Why and how to request for link building opportunities

 Link building is a complex issue.

 Within the online marketing industry one of the most difficult issues to accomplish with any  degree of success is #LinkBuilding

This blog post will help you to have a deeper understanding of the complexities around link building and offer you some advice on what you need to do to prepare your online marketing team for the rather controversial task of requesting other online information providers to place links to your content within articles, stories, blog posts, web pages or other online content which they own or manage.

I answer SEO questions in Quora 

So we need to start with what links are and where search engines use links. 

Every link has two ends. The origin and the destination. All search engines use both sides in different ways, and treat every link with the same due diligence. There are a large number of semantic tools. These Semantic Tools are basically very large data bases that are used in conjunction with other data bases to evaluate your online content

.  

Some of these semantic tools are listed below. The links in your online content connect both the origin and destination pages to each other, allowing search engines to  build these semantic  tools into rather devious and mind twisting tools that investigate so many  different issues that impact on your online discoverability. 

#LinkMaps

#KnowledgeMaps

#EntityMaps

#TrustMaps

#KnowledgeTrustGraphs

#EntityLinkMaps

#KnowledgeLinkGraphs

This above list is extremely limited and search engines use many hundreds more.  The links in your online content connect your content to these semantic tools and allow search engines to better interpret the 

1) Aims 

2) Objectives

3 ) Purpose

4) Intent

5) Keywords  and 

6) other related search engine optimisation Value Indicators or SEOVI 

This means that each link within your entire online asset base (link origin)  is used many times over to develop an understanding of your content. The destination side gets treated the same in the early stages of developing these first line semantic tools. Both ends are needed to connect things together. The information in each link is added to these many data bases and expands the data in each database by including the content, and context,  in your online content and linking this to the already existing online content allowing these semantic tools to have access to your online content for very strange and devious search algorithms to use at their discretion.

Thinking of the above issues, your internal linking strategies need to be well planned and keep the focus of the page in which they originate in mind, ensuring that the conversation is expanded in meaningful ways.

You do need to update old posts and articles to link to new content. This is usually neglected, and can be very powerful in a number of ways, especially when quality is thought about and considered as important. (Page quality) 

Link building does have two sections after all. One is internal link building and the other is external link building.

Your content does need both internal and external links. So think long and hard about your internal link building tactics before looking at inbound and external links.

Before you start asking for external in bound links (#BackLinks) be sure to have some external out bound links in place within your own content, which you can use asd a tool to entice others to link to your content.

Link building is not an easy thing to do, and you do need all the help you can get. Very few folks understand how and where links are used by search engine algorithms. So having external outbound links in your content can help, when you try to explain to potential link partners what the value of external out bound links is, and how it has helped you. 

Describing your own experiences is always easier than describing other folks experiences. Having done this yourself, it allows you to demonstrate your own Expertise. If you have other folks who have already linked to your page in question,  that is also helpful. If your content uses internal book marks, getting your link partners to link to the book mark in question can be easier and more helpful to the scores at both ends of the semantic link.

Explaining this to others may not be very easy, but link building as a whole is not easy anyways.  When you do research around link building you will discover that there is many areas where folks provide SNAKE OIL and say that one should not place external links in your online content because it gives the end user an opportunity to leave your page and go else where for the information that they are looking for. If this is true or not is one issue, but getting the end user to your site in the first place, is also an issue that needs to be considered. Now your SEO TACTICS are what will get your content discovered in the search engine in the first place. If the end user does not find your information (near the top of the SERP)  he / she will never have been on your site in the first place. Out bound links in your content is a very big quality signal for all search engines. Out bound links in your content demonstrates to search engines that you have confidence in your own content and are not into  "LOCK IN MODE"  where you will try every trick to ensure that the end user stays locked into your content.  Placing external links in your pages shows that you have pride and trust in your own content. This is a very strange but rather important quality signal that few folks grasp. The new EEAT variable plays a very big role here.

The LOCK IN MODE issue was in the past a very powerful, but stupid approach to ensuring an end user never leaves your pages. This is still advocated by many, but most folks these days understand this a bit better. They also understand the SEO VALUE of out bound external links a bit better. You may come across the bad thinking of lock in mode when doing link building, so take the time and effort to prepare documentation around this, so that you may give good advise to potential content owners who are reluctant to enter into some kind of link swap or similar deal when linking to your content. Difficult stuff! But needs your personal efforts.

