World SEO Education: What Is Off-Page SEO? Off-Page SEO Techniques

 This post below is a good entry level post on off page SEO (Search Engine Optimization) which I would like to expand on.

World SEO Education: What Is Off-Page SEO? Off-Page SEO Techniques : Today my topic of discussion is: Off Page Optimization. I would like to entertain my readers with every minute aspects of SEO and their techniques so that they become self-independent in managing their website traffic and quality.

SEO or Search Engine optimisation is a tricky business with many mis-informed  people proclaiming that SEO is dead, because they do not have a clear understanding of the term SEO and what it means.

SEO or search engine optimisation is the collective work of your entire staff in their attempts to ensure that your pages are found by your intended target market when they use any search engine to find your information.

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is divided into 2 (two) major sectors. The first is in- page  SEO and the second is off page SEO  

IN-PAGE SEO

In-page SEO has two components which are each aimed at different target markets, and have very different purposes, but both are used collectively when doing any off page SEO. It is essential that any SEO practitioner explain this to you in terms that you understand, other wise you will not be very successful in your off page SEO.

The first component of in-page SEO is the stuff contained within the head section of your page, which is written specifically for the Search Engines. This section of your page is not visible to the end user, and contains all the META TAGS and related information including but not limited to

• Page description
• page title
• Keywords list
• author and contributors
• categories and    geographical info
• language and script info  

 The second component of in-page SEO is the body section of the page, which is written specifically for the viewer or end-user of your page. This section contains all the text, images, videos and other visual stuff which the end user will see onscreen when the page is loaded in a browser.  

The body section of the page is used by search engines to determine the aboutness of a page, and the text used here is what the search  Engines  will index in their databases to match to the queries that searchers use when looking for your information. 

Search engines try to match the aboutness of your page to the aboutness of a search query using a wide variety of variables, most of which are contained in the Off-page SEO of your pages.

In short the head section is written for search engines to allow them an opportunity to categorize and define your page, and the body section is written for your viewers , giving them a visual interpretation of your information. Search engines use the visual interpretation and the information in the head section to compile a profile of your page which they will match to a users search through a SEA (Search Engine Algorithm) and display what the search engine perceives to be the closest match of the the search request and all indexed pages in the SERP's (Search Engine Results pages)
 

OFF-PAGE SEO 

Off-page SEO is all the collective marketing of your page by your entire staff, and other sources that are beyond your control and includes but is not limited to the following

•  Internal links with in your web site
• All your social media efforts to get visitors to your web site
• Your blogs and user forums
• Your online marketing with paid adds
• Your link building strategies
• the registration of your web site with search engines and related platforms
• your public relations marketing and related online strategies
• What others have to say about your pages in their respective online platforms which include but is not limited to
• their web sites
• their blogs
• their social media platforms
• peer review sites
• product / services review sites
• news papers online pages
• radio stations online pages
•  your customers discussing your products in their social media post

 The first and most important aspect of SEO is the least understood, and least used component of in-page SEO which is the meta tags in the <head> section of your page. The META TAGS within the head section of your page are used by search engines to evaluate the content of your page and establish a context for the information within the body section of the page. Most end users do not even know that there is a <head> section of your page, and  many people ignore this with some SEO PRACTITIONERS even saying SEO is DEAD, because they have heard that the KEYWORD META TAG is not used in page rank scores.

When doing your off page SEO you need to use the information that your in-page SEO technical team used when  creating the <head> section of your page as well as the <body> section content in meaningful and constructive ways.  This is actualy a lot simpler than it sounds, and you can get the desired information from a number of sources, with the easiest being to use your browsers functionality to see the page source, and copying the contents of the head section to a text document for you to read and understand at your leisure.  

Another good source of this information is your SEO team who will be able to also give you a brief on the aims, objectives, purpose and intent of the page, which will help you in the copy writing of your off page SEO and all related social media posts. When doing any off page SEO be sure to  include the full URL (Uniform Resource Locator) or web address of the page you are marketing, to ensure that search engines give the correct page the SEOV (Search Engine Optimisation Value) that is accrued by your off page SEO efforts.

Remember FUFISM  - (Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media) and ensure that all the role players who are involved in your SEO work together as a unified team with a single goal in mind. That goal should be to increase the return on investment in your web site through the acquisition of targeted visitors to your web site who are qualified through your use of properly targeted SEO which will ensure that your pages are found by your intended target market group and not by the wrong target market groups.

To ensure that your team gets the best results from your off page SEO  you will need to employ the FUFISM philosophy  The FUFISM philosophy is really quite simple and easy to manage, as all your team will be on the same page, and share many marketing insights that would otherwise be kept as departmental secrets . Once you employ the FUFISM philosophy there will be no infighting between departments to see who gets the lions share of the marketing budget and many research areas will  be handled differently, as the information gathered will be shared across departments and not duplicated unnecessarily as they would be when departments are competing against each other for a share of the marketing budget.

