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

Google Collections as an SEO tool

Online marketing is a very complicated affair and has many separate components that need to work together as a team for any degree of success. We have those who require information on one side, those who are offering information on the other and search engines in the middle,  connecting those who are looking for information with those who are displaying information (marketing).

Those who are looking (searchers) are our intended target market audience, and they create *SEARCH QUERIES*

Those who are displaying (marketing / advertising),   use *KEYWORDS* as their primary tool to influence search engines.

The search engines use many different tactics and a host of algorithms to mathematically calculate which online content is the best possible match  for each search query, and display their findings in a SERP or Search Engine Results Page for the person searching to select the page that best matches his / her intentions from the list of pages displayed in the SERP

Before Google hummingbird stepped into the picture all search engines used to rely on keywords and inbound links as the two primary SEOVI or Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators The Google Hummingbird algorithm turned search upside down and inside out, as keywords and links were suddenly demoted to being an awful lot less relevant than they were, with a host of new SEOVI or Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators that suddenly came into existence within the social media space. These new Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators became more important than keywords or inbound links due to their vast numbers of different individual search engine optimisation value indicators that were not directly within the online content, but added value in some way or another to the Search engine optimisation Value Indicators associated with the  online content in question.

Here we are talking about many things and the list here is only a very small subset of  the vast number of Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators  (SEOVI's) that are considered and factored into the host of  SEA's (Search Engine Algorithms) that perform a large number of  different operations, storing many intermediate variables for each individual piece of online content, within their *LARGE DATA SETS* that are used by subsequent SEA's and finally by the SEA that actually assembles the SERP

• author values
• publisher values
• social re-actions
• page rank of social posts
• out bound link values within social media posts
• semantic foot prints of authors and publishers
• Semantic footprints of those who interact with the posts in question 
• content matching as in keywords and associated semantic linkages between post and online content in question
• network positions and nodes that connect the different digital identities to each other through SEMANTIC linkages
• context matching between social media posts and online content in question
• intent of social media post, and the ability to connect that intent to the page in question
• the actual intent of the search query
• is the searcher logged into Google or not
• any previous searches made from the same device
• any previous searches made by the individual searcher if logged in
•  context of  online resource housing the content in question.

The above list is a very small subset of all the issues at stake, and the new *GOOGLE COLLECTIONS* gives us as marketers a new tool to add an extra set of SEOVI,  that have a very strong *SEMANTIC INFLUENCE*  and will add a very large *#STFSEOVI  (Semantic Trust Factor Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators)*  contingent to each identified digital entity that is directly referenced within  any out bound link in any one of the posts contained within any individual *GOOGLE COLLECTION* created by and *INDIVIDUAL DIGITAL ENTITY* be that digital entity a person, a Google plus business page, or any other Google plus profile that has the ability to make use of Google Collections.

Those who understand the *IMPACTS OF GOOGLE HUMMINGBIRD* and have taken the time to implement authorship and publisher issues within their online content through the recommended HTML methods of *REL = AUTHOR* as well as *REL = PUBLISHER* will score immensely from this new Google plus option of *GOOGLE COLLECTIONS*

Making use of Google  Collections in a well managed and properly structured #FUFISM based marketing strategy,  will improve the STFSEOVI or Semantic Trust Factor Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators of every single digital entity referenced within each and every out bound link within  any post within each specific Google Plus Collection.

These new SEOVI or Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators as associated with Google collections will not make or break your online  marketing  efforts, but are just one new piece to the semantic puzzle that constitutes your online marketing.  It is thus of extreme importance that you manage your Google Collections properly and ensure that *each post within your specific Google Collection*  is on topic and relevant to the collection as a whole.  *OFF TOPIC POSTS* will dilute the power of your Google Collection to influence your SERP's .

 a collection of FUFISM related infographics       a collection of SEO related infographics

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

What impact does SEO have on your conversion issues

During the writing of my book on #FUFISM  the question of the impact of SEO on conversion and marketing funnels and how your two separate SEO teams need to collaborate and co-ordinate their efforts in a manner that best impacts on your SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)  came up in a few different areas, so needs to be addressed.

I would like to share this preliminary quote from the book with you and solicit some conversation around these issues so that I may have a deeper understanding of how technical I need to make this small section, which will be about three, perhaps four pages in the book.