The name #BackLinks comes a long way back and is an indication of the link swap idea that was initially in place. Ie if you place a link to my content in your content I will LINK BACK to your content. This comes from the very early stages of link building way back in 1998 / 1999 before Google became famous, when Yahoo and ask Jeeves were the bigger search tools available.  

Link building has come a long way since then and unsolicited back links are quite common for good online content that answers common questions within any specific online niche space. High Quality pages generate their own influx of links. So answer questions InPage, and share other folks answers willingly.

So link building is getting more attention and folks are beginning to grasp the concepts around link building, but they do still need a little gentle persuasion of some kind.  So you do need to prepare a document of some sort, a PFD or fan page, by explaining the purpose of placing external out bound links and the benifits of placing links directly to specified bookmarks in your own content.

If you do not already have bookmarks within your own content I suggest you evaluate the SEO VALUE of book marks and placing your own internal links to the book marks you add to your own content.  Think of the parragraff and block Content issues ..  BUT BTHIS DOES NEED AN HTML EXPERT!! 

Online marketing is truly full of SEMANTIC SUPPRISES!!

Hope this helps

#Frankie2Socks

#BunduBasher 

Links and the #EEAT issues

Within the interwebs links do so many strange things, and the impacts of links, both external and internal, as well as in bound and out bound impact your SEO in such powerful ways. 

#EEAT is a vastly complex search engine optimisation Value indicator.

 Most folks forget that every link has two sides... yes that is correct, two sides. first is the origin and the other is the destination

These links do many strange things in a host of unthought of places.

 Search engines use these kinks in so many different places, but most SEO PRACTITIONERS that I speak to are very ignorant and refuse to think past the end of their noses

Once your online content has been indexed, that is when the fun and games starts. all search engines use the links within your online content to start mapping out many different issues like

•  trust maps, 
• entity graphs
•  link maps, 
• expertise maps, 
• expert connectivity status graphs,
• subject matter connectivity  graphs
• Subject matter connectivity maps 
•  and so many more. 

 There are actually thousands of data bases at play here, where search engines take a very fine tooth comb and evaluate your content in very serious and devious ways.  This is where the #HummingBird algorithm shows its value 

 They need to establish the purpose, aims, objectives intent and so many other issues about your online content. It is vital that you remember that Search has evolved, and search engines match your page intent to the intent of the search query. So keywords are not used during the initial search process. 

 This does not mean that #KeyWords are obsolete, coz they are not.. Keywords are actually vital, and they are used in so many other areas besides to match to query words. Many of the data bases that we are talking about here, use both ends of the link and compare both sides to each other and to a third area that holds the imagined contextual issues of your page. 

This imagined contextual map changes and grows, as issues within your page unfolds and gets exposed to the many different algorithms that are processed during the vigorous indepth evaluations of your content. Lots of strange and very sneaky things happen coz so  many things are happening at the same time in different areas of the page identity and categorising process. 

Semantic connectedness issues are also evaluated during this time. The semantic intentions of your content is first processed at this stage, but this is a very fluid issue, coz this changes as the search engine evaluates more and more issues, which are all integrated into these many different data bases that are growing, as the search engine's interpretation of your content evolves with each iteration of the algorithms that evaluate and transcribe your content into machine understandable contextual content within many different data bases 

 This is a very confusing time, coz so many things are being processed by a vast number of different algorithms, all at the same time. all SEO factors are evaluated and processed at the same time, but by different algorithms. So this is a very busy time.....

This repeats each time your content is revisited to include new backlinks or any updates that may or perhaps may not be re-evaluated. lots of issues are processed, and most require links to have any positive impacts on your SEOVI  (Search engine optimisation value indicators) these links nay be internal or external. 

The two ends of the link are compared in a very large number of different ways,  where context and contextual linkages are the key to better understanding your online content, along with the semantic connectedness issues. 

