing tactics.  This is also very useful when people search for things near known landmarks and such as schools, hospitals, hotels and tourism based attractions which might be near your business.  an example for a search of this nature this might be "closest restaurant to sunrise point" or "nearest petrol station to M 25 East and M 22 North  intersection"

Next issue to consider is what all is taken into consideration when a user performs an online search.

 

With Google's semantic search, as associated with the Google Humming Bird Algorithm  your current GEO LOCATION as determined by a variety of factors is one of the prime SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) that are used.   If you are using a mobile device when you perform a search then Google looks at  a variety of additional issues, such as are you  walling  in a shopping mall or traveling between locations, and if so in which direction, and what mode of transport you are using. This is done through following your trail by means of  triangulation stats as supplied by your cell phone service provider or WiFi service provider, which Google can overlay on bus routes, train routes and major highways.

The time of day, and an end users previous search patterns are also included in this assessment of the semantic context of any  search query.

It is thus important that you have taken the time to consider the many issues connected to local search, and done the necessary research about you location and surrounding areas to be able to  make use of local vocabulary, local land marks and local businesses so that you may include these in your online content in ways that will make meaningful contributions to your local SEO efforts, which will then be better matched to a local search query for your business, organisation or the products and services that you offer.

 Local landmarks of any significance should be mentioned and any connections that these may have to your business should be exploited in your copy, in such a manner that search engines will be able to connect these to your business in the correct context. An example here would be if your business is within the hospitality arena you would discuss any historical landmarks from a tourism perspective, and how your business caters for visitors to the area, as well as how far you are from the specific land mark. Things like parking and access to your business are also of extreme importance here. If you business is in a shopping mall, then you should discuss the mall as a general attraction and mention other shops as well as related businesses within the mall by name within your content in ways that a search engine would be able to connect these businesses to your physical location as well. The new semantic search criteria are at stake here, and the connection between your business and the rest of the businesses within the mall as being part of a shopping complex is the issue that you need to have enforced through your content and related social media marketing strategies.

During your local SEO efforts you should try to mention your street name, your suburb name, your district name, your local municipality name, your post code (ZIP CODE), your phone number and area dialing codes, the closest railway station, local bus terminal names and any other local names that are used by your intended target market in their day to day conversations that may refer to your area or your specific location.

Local SEO is an awful lot easier in small towns than it is in the city, as there are many fewer competing businesses for the same street name, the same suburb name, the same town name and similar names, but this dies not mean that those in small towns should skimp here, but rather that they will do better if all the issues are addressed as completely as possible.

Local SEO favors small business over big brands, and is the small guys window to display their stuff near the top of the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) purely because big brands do not have a local presence of any significance.  This means that small business has an added advantage if they make use of the LOCAL issue in a manner that Google can interpret and attach local contextual meaning to their content.

Now from reading the above you will realise the true power of the local search issue when you take into consideration that Google uses the exact GPS (Global Positioning System) location of the searcher, and has means of determining the physical distance in meters between the searcher and your brick and mortar location which you have so meticulously crafted and entered into all those sneaky locations on Google Local and other online forums.

Local SEO is thus a very powerful sub set of your total SEO package that you should not ignore,  but rather enhance through a FUFISM based approach to your online marketing strategy.

 

Once again for those who do not know what #FUFISM is 

Quote from our page discussing #hashtagmarketing 

FUFISM is a marketing philosophy where the social media forms the core  functional element of the communication factors involved in online marketing and is used to integrate all the different marketing strategies into one coherent and integrated project where each marketing campaign may be worked on in isolation, but remains connected to the whole through its links to the social media as well as the publisher and the author or authors of the various online components of each campaign

Pages used for research during this post... in no particular order.  Each of these links is a post in its own rights and will add value to your understanding of LOCAL SEO.

https://www.google.com/local
http://www.semrush.com/blog/tips/getting-started-local-seo/
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/local-listings/
http://www.localseoguide.com/
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2293053/Google-Places-for-Business-vs.-Google-Local
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2284954/Getting-Started-With-Google-Places-for-Business
http://localseo.org/
http://www.geolocalseo.com/
http://www.martinshervington.com/what-is-google-local-and-how-to-set-up-a-page/
http://4ubrand.blogspot.com

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