FUFISM is a marketing philosophy where the social media is the primary driver of your link building campaign and plays a major role in your SEO policy and all marketing strategies, both online and off line.   to read more about FUFISM read here

Start Quote

One of the biggest issues within the SEO INDUSTRY is for the copy writer and associated visual content creators to understand which portion of the sales funnel or conversion funnel that they are working on, when they work on the content of any specific page.

Each visual content creator as well as the copy write, r and every member of your IPSEO (In Page Search Engine Optimisation) TEAM,  as well as all others who work on your In Page Search Engine Optimisation issues,  need to receive their own individual marketing brief.

You also need to ensure that these individual efforts and related issues,  are  properly documented,  showing purpose, aims and objectives, so that those who will be doing your OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimisation can properly understand the specific target market and primary CTA or call to action which the public relations team and associated marketing management  have laid out, and documented in their marketing action plan., which they expect the OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation), implementation team to follow through with.

If these contributors to either your IPSEO (In Page Search Engine Optimisation) or OPSEO  (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation) for your online content get things wrong you can end up in real trouble real soon as far as your SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages) are concerned. The issue is that these have very significant impacts on your bounce rate when a page is opened from the SERP’s or Search Engine Results Page, then closed or not viewed. 

Viewers (your target audience) will quickly close the page in question or go back to the SERP’s, if what they see is not what they are looking for. This action by your intended target audience will result in the search engine giving the page in question a poor bounce rate and associated trust factor signals.  This will soon start to have an impact  on the SERP’s for this particular page, and it will slowly drop out of the SERP’s as soon as the so called QPFS or Query page freshenes score,  starts to wane with age. Remember that a fresh page always has a big boost in the SERP’s due to this QPFS which is a significant SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicator) that looses value over time on a logarithmic scale.  Many SEO practitioners do not take this into account and very few ever tell this to their client base.

This slow drop in the SERP’s is not serious at first, but as the associated trust factors start to filter through into your page’s semantic foot print over a week or so, this suddenly starts to impact on a wide variety of other issues, such as page rank, site rank as well as many different author and publisher  related SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) that are connected to trust factor issues, which makes this a very serious site wide issue.

If your web site has other such pages where the bounce rate is unduly high, these issues become ever more important to understand and fix. We will not discuss actual conversion processes or sales funnel techniques here, but this section is just to advise you that these things need to be taken into consideration, and as your specific target market for your SEO varies according the the product, service,  information, or specific online content that you want your intended target market to be exposed to, and what the primary call to action statement within that comment is, needs to be evaluated very closely when doing SEO for any specific online content..

It thus follows that knowing about specific issues associated with conversion rates and sales funnels need to be understood by your marketing team, and also documented in the over all marketing action plan.  This is essential so that one has the tools and the necessary documentation to fix any errors that may creep in and have a negative impact on your total SEO STRATEGY.

Your Social Media marketing team who are the primary OPSEO (Off Page Search Engine Optimisation) drivers need to use the documentation associated with target research and associated point within your marketing / sales funnel to do their job right, as this will give them a deeper understanding of the copy and associated links that they will insert into their social media posts. Here the sequence of events leading up to that specific point in the conversion process must be clearly understood, so as to ensure the highest possible conversion rate for that page in terms of clicks on page so as to have excellent bounce rates.

It must also be noted that pages with higher conversion rates tend to climb higher in the SERP's as the trust factor signals associated with the page in question grow to a favorable bounce rate.

End quote

Leaving your comment here or in a social media post using the hash-tag #FUFISM will be truly appreciated. I use the the mention social media marketing tool to keep track of these issues, and should respond within 24 to 48 hours

Does paid advertising have any SEO Value?

The SEO  benefits of paid advertising are huge! 

 

Paid advertising is not usually associated with SEO, and this is a very big mistake, especially since the introduction of the Google Humming Bird Algorithm where SEMANTIC FOOTPRINTS and TRUST FACTORS now form the core of the primary SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) which need to be considered when doing any form of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

To understand these issues better, we need to come to grips with what is meant by SEO and there are so many different versions of this story, so to ensure the we stay on the same page and that  YOU clearly understand my point of view I will once again quote my definition of SEO.

In my opinion SEO or Search Engine Optimisation has three distinct objectives

1) to ensure that search engines index your online content.

2) to ensure that your online content appears within the SERP's  when people are searching for your products, services and related company / organization information.