On line search is a vastly complex issue where many different Search engine optimisation value indicators are evaluated and taken into account, to give your online content a set of scores that will be used to match your online content to future search queries. These scores are stored in a wide variety of databases, leaving them ready to be used instantly. This is important, and can be seen if you look at how long your online search took to resolve. this is usually shorter than half a second for most searches, and the number of search results is scary, often being more than one hundred thousand matches.

The amount of preparations that are done to ensure short search times are achieved is incredible, and one thus needs to understand these issues when copy writing is undertaken. things like link attributes and related issues also need to be included here.   All links are valuable, and each link in your content gets the same basic treatment, then some will get extra issues added if the search engine deems it necessary to expand the conversation. 

 Trust and authority are some of the extended evaluations that need to be properly interpreted. Contributor Expertise and contributor experience is slso an extended evaluation zone. EEAT or Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trust are all rather strange SEOVI ( Search engine optimisation value indicators) that rely on links to be mapped to the correct issues within your online content. 

It thus follows that links and link attributes need very careful deep planning to get the most  powerful SEO  impacts. 

EEAT or Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trust are all special use search engine optimisation issues that search engines use to evaluate the purpose, aims, objectives and intent of your online content. 

There are many issues and different entities involved. Each contributor is evaluated for their personal EEAT, and then the page itself also gets an EEAT SCORE according to the Aims, objectives, purpose  and intent of the page in question, as well as the EEAT SCORE of all identifiable contributors to the content in question.

So EEAT is much more complex than you think. New techniques and tactics are constantly being added and this helps to ensure the success of the search engine in question. 

Where does FUFISM fit into the online marketing environmant ?

 Where does FUFISM fit into the online marketing environment is a confusing question.

First what is FUFISM, then WHAT is the online marketing environment, and how does online search impact on the online marketing environment? 

So before we discuss FUFISM, first we need to discuss online search, and SEO or Search engine optimisation, because FUFISM or Functional User-Friendly Integrated Social Media is a marketing philosophy where SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and Social Media  are married and work as a family team along with their many relatives, to influence how search engines interpret and consume your online content to prepare their many different search engine data streams and associated information management strategies(algorithms)   to supply the best possible SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages for all possible search queries. 

So online search is a vastly complex issue that matches search queries to search results pages. you ask questions (Search Queries) and the search engine provides answers (SERPs). In the past individual words were the issue, in 2023 and going forward the purpose and intent of your content carries more weight than individual key words. Keywords are still vitally important, as are page title and page descriptions. Folks within the SEO industry must always keep the #Hummingbird algorithm in mind, coz that changed many things in strange and mysterious ways. #ThingsNotStrings suddenly had more value, but strings describe things, so strings still wins many battles within the SEO environment.

For a search engine to provide an answer, it must

(1) be able to interpret the question

(2) understand what is being asked

(3) understand the intent of the question or query

(4) Interpret and understand online content

5)  have a system of categorizing online content and labelling contained concepts, ideas and contextual data,, as well as the purpose and intent of online content 

(6) have a system of comparing online data to the relevance of online questions and specific search queries

(7) have a system of comparing relevancy scores to establish the best matches of search queries to specific search terms and related search criteria

Online search is thus a vastly complex task of matching search queries to possible matches of existing content somewhere within the interwebs.

online search thus starts with ensuring that your online content is found by a search engine, then indexed and investigated for preparation of inclusion into a host of different data base files, where extended information is added to make searching easier.  This is also the time when search engines evaluate the QUALITY of your online content, and investigate if your content contains so-called Black Hat content, which may or not,  then exclude your content from the search engine database files. in some cases, search engines get rather upset, and ban the whole domain from their search index.

#BlackHat SEO is the devious art of confusing the search engine to provide SERPs with information that does not really qualify to be found for that specific search query.  in other words BLACK HAT SEO is like  using a kind of crooked SEO process that misrepresents the in-page HTML content, giving the end user poor search results that do not satisfy his /her needs.

Online marketing is all about putting your content within the interwebs, hoping that your intended target market audience will find your online content by some means. SEO or Search engine optimisation is the process and activities that you employ to improve the chances of your intended target market audience of discovering and then consuming your online content, and then following your desired or preferred Call To Action (CTA) statements or clicking on your preferred in-page links.

read more about SEO here 

The biggest issue within the SEO industry is the ability to build links that carry meaningful signals to the search engines so that these signals associated with individual links both to and from your content can be used as semantic tools, or part of the construction of semantic tools which allow search engines to better interpret and understand the objectives, Intentions, aims, purpose and sentiment of your online content.