Do you buy your back links?

The purchasing of back links is frowned upon by most SEA's (Search Engine Algorithms) and when they detect it, your web site may be punished and removed from the organic SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)

This is serious, and may impact on you, or if you do SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) for a company your clients web sites.

the case of Interflora (those guys that sell flowers) www.interflora.com is quite a wake up call, and all those invloved in the SEO Industry should take heed.

read about the story 

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/03/01/interflora-suffers-seo-setback-as-mothers-day-approaches/ 

http://www.websearchseo.co.uk/the-interflora-seo-saga-what-can-we-learn-from-it/

 and the solutions / guide lines to prevention 

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/a-reminder-about-selling-links.html

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66356

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/why-did-my-pagerank-go-down/

http://www.seowix.com/could-your-seo-strategy-be-as-pointless-as-a-pigeons-life/ 

A video on the back link issue by Matt Cutts - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Cutts



The moral of the story is that you reap what you sow, and if you sow weeds and problem plants, you will get weeds which you are unable to eradicate, as their seeds will continue to grow every season, and problem plants that mess your garden and spoil the experience of your visitors.

Think about where you advertise, and what your call to action message is, advertise in relevant places and be clear with your message. SEA's (Search Engine Algorithms) are getting bigger, and are looking at an awful lot more variables that they did a few years back.

User experience, and finding exactly what you have searched for are becoming more important to search engines and their controlling SEA's (Search Engine Algorithms), so your adverts need to be more explicit and closer to home. adverts that discuss off page / site topics and use words that are not on your landing page may cause your site some harm, so think clearly of where your adverts are placed and what exactly is the message and call to action statement in your advert.

Remember to use FUFISM and include your whole marketing teams experience as well as keeping the rest of your social media partners in the loop.

Always keep tabs on your stats and when they start taking a detour down south, find out why fast. the longer you take the worse the impact gets, and the harder it will be to recover.

Ensure that everybody in your marketing team knows the rules about SPAM MARKETING , and ensure that your entire team is given a lecture on the impact of SPAM MARKETING at least once a month, with a reminder of the trip down south of your bottom line when they neglect the rules.

The Power of Google Plus is growing, are you prepared?

There have been many rumors that SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is dead, some have even hinted that it is buried. I think that those who started these rumors are FaceBook Marketers who have had some success and achieved some business without using any other platform besides FaceBook.

In my opinion these marketers have just been lucky, and their success has gone to their heads. Those in the online marketing industry know the truth, your products and services will not be found easily online unless they are well placed in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)

At the end of the day there are only three ways that your online information will be found by your intended target market

1. They will type your address directly into the address bar of their browser because they were exposed to your marketing in other media such as  amongst others
• TV advertising
• Radio advertising
• Newspaper and other print media advertising
• billboards, flyers and other direct marketing 
2. They will click on a link found in
• your online marketing 
• referral from a social media platform such as G+ or Facebook
•  a web page referencing your work as an authority on your subject matter
• a web site that has a link exchange program with your web site or blog
• your paid advertising link in some body elses pages
3. They will use a search engine to find your online information and click on your listing in a SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

Currently (Jan 2013) Google is the biggest search engine and has the lions share of all search querries, so you will need to be listed in the organic SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) that Google provides to ensure that you get the best exposure within these SERP's

Now the trick is to understand how Google plus influences the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)  provided within the organic search results pages. This is where the power of G+ or Google Plus starts to shine and push any pages associated with your G+ profile closer to the top of the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) due to a host of different social signals that are associated with your G+ profile and the posts that you have made within all your associated G+ pages and related communities.

During my research I came across this post by Mark Traphagen on Wind mill Marketings web site

This post was very well written and extremely helpful in understanding the true power of Google Plus


At the end of the day G+ is Googles own Social media networking platform, and they have full unrestricted access to all data on the Google Plus platform, which gives them quite a bit of leverage to use the data in ways that enhance your search experience. Another point to take into consideration is that they (Google Search Engineers) know the structure of the data as well as the data layout which makes their use of this information simpler and more user friendly.

To understand this a bit better you may need to understand the term FUFISM

YouTube tips video annotations functionality

I read a lot of stuff on the net when I am researching SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) issues and I came across this stuff about YouTube and video annotations functionality where they mention how this impacts on your SEO for any YouTube Videos that you may have in place.

HOW TO: Use Annotations to Increase YouTube Views, Rankings

Thanx to REELSEO for this tip 

Read about marketing your videos on pinterest at the link below

5 Ways To Use Pinterest For Effective Video Marketing

  

 practice FUFISM - Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media and ensure that all your marketing gets the SERP's that you deserve

Integrate your video marketing into your complete marketing strategy and ensure that all your social media profiles, and related PAGES link to your video marketing on YouTube for best results.

