What is the value of social signals?

The value of social signals in terms of SEO (search Engine Optimisation) is a growing concern amongst many webmasters and web site owners. The number of social media websites has grown exponential over the last year or 2 and is still growing rapidly.

Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest G+ and Linked in all add value to your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) efforts. Using all these platforms is hard work that is extremely time consuming, but is really worth the effort.

These social media efforts are all long term efforts that should not be rushed, the choice of usernames is a big issue, and when ever possible should be brand names and names associated with your web site. These social media platforms should not be seen as competition for your web site, but looked upon as complementary efforts that send visitors to your online call to action pages.

This article called "your guide to social media signals for SEO" is a must read for any web site owner / webmaster / SEO specialist

The value of social media signals in terms of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is not truly understood, and is growing rapidly as more and more companies are using the social media to promote their brands, products and services.

How we as SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) professionals treat these social signals amongst our selves will be evaluated by the SE (search Engine) operators, and we will  need to be aware of their reactions to our efforts. The SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) crews and the Search Engine engineers need to have a common platform, but this is just wishfull thinking, as there are far too many cheats and BH (Black Hat) SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) crew members.

When the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) professionals start behaving rationally and work within the system without trying to gain unfair advantage through some form of skulduggery or trickery then we may be able to truly understand the value of  social media and the value that social media actually adds to our efforts.

The current trend to buy social signals from vendors to push the effects of the SEO value of these social signals through to higher SERP's (Search Engine Results positions) should be avoided as Search Engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, ask and many others will soon be writing changes to their algorithms to punish these cheats and BH ( Black Hat) vendors and all their clients in ways that will surprise many and catch many others unawares when their pages just simply drop out of the organic listings.

So we as SEO professionals need to harness the value of social signals as organically as is possible, or face the prospect of being dropped from the organic listings of all search engines. The SEO value of good social signals should not be under estimated, as it is a growing force that needs to be harnessed and nurtured to ensure it's impact is not short lived or negative to the SERP's (Search Engine Results Positions) of our collective client bases.

Facebook Adds and SEO

Facebook Advertising is the new buzz word in social media circles and needs some serious attention from the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) crew, but first we need to determine the value of your Facebook marketing and placing adds within Facebook for your situation.

Read the whole post first then  read the 2 links at the bottom of this post to better evaluate what is written here

This evaluational is a complex task  that can only be done by your own marketing team, because of the list below...

• they know what they have done, and others can ask about what is missing, and why it is missing after looking at the complied list of what has been done and what has been left out - 
• others=
• SEO(Search Engine Optimisation) team
• Web publishing team
• Social media team
• they know where they have placed adds, others can ask why the specified location and not else where
• they know what SEO related tasks have been done to promote those adds they have placed, and your SEO team can discuss what is missing, then add to their own independent SEO efforts accordingly
• They know your target audience and their preferred platform of use, as well as how to get a call to action functional within that platform.
•  They have selected the action call, associated images, key words and key word phrases accordingly
• They have the tools to determine 
• the ROI (Return On Investment),  
• the popularity of your Facebook adds
• actions taken by viewers and subsequent results
• impact on brand retention and brand recognition

Marketing, web publishing, SEO  and Social media need to be integrated for any one of them to be successful.

If there is or is not  a related web site associated with the Facebook marketing efforts is the next critical question, with additional questions being how many links from within the related Facebook marketing pages to this web site are there and what key words and keyword phrases were used in these related Facebook

• adds 
• posts
• fan pages
• apps 

Next you need to evaluate your web site, blogs, and other marketing avenues using the same or similar tactics and tools. Then you have a fair means of evaluating  the face book add and its value to your complete marketing strategy, which should include but not be limited to

• inputs from your marketing team
• inputs from your social media team
• inputs from your online publishing team (web master and crew)
• inputs from the SEO team - separate from online publishing
• inputs from production staff
• inputs from management and PR teams
• inputs from your sales team showing sales graphs and related statistics so that these can be interpreted  correctly taking Social media signals and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) efforts into account and linking these to peaks and troughs in sales. Often sales and sales data are not part of this picture, due to the lack of integration because of marketing staffs selfish attitudes

Remember that Facebook does not allow the editing of their HTML nor insertion of  any META DATA into  their pages, so  only extreme basic SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is performed on your Facebook pages, including your Facebook Adds. Unfortunately your marketing staff do not consider SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)  and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) as part of company marketing strategy for some obscure reason.