SEO has evolved into a very complex technical battle to ensure that search engines have the necessary semantic tools to evaluate your content and connect your content to relevant online search queries. FUFISM is a marketing philosophy which uses social media as the primary avenue of #LINKBUILDING and helps to build the base of inbound external links(#BackLinks) to your online content.

The most powerful links come from well-placed, properly-used hashtags within the comment streams of posts discussing the subject matter at hand. this can only be accomplished by a knowledgeable person. The new EEAT issues of Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trust are all tied up together in strange ways within the interwebs. Most folks have no clue as to what this actually means. This is however a primary part of any FUFISM-BASED marketing plan. 

do a little independent research on the #EEAT issues and be prepared to be confused. who does EEAT apply to and how is this measured ?. these are tough questions, but as I understand the EEAT issues are connected to every single digital entity. so each online document has its own EEAT issues. Authors, image designers, content creators each have their own EEAT scores that are carried around with their inputs to your content, and this is all part of FUFISM-based marketing. your in-page EEAT is a complicated issue and it is made up of the EEAT of each in-page contributor as well as both internal and external links. Both  inbound  and outbound links need to be considered. so lots of small juicy titbits to add to your #INPAGE SEO efforts by including links to contributors in the  <HEAD> section of your HTML code. You can enforce this and add extra EEAT scores by including links to contributors of all kinds.. graphic design, audio, video, copywriting, research, technical SEO and other sources like data management or in-page forms. The more digital entities that you can connect to the page in meaningful ways that show semantic connectedness the better. Authors who write about specific topics score more EEAT points than unknown authors. But where and how do authors  and other contributors actually get coverage?   this needs your thoughts and attention if you are into the SEO thing... !!

FUFISM or Functional User-Friendly Integrated Social Media is all about using social media as a powerbase to influence your  #BackLink profile and entice others to share your links in their blogs, social media posts and other places. #LinkBuilding is a very strange concept, and link-building opportunities do not just fall out of the sky. Link Building opportunities are carefully crafted well-organized activities that take place over time in carefully structured steps. There is some cold calling involved, but usually, the comment streams of posts discussing the subject matter at hand start the process rolling forward. If folks have not discussed your content they will not create a well-thought-through link to your content. So create meaningful well thought through content that answers questions, offers a different approach to problem-solving or is helpful to your desired audience base in some way.

All online content must have a purpose and intent. Online content must be easily discoverable by search engines.  So FUFISM is all about being user-friendly and using the social environment to promote the purpose, intent and objectives of your online content.

So to answer the question "Where does FUFISM fit into the online marketing environment" one needs to interpret FUFISM as the art of using social media to promote specific online documents or digital assets in a manner that shows search engines the purpose, intent and sentiment of these specific online assets in ways that expand the conversation and improve semantic connectedness.

Once again FUFISM is an acronym for Functional User-Friendly Integrated Social media. FUFISM is also a marketing philosophy where SEO(Search Engine Optimisation)  is pushed through link building in the comment streams of social media posts discussing blog posts, web pages or other online content.

Just to round up here .. #LinkBuilding is a very complicated and difficult task. FUFISM or Functional User-Friendly Integrated Social media is all about getting better SERPs, by crafting clear direct social media conversations and interactions that guide the search engines to your content through well-managed social media activities, that include social listening and related comment stream management.

 

Well-thought-through links in the comment streams require staff with Good #EEAT scores that demonstrate your staff's Experience, Expertise, authority and Trust of the subject matter at hand.  FUFISM thus adds Search Engine Optimisation value indicators to your online content in many strange and devious ways. 

What is Search Engine Optimisation or SEO ?

 Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or web page in a search engine's unpaid results, often referred to as "organic," "natural," or "earned" results. SEO targets different kinds of search, including image search, video search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

SEO is an effective way to improve the quality and quantity of traffic to a website from search engines. SEO can be a complex and ever-evolving field, and it involves a number of different tactics and strategies. These tactics can be grouped into two main categories: on-page optimization and off-page optimization.

