How do you use social media to promote your business?

I FOUND A SOCIAL MEDIA REPORT BY SOCIAL MEDIA EXAMINER WHILST DOING SOME GENERAL RESEARCH ON SOCIAL MEDIA ISSUES THAT I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE WITH YOU.

This report can be found online here  I also found a few videos that I thought were worth a watch which I have embedded below for you to appreciate as well.

In this first video Marcus Sheridan, founder of The Sales Lion shares how businesses can use social media to develop relationships with potential customers and increase sales.

In this video, Jason Falls, co-author of the book No Bullshit Social Media shares some excellent tips and explains how social media can impact your business.



Remember that the SEA's (Search Engine Algorithms) are now giving much more value to social signals, so choose a SMP (social Media Platform) that best suits your client / customer / user base and ensure that your SMG (social Media Group) gets the info that they want about your brand, product or service with plenty of links splashed in to your  call to action pages where your sales will be concluded and payment accepted.

Do NOT be pushy and act like a sales person in your SMP (Social Media Platform) but remember to supply links to your sales pages and other call to action pages using the correct key words near the links as determined by your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) representative within your marketing team.

Always be aware that your SMA (Social Media Activities) are part of your marketing strategy used to funnel your social groups online actions to your call to action pages that should be managed within your company web site.

Many thanx for reading Our blog. check out our Google Plus page and leave us a note telling us what you would like to know more about and we will do our best to accommodate your request.

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Is SEO SPAM ? an answer from Matt Cutts

Well the truth is SEO is Search Engine Optimisation and that is the art of ensuring that search engines find your pages, and hopefully place them high in the SERP (Search Engine Ranking pages). SEO is not SPAM at all, though some BHSOET's (Black Hat Search Engine Optimisation Technicians) do use very dirty tricks to get their pages on your screens.

These BHSOET's have given the whole SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) industry a bad name. View this short video by Google with Matt Cutts discussing the question "Is SEO SPAM"



Thanx for your time, please book mark our blog and pass comments on our posts so we can know if our efforts are helping you understand whether our efforts to inform you of SEO issues and how SEO can be integrated into your whole marketing is helpful.

 If you want a specific SEO topic to be discussed ask for it in a comment on a post and we will do a little research on the subject and try to discuss your request looking forward to hearing from you in a reply or comment.

 Regards Frank
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a health check for your site in Google SERP's

Google's Matt Cutts discusses your web sites SEO health and quality issues and why Google does not give your site a health certificate.

What's the value of a Google+ +1?

What's the value of a Google+ or a +1? Now this is a good question that needs some explanation.

Social signals are the new buzz word in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and are quite a scary bunch of things affecting page rank and SERP (Search Engine Results page)

what is the value of colour in terms of SEO

The value of colour in terms of SEOV (Search Engine Optimisation Value) is underestimated because it is not seen as a ranking factor for search engines within the marketing world.

This is a big mistake, and is caused by the misunderstanding of SEO (search Engine Optimisation) in general marketing terms. In the past SEO technical staff were the only ones involved in SEO. This has changed drastically over the last year  where SM (social Media) has become the newest buzz word and is now considered to be a prime factor in the SEO industry.

Read this article on the issue of colour and its value to your web site also read the comments which are insightful as well.

You really do need to consider your target market with their social values and  cultural values as well as group preferences when considering colours for your web site or a section of your web site. Once this has been evaluated by the marketing team you need to do a small test run on a subsection of your pages and get user feed back.

Look carefully at what they have to say, as all the search engines have done this and are currently using user appreciation and user functionality as part of their SEOV (Search Engine Optimisation Value) system, where individual pages get scored for a variety of factors which are all entered into the SEA (Search Engine Algorithm) which determine your pages SERP's (Search Engine Results Page Positions)

If the SE's (Search Engines) like your colour scheme and think you pages are user friendly you will do a lot better in the SERP's. Remember things like readability and site aesthetics are determined by your colour scheme. So take your time on this one and do a few small tests on some sub domains to see the results before rushing off and making any changes to your colour scheme

content is KING, but the king is not lonely

Content is king  ..  A great saying that needs some back up and a little explanation.

Unique content within your pages is helpful from an SEO point of view, but it is not the only way to get visitors to your site take a look at this video and evaluate what works best for you.

What is the purpose of social media in marketing?

What is the purpose of social media in marketing? This is a question that is seldom asked and never discussed with any clarity.

Social media marketing does not generate direct sales, it drives customers and interested parties to your web site where all online business should be conducted.

Brand awareness is only part of the issue, and social is social not business. Social media is used by the public to get personal and social with their various groups of friends. Us as marketers are intruders in this space and should remember this at all times.