Facebook adds create great value within Facebook for your :

• likes
• friends
• shares

These social signals (likes, shares and friends)  are interpreted by most popular search engines today  and add value to the SEO JUICE  factor which is included in the SE (Search Engine)  SEA's (Search Engine Algorithms) and passed on to the linked pages from the specified profiles / fans pages

The greater the SEO JUICE factor of a page the better a linked to page scores within SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages / listings) and thus the closer to the top of the SERP's. Unfortunately Facebook Adds do not link directly to a website out side of the face book domain, so you need to ensure that the landing page of your advert within the Facebook domain contains at least one link, and preferably more to your sales pages within a domain that you control and can optimise for the search engines using the carried SEO JUICE to your best advantage.

The Facebook adds landing page needs great care when the basic SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is done as this SEO is extremely limited to the on page selection of keywords and  key word phrases as well as the in-page copy and any inbound links that you have generated from other domains to the Facebook landing page (The page your Facebook add refers to)

Facebook has their own internal linking structure and tools, which you need to understand and use as well by placing posts and fan pages within Facebook with carefully planned links, linking to the URL of your Facebook add. This very basic SMSEO ( Social Media Search Engine Optimisation) practice improves the value of the add within the Facebook SEA (Search Engine Algorithm)  and subsequently improves the quantity and quality of the SEO JUICE carried over to your pages from the Facebook add.

What this means is that you must use the Facebook adds to funnel your prospects from Facebook to your sales pages in your own domain, and use this strategy as part of your overall SEO strategy to improve your SERP's (Search Engine Results Page Listings) within Search engines to catch all searchers looking for your product / service / information thus improving your overall marketing and ROI (Return On Investment) of your total marketing budget.

face book sponsored results
integrate Social Media and SEO


REMEMBER THAT ALL YOUR MARKETING EFFORTS NEED TO BE CO-ORDINATED AND INTEGRATED HOLISTICALLY

SEO (SEARCH ENGINE |OPTIMISATION , SOCIAL MEDIA, BLOGS AND FORUMS ALL FORM PART OF MARKETING AND NEED TO BE INTEGRATED INTO THE COMPANY MARKETING STRATEGY CAREFULLY, EXCLUDING ONE OR GIVING ONE MORE VALUE THAN THE OTHERS IS VERY SHORT SITED.

Reasons for social media integration!

I have been a bit busy with the issues around the IMPLEMENTATION OF THE IWPA (ISIMANGALISO WETLAND PARK AUTHORITY) IMP (INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT PLAN) AND RELATED PPP (PUBLIC PARTICIPATION PROCESS / PROCEDURE)

This issue is very problematic and full of political interference from many levels. There are many thorny issues that need to be discussed honestly in the public domain, which the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority are deliberately sidestepping. See this blog for details http://iwpappp.blogspot.com/

So lets get back on track and discuss the value of integrating your social media efforts with your other marketing efforts, keeping in mind how your prospective customers first find out about your products or services. If you operate in a closed community then you have no problems, as everybody will be aware of what your products / services are, what they cost and how to contact you for more info or adsvice.


If on the other hand your business relies on the public or a niche market, then you know that your customers / followers / clients first find your web page by using a search of some type. Most used Search system (called a search engine) is Google. others are improving and a list can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines 


Search engines are tricky things to master, and no search engine will volunteer their algorithm that they use to sort out the returned list of possible matches that you need to evaluate and choose from. So what should you as an owner of a web site, social media profile or blog do to ensure that your information is located by your  intended target market ?.