On-page optimization refers to the measures that can be taken directly within the website to improve its ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). This includes optimizing the content and HTML source code of the website, as well as improving its performance and user experience. Some common on-page optimization tactics include:

Keyword research and optimization: Identifying the keywords and phrases that people are using to search for the products or services that your website offers, and using those keywords strategically in your website's content and meta tags.

Title tags and meta descriptions: These are the snippets of text that appear in the search results below the title of a webpage. They should be concise and compelling, and should include the target keywords for the page.

Headings and subheadings: Using headings and subheadings with relevant keywords can help to organize and structure the content of a webpage, making it easier for search engines to understand and for users to scan.

Internal linking: Linking to other pages within your own website can help search engines understand the structure and hierarchy of your content, and can also help to spread link equity (the value of a link) throughout your site.

Image optimization: Using descriptive, keyword-rich file names for images and using alt text to describe the image can help search engines understand the content of your images and improve their visibility in image search results.

Off-page optimization refers to the measures that can be taken outside of the website to improve its ranking in search engine results pages. This includes building links from other websites, which can help to increase the authority and credibility of your website in the eyes of search engines. Some common off-page optimization tactics include:

Link building: This refers to the process of acquiring links from other websites to your own. Search engines use links as a way to measure the authority and relevance of a website, so acquiring high-quality links from other reputable websites can help to improve your ranking in search results.

Social media marketing: Building a presence on social media platforms and regularly posting high-quality, relevant content can help to drive traffic to your website and can also lead to the acquisition of links from other websites.

Local SEO: If your business has a physical location or serves a specific geographic area, optimizing for local search can be especially important. This involves optimizing your website for local keywords and phrases, and getting listed in local online directories and review sites.

Mobile optimization: With the increasing use of mobile devices to access the internet, it's important to ensure that your website is mobile-friendly and easy to use on smaller screens. This can include using a responsive design, optimizing images and other media for mobile devices, and using a mobile-friendly website design.

In addition to these tactics, there are a number of other factors that can influence your ranking in search results. These include the quality and relevance of the content on your website, the usability and user experience of your site, and the speed at which your website loads.

It's important to note

Search outside the box:

 those of you who follow me coz I blog about SEO stuff are really gonna enjoy this.

In this online document resource, Google employee ( Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan )  discusses search issues that we as technical SEO folks and all associated IT(#SEamanticEngineering)  fellas have zero control over or even indirect input. The tools that Google has made available for end users to use as part of the end-user experience when using search tools are quite scary.  this includes stuff like voice search tools, image search tools and near-me type search requests that will soon be available to all end users.

So #GEOTAGGING and #HashTagMarketing will now have new meaning and functionality within the online search environment. this will make experiences at theme parks, shopping malls, events and other area-bound activity could be managed for near-me search issues.  GEO TAGS in the <HEAD> section alongside keywords, page titles and page descriptions will be very helpful.

Using the appropriate #LinkAttributes such as NO-FOLLOW  link title, and link description are also very helpful in many ways, coz these are rather heavy-weight "QUALITY SIGNALS" that search engines really appreciate, as this gives them a deeper insight into the purpose and intent of your specific online asset. 

So this is a true FUFISM-based marketing issue, where SEO needs to be understood to be all about online search visibility and the different types of online SERPs that are offered to the end user. one also needs to consider the actual search tool when evaluating the SEO factors that need to be considered. This is where #SemanticTrust and related sentiment and intent signals are truly helpful. These include things like 

• GEO tags,
• contributor tags
• publisher tags
• author tags
• industry tags
• any other unique tags

So Remember SEO is all about teamwork and ensuring that everybody knows the intended target market audiences. Both of them... The first is normal people, as in the <BODY> section of the HTML code and the second is the search bots and their algorithmic handlers at search engines, which is the <HEAD> section   SO PAY ATTENTION to the <HEAD> section of your online assets, as there are many opportunities here to inform search engines about the purpose and intent of your web site, blog or another online asset. 

Thanx for reading here

#Frankie2Socks 

so this message from Prabhakar Raghavan is vital to understand within the online marketing industry, coz the SEO Implications are rather large and plenty full. 