3) to ensure that your intended target market audience select the link to your  on line content, then follow through by performing at least one CTA (Call To Action)  within the page that they selected from the SERP;s

If any one of these fails your SEO has failed.   Now that we understand the purpose, aims and objectives of any good SEO strategy lets see how PAID ADVERTISING IMPACTS ON THESE ISSUES

When a spider takes its data from the page in question the information about the advert in question is also included within the page as part of the #IPSEO or In Page Search Engine Optimisation.  So you as the owner of the page need to negotiate with the advertiser and ensure that the advert is suitable and relevant to your intended target market audience.  This is basically saying that you are in control of the quality of the advert and must thus ensure that the advert meets your qualifications,  other wise do not display the advert within your page.

When you place paid advertising within your page, from display networks like Google adsense and many others you specify your target audience, and have access to many filters and tools that would ensure that your adverting is in some way related to your target audience.  If you have done your #IPSEO or In Page Search Engine Optimisation right, and documented this clearly within the target market research phase then setting these related filters within your adsense campaigns will be relatively easy. If you make it easy for the search engines to identify your desired target audience, then the ad display network will also be able to calculate and predict your intended target audience, and thus have much better quality adds.

It is our considered opinion that this improved quality of the in-page advertising filters through to the quality of your page and impacts on many other #SEOVI (Search engine Optimisation Value Indicators) from page rank and domain rank through author, publisher and many other SEOVI specifically your semantic foot print and the associated trust factors.  These Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators (SEOVI) are the variables that Google as well as other search engines use within their very complicated multi stage algorithms that match a search query to a SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

+Rand Fishkin  of +Moz posted this  #whiteboardfriday  where he talks about the issues associated with paid advertising and explains many of the related issues.

A work in progress needs a mind map

Create your own mind maps at MindMeister

FUFISM EXPLAINED

#FUFISM   or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media is a marketing philosophy where the social media is used as the primary communication tool  to bind all your marketing both online and offline into one single well managed and properly  integrated marketing effort.

This is no easy task  and requires many different people working in very diverse fields  to co-operate and work together as a team, sharing  a vast amount of data, in a variety of formats, so that those in each separate discipline can understand, interpret,  then make good use of the data supplied by the other disciplines in a manner that improves the many different  #SEOVI  (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) associated with their personal efforts, and allow for these SEOVI to be carried forward to other areas where a search engine may use these variables,  to determine the value of other connected and interrelated SEOVI.

It should be noted here, and remembered further that Google professes to use in excess of 250 different SEOVI when determining their SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages) and that each of these many different SEOVI adds some value to your online work in the eyes of a search engine, and every tiny piece of value counts when you are dealing with highly  competitive search terms

Management issues associated with a FUFISM based marketing Strategy

A FUFISM based marketing strategy is no easy task and it requires a great deal of management of many diverse factors as well as a large team of professionals from a  variety of very different backgrounds. These professionals will all need to be re-educated as to the value of SEO and where SEO fits into the current online marketing world.

Many things changed when the Google Hummingbird algorithm was introduced in September / October 2013 and most marketing professionals have not yet been informed of the impact of these changes on the online search industry with most having no clue or very little knowledge of SEMANTIC SEARCH

This lack of knowledge about SEMANTIC search and the Google Hummingbird algorithm is a very big issue and I have personally found a great deal of resistance to the cooperative working environment where large volumes of  information that was previously held in separate *SILOS* by different company departments, now needs to be shared across all company departments in an open and transparent manner.

In the past most departments did their own research and the web site design team was often left out in the cold, doing their own  research into a number of different fields that was duplicated by

• the blogging team
• social media team
• print media team
• radio marketing team
• public relations management team
• product development team

When implementing a FUFISM based marketing Strategy,  the SEO team needs to be involved in all marketing strategies as the most important part of any SEO strategy is the large volume of #OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimisation that takes place through many different channels where the social media is the one that has the highest levels of influence on your SERP's through the link building and associated semantic foot prints as well as the semantic linkages with their associated trust factors

IPSEO - Topic targeteting for SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is divided into two major sections the first is #IPSEO or In Page Search Engine Optimisation and the second is #OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimisation.  These two sections are both important, with Off Page Search Engine Optimisation caring more weight than In page Search Engine Optimisation, how ever the In page stuff needs to be done first, and needs to be done correctly and with intent on ensuring that the correct set of key words and related information flow patterns around these selected key words is actually in-place, to suit the purpose, aims and objectives of the page in question.