The answer is quite simply apply SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) techniques when creating your pages and writing your copy. I am sure you are thinking  "I don't know what that is!!!" but you are wrong, because you use many of these techniques already in you basic marketing plan any way.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) starts with defining your target market, and using words that your defined target market are familiar with when writing your copy. If you do this you are over half way there already. The next step is to ensure that your information has some inbound links, that is ensuring that other websites, blogs, social media pages or forums link to your information in some way. In Facebook clicking a like or share button does this automatically for you. So by loose definition, the more likes a post has in face book the more inbound links the post has. placing a link in Facebook to some remote page  (out side of the FaceBook domain) creates an out bound link in face book which is an inbound link at the remote page you referred to.


The search engines use this data and much more information that they collect about your information by using what they commonly call spiders that crawl the web, looking for webpages and collecting all types of data from the page and storing this data for the Search Engine algorithm to use according to the search engine engineers instructions. 

When you type a word or combination of words into the search box and press enter the search engine processes this request according to the instructions in their algorithm and displays a list of probable matches for you to choose from. 

So taking the above info into account and evaluating what needs to be done so people find your information you need to ensure that you have at least 2 but preferably more places where you discuss your business online, and link these together by cross referencing  your various online information portals.

example : you have a website, a facebook profile and a twitter profile.

step 1 is to create a fan page in FB and write about this fan page on your  wall and link to it on your wall.
step 2 write about your fan page on twitter and place a link to your fan page in your tweets


Step 3 write about your twitter profile on your facebook wall and place a link to your twitter profile on your face book wall.


Step 4 write about your face book profile in your website, and link your webiste to your FB profile with a FB badge 

step 5 write about your twitter profile in your website and place a link to your twitter profile with a twitter badge / banner


step 6 write about your fan page in your website and place a link to your fan page using a FB badge.


step 7 write about your web site in your face book pages, and refer back to your twitter posts.


step 8 repeat steps 2 to 7 on a regular basis, and keep adding extra pages to your website. ensure that each new page in your webiste gets a mention in your facebook effrots as well as in your tweets. keep mentioning your tweets and facebook posts in your web site and update regularly (at least once a week - preferably more often)


Step 9 get your friends and others to mention your info in their facebook pages
step 9 get others to retweet your tweets about your FB pages and your web pages.


step 10 regularly go over what you have done and check for errors that may have crept in. adjust and repeat steps 1 to 9. then repeat step 10 as often as is needed.


If you do this then you will have some success. once you have the hang of this you can expand and really improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) by using HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) in your website and in all your social media where you are allowed to. this will improve your SERP's (Search Engine Results Position / placements)  drastically


The value of integrating your social media profiles with your web site and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) efforts  will become evident as your online business picks up due to the organic listings generated in many search engines by your hard work and thoughtful use of your key words as used by your target audience.


before purchasing a domain name for your website, or when purchasing a new domain name to expand your online branding consult with at least 3 or 4 different SEO specialists and ask for branding advice related to domain name purchases. If the SEO specialist does not ask you to define your target market before discussing further, be weary as he / she still needs to learn a lot. The primary issue when doing SEO is to know the target market and their vocabulary and terminology used within the target market group.


When integrating your different online marketing segments remember to keep you intended target market in focus and write your copy accordingly. this will generate the most value for your efforts.

Is FaceBook marketing successfull

Is marketing on faceBook worth your efforts?

Well the short answer is a very big MAYBE

Read this article   then come back and read further here

Well what does the success of your FaceBook marketing depend on?

the answer is simple, is your target market clearly defined, and have you used the correct product / service related terminology in your copy-writing?

The success of your FaceBook marketing  can further be boosted by doing some good old fashioned SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) in the back ground by supplementing your FaceBook stories with

• a twitter campaign with its own profile
• a blog or two with related posts
• a  website at its own domain that has 
• a facebook like button
• a tweet this button
• links to your related blogs
• been optimised for search engines
• making use of online forums and chat rooms
• active marketing profiles on other multi-media platforms

A multi-media campaign  with the following components will also help if you have the resources

• old fashioned flyers
• magazine adds
• newspaper adds
• radio adds
• TV adds

enjoy your multi-media and social media marketing, or else get specialist to do these things for you.