The power of Twitter within the SEO space

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

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

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

• Duplicate content
• Website architecture

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

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

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

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

Think domain/folder/subfolder

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

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

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


Think USER.TWITTER.COM 

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

Think USER.TWITTER.COM/ORIGINAL TWEET/ REPLY

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

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

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

Think   USER.TWITTER.COM/FOLDER/SUBFOLDER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Twitter is thus an extremely powerful link building tool
 

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

SEO and the C-SUIT team

Getting the C-SUIT TEAM to buy into the value of SEO is a tough nut to crack.

 

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a very poorly understood concept, but it's implications within the online marketing industry are so massive that your SEO can make or break a company in terms of online exposure, and the costs involved in getting the right target market group to actually fall into your online conversion funnels.

 

Getting your executive staff  (the C-SUIT team) to buy into this understanding, and accept the fact that SEO needs to be integrated into your online marketing through a #FUFISM based  marketing strategy is essential, as they need to support this and ensure that the many different marketing tactics that a company use, are all integrated into a single well managed holistic marketing plan.

 

The introduction of the Google Humming Bird in August / September 2013 was the point at which this started to become important, but most marketing folks, both online and off line have not yet adopted  new strategies that incorporate the necessary thinking that came along with the introduction of SEMANTIC SEARCH and its many new Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators (#SEOVI) that now need to be incorporated in all your marketing, both online and offline.

This recent post by +Eric Enge  of STONE TEMPLE CONSULTING discusses some of the real tricky issues that need to be addressed in getting the C-SUIT TEAM (CHIEF SOMETHING OFFICERS) to buy into the value of SEO for your marketing efforts, both online and off line.

I have written about the value of SEO before, and I suggest that you take a peep see at some of my older posts just to remind you of the way that I think, and help you to understand why it is so vitally important that the C-SUIT team buy into the many different issues associated with a +fufism  based\marketing philosophy. This post discusses the value of SEO

Getting a buy in from your senior management is a very difficult task for those within the SEO industry, and breaking down the individual SILOS that exist for each marketing field is even more difficult, but these two issues need to be attacked with some vigor by the SEO team to ensure that there is cohesion and cooperation across marketing platforms, and also across individual marketing campaigns within the same marketing mediums.

Those who have  marketing silos for print media, radio, web sites, blogs and social media platforms are in for a shock as the SEO values of individual  digital entities become more important within the search space due to semantic profiling and all the other issues associated with the SEOVI (Search Engine Optimization Value Indicators) that have been introduced by the Google Hummingbird algorithm and its close associates. 

These new new search engine optimization variables, especially those connected with individual digital entities semantic footprints, and the network linkages between separate identifiable digital entities, such as authors, publishers, image creators, video editors, social media practitioners and so many others, are now beginning to have bigger and bigger  impacts on search results as search engines gather more data and look at ways to eliminate poor quality results form their SERP's.

Those who have been using the REL = AUTHOR and REL = PUBLISHER  tags are seeing the positive results as these help improve the STFSEOVI (Semantic Trust Factor Search Engine Optimization Value Indicators)  

Those who have been using the EXIF data options for images, videos, PDF documents and other embedded files  are also seeing the positive results (see #10blueinks )   

Getting the C-SUIT TEAM to understand this and buy into the SEO value of an integrated marketing plan where SEO plays a leading role is a very difficult task, how ever the fruits that grow within your SERP's are truly worth the effort to convince the C-SUIT TEAM of the value of SEO and why SEO needs to be integrated inot all your marketing, both online and off line.

some related posts  on the 4U brand blog are listed here

http://4ubrand.blogspot.co.za/2015/03/what-is-opseo-and-why-should-you-care.html

http://4ubrand.blogspot.co.za/2015/07/what-is-purpose-of-your-online-strategy.html

http://4ubrand.blogspot.co.za/2013/06/where-does-content-marketing-fit-into.html

http://4ubrand.blogspot.co.za/2015/07/what-is-seo-value-of-offline-marketing.html

http://4ubrand.blogspot.co.za/2013/11/the-value-of-local-seo-from-fufism.html

http://4ubrand.blogspot.co.za/2015/05/is-seo-important-to-your-company.html

The power of BLAB needs to be harnessed!