 

Tips for FaceBook Search Graph

Facebook Graph Search could eventually become a fairly effective local search/recommendations engine. Here are a couple things to know before we get to Facebook’s visibility tips:

Facebook says Search Results will be created by a combination of information created/shared by the business (Pages) and connections of the person doing the search (friends, likes, check-ins, etc.).

Facebook says that its new search bar will return “the top search suggestions, including people, Pages, apps, places, groups, and suggested searches” — notice how “Pages” and “places” are listed separately.

Read the rest of at http://searchengineland.com/

This new search facility within FB that searches only FB pages and profiles will change many things in the SEO industry, and all SEO practitioners will need to learn an awful lot in a hurry, as no body has thought of SEO within FB.

If how ever you apply FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media then you will have half the problem under control because

1. your writings and posts will be focused on your target market
2. you will be using your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) defined key words in your copy
3. Your posts will be receiving social signals from your customers and other interested parties. 
4. your FB post will be receiving positive social signals from your other online efforts  
5. your FB pages will be receiving positive social signals from your other online efforts 
6. your other social media profiles will be supplying social signals to your FB profile
7. Your other social media profiles will be supplying positive social signals to your FB pages

think about your online efforts and apply FUFISM it works....

what is the value of Social Signals in SEO

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation has come a long way since it first became a necessity in getting your information listed near the top of SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) In the beginning it was purely in-page SEO, and that was fine.

but things have changed drastically see video at bottom of page

Along came the advent of Facebook and the social media revolution which changed the way that we as people communicate in ways that are still being investigated and documented. Many other social media platforms jumped up and started having an influence on information sharing and information flow between people at alarming speeds. People were suddenly sharing a whole lot of stuff online that did not make sense to businesses as it was purely of a social nature with people discussing things like

• where they would be spending the week end
• what we will be eating for lunch
• who is having an affair with my cousin
• what colour dress should be worn to a party
• what music is pleasant and what is crappy to listen to
• their personal love life
• their personal thoughts and social affairs
• whats going on at the office when the boss is out
• what movies to watch
• where I waste my spare time

This information was indexed in search engines and because of the size of the base web site that the social media platforms operated, and the size of the user base of these social platforms, results suddenly started appearing at the top of SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) for many keywords and keyword phrases, which carried very little value to the person making the search request. 

Soon the marketing world stepped into the social media arena and started direct online marketing within the social media with alarming  results. These results were at first confusing to many within the search industry, especially those involved in SEO for web sites. The major search engines picked this up and started adding the value of social signals to their algorithms with strange results as they were very experimental.

As the search industry came to grips with the impact of the social media on search patterns things started to settle down and an understanding of how social signals should be interpreted by search engines began to emerge. At Info4u we realised that these changes required an integrated approach to all online marketing, as most SEA's (Search Engine Algorithms) use a large variety of issues from different locations to determine the value of any specific page before placing it in any SERP (Search Engine Results Page)

Info4u thus coined the acronym FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media  to describe the our approach to all online marketing, as the Search Industry now requires a lot more information from you to place your online information anywhere near the top of its SERP's.

This short video by slingshot (www.slingshotseo.com) found at http://www.business2community.com  discusses some of the related issues focusing on social media issues around social signals and SEO

FUFISM and location based marketing

Well I am always reading, reading and reading more, so I tend to notice a lot of new stuff, and read about it, but very seldom put what I have learned to practice.

This article found here on location based marketing was in my opinion worth a read, and you should take a look and consider its possibilities for your own marketing strategies Remember to check out our pages on FUFISM at www.info4u.co.za/fufism

A quote from the post above 

Start Quote" 

 Integrating the consumers’ shared location information into a marketing strategy to fulfil their needs at their current location.

" end Quote

This quote re-enforces the concept of FUFISM as it talks of integrating your location based marketing strategy into your social media based efforts ans other online marketing strategies.  visit our FUFISM page in the G+ arena and pass some comment. 

FUFISM as a philosophy  should be integrated into your whole marketing process, and the location of your business or customer base as the case may be, is an important aspect of your marketing which needs special attention within the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) strategy of your marketing team.

Integrating the different sections of your marketing plan into a single consolidated plan  is a very time consuming task, and you will need to do a lot of explaining to many different department heads as to why this should be done in the first place.

link building help

 Link building is an important part of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) that is very often over looked and usually not considered as part of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

this post in www.searchengineland.com is relevant to link building and really worth a read 

Link building is one of the most important parts of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and great care should be taken to ensure that it has success.  You should apply FUFISM or Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media tactics for best results.

The social media arena is a great source of links and all your social media campaigns should link to specific pages within your company website and carry links to the main landing pages as well.