The many social media platforms are a source of prospects and a place to create brand awareness, not sales. Social media platforms have been hijacked by marketers and it does not take the public long to realise this and ignore your company page once the social edge wears thin and the marketing edge starts to shine through.




Being on the social media pages that your potential customers use is all about brand awareness and implementing the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) strategies which your marketing team should have in place that ensure your customers use the correct key words and key word phrases when searching for your services, products or events in all the major search engines.

It thus follows that you may have many thousands of likes, followers, G+'s  and other social signals, but little direct business from your social media pages. So once you understand clearly that the purpose of social media pages within the online marketing arena is to create brand awareness and SEO points for your company pages which funnel interested and focused buyers to your company site, then you will be alright, and get the results from the organic search results in search engines like BING,  YAHOO and GOOGLE with your targeted key words and keyword phrases showing up at the TOP of SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)

Read this interesting article "How has Social media changed our marketing landscape"

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.

Google basics explained - on video

This short video gives a very brief explanation of the basics of Google's methods to index sites and what variables are most important for ranking high in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages' / positions).

three things that are most important for search engine are
1) how to craw the web most efficiently
2) index the pages, and sort according to some criteria
3) Rank all pages then serve the pages to searchers according to their needs

To ensure that your pages are indexed in search engines you need to ensure that  search engines find your pages through links from other sites, and that your pages have internal links so that all your pages can be found by any search engine that locates any one of your pages.

Once your pages are indexed by search engines they perform quite a few mathematical tricks useing a host of variables such as but not limited to the list below to give some kind of score to your page. Then the search engine will store this value along with a number of pre calculated variables that will be used to evaluate an end users search query and return a SERP (Search Engine Results Page) in their indexing system.
1) the specific words within your pages, and how they are used, where they are in relation to each other and other data on your page.
2) all inbound links form other websites including the anchor, text where the link is on the page, words near to the link, and words on the landing page which the link refers to.
3) all out bound links, including anchor text, words near the link, words on the landing page of the link, and the context of the link related to other onpage data.
4) all internal links linking to the specific page as well as all internal links linking to other pages within your site taking the page content and many related issues into account.

When an end user submits a search query this is search query is compared with the indexed words and some very  advanced mathematical algorithm is used to determine the end users intent and match this intent with the aboutness of your pages. Once the search engine has determined the best possible matches from its index with a searchers intent the search engine delivers a SERP (Search Engine Results page)

Undersatnding Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

SEO or Search engine optimisation is a difficult thing to come to grips with because of the diverse opinions within the industry and many saying SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is DEAD.

Confusion starts when one looks for a definition of SEO (search Engine Optimisation) and does not get a clear concise definition.  I like to define SEO (search Engine Optimisation) to my customer base as follows:

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

Most companies leave the SEO (search Engine Optimisation) of their pages up to the web design team and do not integrate SEO into their entire marketing policy, leaving no SEO (search Engine Optimisation)  policy specific directives for any other online work. This is purely because the management have not been correctly informed of what SEO (search Engine Optimisation) is and why they need to have a dedicated person in charge of their SEO (search Engine Optimisation) . Once you understand the definition above you will realise that SEO (search engine optimisation) is a complicated affair that requires team work with a clear set of policy directives that need to be enforced across a wide spectrum of disciplines within your advertising and marketing efforts. 

Defining the "ABOUTNESS"  of your pages and ensuring that this aboutness is translated into your page construction and the subsequent social media marketing  and related promotion of your web site is the key to ensuring that search engines send your site well qualified visitors which can be converted to customers.

To achieve this you will need to have some policy directives that need to be in place and followed by your entire marketing team. You will need to understand your target market groups and cater for each target market group separately, ensuring a common thread, with some common key words and a base set of pages that form a core from which you will expand the different target market groups in a coherent and logical manner that search engines will be able to understand and relate to the aboutness of your entire site, with out losing focus of your intent.

Remember that search engines are changing fast along with the social media influences that you will need to manage in ways that ensure that your page's aboutness can be related to the searchers intent. Search engines are taking more and more variables into account as the amount of data online increases. It is becoming very difficult for search engines  to manage these large data volumes and still supply an end user with relevant up to date information. Search engines are taking strain and are showing signs of frustration due to the large amounts of spam and irrelevant data that is on-page in the form of advertising as well as links to pages that do not discuss similar or related information. Sites that link to other sites just for the sake of generating links as in link farms are also of grave concern to search engines, as they have very little importance or value to the page in question. 

These 2 articles explain a little more  and offer a different view on some issues.

1)  the end of link building as we know it 
2) impact of the next penguin update