The dawn of a new social media giant  #BLAB

The social media platform +blab  is a new entrant into the social Media space that really only got noticed by me in   July / August  2015.  

 

 #BLAB is quite a powerful tool with in the conversation expansion tool kit that any marketer, or business professional  should consider using,  to expand their influence within the public domain.

 

BLAB is a very powerful communication platform that needs to be understood and managed as part of your personal enrichment strategies, as well as a tool,  to extend personal and meaningful conversations into the public domain in a manner that any invited prospect or like minded person may join at any time.

Blab must not be underestimated as a tool to build your personal relationships with existing customers, colleagues  , friends or other acquaintances including  with new and unknown persons who can join your BLAB experience at any time.

A new platform #BLAB

To use #B LAB you need to have an active functional twitter account,  as Blab is associated with Twitter and you need a twitter handle to log into BLAB.

BLAB is basically a video chat app that allows you to chat with up to three other folks  at a time, with the options to record this conversation so that you may re-purpose it to,  extend the conversation into other spaces,  such as here on G+, in twitter, on Facebook, in your blog or any where else where it may expand your reach and influence your intended target audience, or educate the public.

BLAB is not a stand alone strategy, as BLAB does not yet have a clear way to invite outsiders (the public) to join you and your guest, or  guests without using other platforms or other media

It thus follows that you need to have an established network, and then use this network to get the word out about your conversation and where to find it within the BLABOSPHERE.

 about FUFISM based  marketing

The power of the BLAB social space must not be underestimated, and in my personal opinion, this will soon be used by Google and other Search engines to extend, focus and   strengthen their STFSEOVI (Semantic Trust Factor Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) of individuals who make use of this platform to expand the conversations about their work and connected online resources.

The comment stream that is associated with each BLAB should also not be forgotten about, as this can, and should,  be used very effectively as a link building tool, to build a link profile of specific pages, blog posts or other online resources that are directly relevant to the blab in question.  This platform is thus a very unique opportunity to build your personal semantic footprint, and link it to your blog, your web site and other online resources,  where you are a contributor in very deeply connected and meaningful ways, that Google Hummingbird, and its cousins in other search engines can use with confidence to link you to specific topics, categories or industry specific fields.

Only those who have an interest in the topic in question for each individual blab will find and then perhaps comment, and this will allow for better understanding by search engines of who your intended target audience is ,  and what your industry specific niche is.  There is thus a very clear and distinct opportunity for marketers to use the BLAB platform to expand the online reach and related SEOVI (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) of any specific individual who makes use of the BLAB social media space , through clever and well thought through supplemental marketing  OFF PAGE SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION of your BLAB video conversations.

Info4u offers better marketing tips

If you do your marketing right by making use of your other social media platforms to market when you will be on blab,  supply the link to your blab, and ensure that these are well optimized and are highly placed within the SERP's for the topic and related key  words of the conversation that you intend to have on blab, along with who your co-host or guest will be , then you have a great chance of  random folks who have an interest in the topic under discussion.

These random folks who find your BLAB conversation should form the core of your intended target market audience.  Many may want to join the conversation directly, but be prevented from doing so due to the numbers issue.  Remember that only 4 people may be present in a #BLABCONVERSATION at any one time.   this is not a major train smash, as there is a comment stream that is live and interactive where these folks can inject their views and related links into the conversation.  also as soon as any one person leaves the BLAB CONVERSATION any body from the public may take his  /  her place.

Once again this is a very powerful communications tool, and its power within the SEO industry and related\  online marketing environment needs to be understood and managed so that it may be harnessed to promote you as an individual, as well as all the online resources where you as an individual are active or a contributor or some sort.

TAKE A PEEP SEE HERE    http://blog.blab.im/

BLAB is a very neat communications tool that I recommend that you evaluate for your self...

 

I like this tool, and suggest that you start working out how you will integrate your blabs into your other marketing from a #FUFISM based marketing perspective.

Do you use the social media as a link building tool within your SEO strategies?

Link building as an SEO tool

Well I advise everybody to document everything they do, but *UNFORTUNATELY* I do not practice what I preach...