Key word targeting is not an easy task, as there are so many surrounding issues that need to be considered, and the subject matter needs to be clearly understood along with where in the sales / marketing funnel the page in question is considered to be.  Here questions  around the following issues, amongst many others,   need to be addressed.  You will know what these other issues are once you take the time to document and understand the purpose, aims and objectives of the page in question.

• What is the purpose, aims and objectives of the page in question
• is this a general information page
• is this page near the top of the marketing / sales funnel
• is this page near the bottom end of the sales / marketing funnel
• how many in page CTA's (Call to action) are important for the sales / marketing funnel's next stage
• is this page connected to a Google community (or other social media community) information drive
• what is the theme of the page in question, and where does it sit in the total marketing strategy
• issues that come up during key word research and target market matching
• copy writing  issues connected to target market and keyword matching 
• Who are your target audience, and why is this group considered to be your target audience.
• is this page part of your network building strategy
• is this page part of your link building strategy, and if so how does this fit in with other in-page issues

 Key word targeting is subservient to the issues around topic targeting, which is determined by the purpose, aims and objectives of the page in question along with the marketing / sales funnel stage and related relationship building activities.  When a page has a clearly defined topic then key word selection is an awful lot easier, and copy writing will also be simpler.

Defining a topic for your page is not as easy as one would think, and there are many different issues that come to play, with copy-writing, and the core subject matter as well as the intentions of the page being a very big parts of the long term planning of every page in your site or blog.  Copy writing for a specific topic is an awful lot easier than writing for a whole bunch of different topics that have a similar focus area.

Understanding the intentions of the page in question will help in defining the topic for the page, and that will then define the criteria to be used for your key word selection process.  Topic targeting is not very well understood, as most people within the SEO industry only talk of keyword targeting, but do not inform people of the methods involved in determining the criteria that one has put in place, or *should have put in place* to manage your keyword selection process.  Selecting an appropriate topic that defines the intentions of the page in question is very helpful, and this should be considered when defining the tile of the page within the title tag in the head section.  The title tag in your head section should have a very clear and obvious connection to the topic of the page, as well as the description and key words listed in the meta tags of your page.

Many will tell you that the key words as well as titles and descriptions of your page are not needed in the meta tags of your page. Ignore these people, and use these very powerful #SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) which Google Humming bird uses within their semantic foot print and trust factor evaluations of your web site.  The META TAGS in the head section carry an awful lot more weight than most SEO practitioners will tell you, but many now ignore these powerful SEOVI because they have heard rumors that these tags are dead.

These very powerful meta tags that reside in the *HEAD SECTION* of your HTML 5 CODE should not be sneezed at, and you should be very weary and not easily trust those who tell you that these high level SEOVI are worthless.  They are used in many new places since the Google Humming Bird Algorithm has been introduced.  These SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) that are hidden within the *HEAD SECTION* of your web site or blog are an awful lot more powerful than you think, and they are directly connected to the in-page trust issues, so use them wisely and do not spam or misuse these great opportunities to get deeper penetration within the SERP's (Search Engine Optimisation Results pages)

Using the page title, page description or key words lists within the head section of your web site or blog to spam the search engines, or attempting to mislead the search engines through inappropriate use of these HTML 5 META TAGS will backfire and cause your page, as well as your domain some considerable harm.

Ensuring that the META TAGS within the HEAD SECTION of your web site reflect the*TOPIC OF YOUR PAGE* is essential for good SERP's and should be done as part of your basic SEO practices that you implement for your site.

Once again taking a #FUFISM based marketing view of things is very helpful, as this will give you the tools and thinking patterns needed to be able to select relevant topics, as well as page titles, page descriptions and related key words to be used in your copy writing. These issues associated with topic selection for your pages are not easy and require quite a bit of input from others in your team.  The topic of your page does need to be brainstormed by your marketing team, after everybody has read the marketing brief which should contain the intentions, purpose aims and objectives of the page in question.


This post has been written around a post by +Cyrus Shepard  of +Moz  Visiting this page will help you expand the ideas generated in this post.


http://moz.com/blog/on-page-topic-seo?utm_source=google_plus&utm_medium=social&utm_content=on_page_topic_targeting&utm_campaign=blog_post

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.