Social signals are just fancy words for talking about special types of links, and these social signals carry a lot more weight than standard links from normal web sites. It is thus very important that your social media campaign generate some social signals for your website, and that you have reciprocal links from your web site and blog with your social media campaigns.

Every social media platform has a special section where you can develop specialised links that come with branded images 4u2 (for you to) place in your other online platforms like blogs, websites or forums. it is important for your SEOV (Search Engine Optimisation Value) that you do this, as out bound links also add considerable SEOV (Search Engine Optimisation Value) to your online efforts in every platform.


Good content and well managed user interfaces where your online customer base can communicate with you in a manner that pleases them will also result in many organic (natural) links to your pages placed by your information users (customers) within their preferred user platforms such as

a) their own web sites
b) their own blogs
c) their own social media platforms
d) user forums
e) comments in your blogs or other social media

If your customers talk about you in a positive way your will be shocked at the online coverage this generates. So give them a reason to say positive things about you by having good feed back mechanisms in place then monitor these with great care and enthusiasm. Remember to be social on social media platforms and not to push the marketing as this is a social turn off, keep the conversations going as long as possible, placing links to relevant areas of your web sites and blogs within the conversations, as this is a major source of inbound links to your other online information.

Link exchange programs with your suppliers and your resellers is also a very good idea, though this can be a very tedious and extremely time consuming affair, the effort is really worth while. Take the time and you will not be sorry.

for more info send email to seo@info4u.co.za or visit www.info4u.co.za/fufism

What is FUFISM and why should you use it?

FUFISM is a word conjured up by INFO4U to help explain the importance of Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media. This has become necessary due to the  changes in SEOV (Search Engine Optimisation Value) given to social media posts by Search Engines within their algorithms which determine SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)

Many people use the social media for a variety of purposes, with the main reason being  sharing of information. Marketing people have jumped on this band wagon with great glee and excitement as it has opened many marketing doors and made  online marketing a great success.

The problem is that this marketing is done in isolation and the use of the social media platform is not integrated into the company marketing strategies as a whole.  This makes measuring the success or failure of any individual social media campaign exceptionally difficult, and it often competes with other efforts instead of co-operating to ensure better SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages)

The first thing that needs to be understood is how do your customers / clients find your information online! There are only three ways for an end user of your information to find your online offerings

1. they will use a search engine of some kind
2. they will type your URL (Uniform Resource Locator) or web address directly in the address bar.
3. they will click on a link in 

• a page they find by accident,
•  a page they were referred to or
• email sent to them

Option 2 will come from your print media, radio, Television or other advertising which can  be quite costly.

Option 3 is rather costly and usually involves paid advertising, but can also involve your offline social media marketing and your email campaigns

Option 1 is  the most cost effective as all organic SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) are free of search engine fees. Organic SERP's are all free Search Engine Results Pages which search engines display to attract the paid advertising customers, whose adverts will appear along side the ORGANIC SERP's

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a complex task involving all your online efforts including your Social Media Efforts which should be integrated into your common marketing strategies. The purpose of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is to ensure the best possible SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages) for your company information. You will get best SEO (Search Engine Optimization) results when you apply FUFISM (Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media) in a holistic manner and work with

• your web site team
• your blogging team
• Your public relations management team
• your social media consultants
• your marketing team
• your administration staff

It thus follows that FUFISM should be used to ensure best marketing results of all your online efforts resulting in better SERP's (Search Engine Results  pages) and higher online visibility all round.

Business to community webcasts and your business

Webcasts can be very effective as a social media supplement, and add value to your social media posts. web casts are very effective marketing tools, and have good results in most search engines. placing a page within your blog space with your web cast links is the most effective way to go, as this will be  a static page with many references from

• your web site, 
• internally within your blog
• your various social media campaigns
• your subscriber base at YouTube
• Your subscriber bases within your various social media platforms

The site to learn about the techniques and procedures involved in web caste is http://www.business2community.com/   It is realy worth your while to check out this site and consider becoming a member. their tips and tricks as well as associated learning materials that they link to are trully informative and helpful.

check out these links within their pages
http://guides.business2community.com/ - how to start up guides
http://research.business2community.com/ business to community research library
http://training.business2community.com/ business to community elearning center
http://www.business2community.com/ building better business relationships through engaging communities

remember to think about FUFISM when using social media, as this helps get perspective on what you are doing, and what results to expect as well as who should be monitoring your responses and what actions they should be taking.

Your target market needs serious evaluation and must be researched properly before you set up your webcast. Your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is dependent on your target market selection,  and should be integrated into your whole marketing strategy for each separate webcast.

Remember that marketing is a team effort and that everybody within your company and organisation must always be prepared, as strange things can happen very easily and any one of your web casts or other social media posts could go viral at any time, and if you have applied FUFISM then you will be well rewarded