I do need to start doing this myself, as when the smelly stuff collides with the wind making machine, and your rankings go south at a great rate of knots, and you have not been keeping good records of what is done, what is not done, and who is responsible for the different pieces of your SEO then you have *REALLY BIG PROBLEMS*

Keeping checklists for tasks, and who is responsible to ensure that the task is integrated into your total marketing plan can be a real pain in the wrong spot, but it sure helps when problems decide to show their true colours and your online rankings take a tumble.

Most marketing managers, and especially those within the *SOCIAL MEDIA ARENA* do not fully comprehend the needs to integrate all your marketing both online and off line into a single marketing plan, where SEO and related\matters take the steering wheel and control many of the marketing issues in a well managed and efficient manner, that pushes your online content closer to the top of the SERP's  (Search engine Results ages) in many strange and devious ways.

Social media is the biggest and (currently) most powerful link building platform that we have ever experienced.  How you use the social media to create powerful link building opportunities for your online work is not well understood, and then there are them folks that tell you *LINK BUILDING IS DEAD* who confuse many, and cause a vast array of different problems within the SEO Industry.

Links are still one of the most  vital parts of your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) efforts and their value must not be underestimated.

That being said, one must also not underestimate the damage that can be caused by link farms and other bad link building tactics.  How you conduct your link-building practices does need to be  clearly defined  and documented as part of your SEO policy.  Then you also need to keep records of all social media posts that are part and parcel of your  link building activities.

Your company link building policy document, which is a sub-document in your SEO policy  must be shared across all marketing platforms, both online and off line, as every marketing effort has some impact on your SEO.  This could be in the way that you influence your target market audience to use specific key words in their search queries or how you influence your copy writer to frame certain issues, or any number of other seemingly UN-important issues.

Social media managers need to be on top of the issues that impact on your SEO, and use these intelligently when passing  instructions to  others  like, but not limited to the list below. :

• what to promote, 
• how to promote specific issues,
• where and when to promote your other online efforts.
• what links to use within specific social media posts
• how to frame social media posts that link to other social media profiles
• how to ensure that the author of specific articles gets credits for their online works

 If you are not using the social media as a link building tool for your bog and your web site, then you are loosing out an a great opportunity.  From a #FUFISM based\perspective the social media is the powerhouse of you link building strategy, and this needs great care and lots of *SPECIAL ATTENTION* to details as supplied by your SEO team.

Those who tell you that link building is dead, need to be viewed as suspect, and their intentions need to be evaluated carefully.  You need to have an honest discussion with them about the value of social media in general, and what impacts the social media has on your SERP's. (Search Engine Results Pages)  If they tell you that the use of SOCIAL MEDIA improves your SERP's, then you need to ask them to explain exactly how this is done, and if this can be achieved without linking to your online content from your social media posts at all.

listen carefully to their explanations, and ask questions!!!!

Evaluate and then decide which way, because many have been ill advised that link building is dead, and these people may be acting on that advice, which is very dangerous.

Remember that there is plenty of bad advice online, so take your time and evaluate all advice carefully,  before accepting or rejecting any advice.

See these links to expand the conversation on the value of link building...

http://4ubrand.blogspot.com/2014/04/social-media-issues-and-serps.html (Social media and SERP's)
http://4ubrand.blogspot.com/2012/09/is-seo-dead.html  (Is SEO DEAD?)
http://4ubrand.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_4.html    (Issues with Link building)
http://4ubrand.blogspot.com/2014/07/what-is-value-of-link-in-2014.html  (what is the value of a link)
http://4ubrand.blogspot.com/2014/08/what-link-building-tactics-do-you-use.html (what link building tactics do you use)
http://4ubrand.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html  (what is SEO)

Just in case you need to know more specifics about any component of your SEO policy,  remember that you can use our internal search tool to search for specific subjects within the SEO field.   Look in the top right of the screen when using a laptop or PC...  If you do not find what you are looking for when using our search tool, then leave a comment and our team will try and help you out as best we can.  If we can not help you directly we will refer you to and expert who can.

What is the SEO value of offline marketing?

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

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

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

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

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

1) #IPSEO or In Page Search Engine Optimisation

2) #OPSEO or Off Page Search Engine Optimisation

3) #OLSEO or Off Line Search Engine Optimisation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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