INSIGHT blog

Posts Tagged ‘search engine optimization’

How does Social Media benefit SEO?

28
August
2009

Social Media sites and links have strong SEO and organic rank value

Andrew Bates

Client Services Manager

Over the last couple years of both pitching and listening to pitches about corporate social media, I’m often surprised by how organizations focus on the “buzz” or brand benefits around social media without noting the obvious technical benefits for that organization’s search engine optimization.

We know that keyword phrases, site architecture, relevant content, and links make up for much of a website’s rankings (http://www.sherpastore.com/Benchmarks-Metrics.html and 1000s of other sources).  Out of traditional SEO, we see that both on-page elements of a website like keywords and content factor as well as off-page elements like inbound links.  Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing value inbound links from other websites as “votes of confidence” for the website they are linking too (http://www.seocrunch.com/factors-in-seo-link-value/).  Time and consistent results have shown that inbound links make up a majority of a site’s page rank value, and that each type of inbound link has different merit or weight for the referenced site:

Overall Ranking Algorithm

Overall Ranking Algorithm

  • 24% Trust/Authority of the Host Domain

  • 22% Link Popularity of the Specific Page

  • 20% Anchor Text of External Links

  • 15% On-Page Keyword Usage

  • 7% Traffic and Click-Through Data

  • 6% Social Graph Metrics

  • 5% Registration and Hosting Data

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors/

So what is the bulk of social media engineering? (besides the important, high-level concepts like awareness, community, resources, reputation management and the rest…)  Well?  Social ends up being a lot of properly research keyword phrases imbedded in optimized content on open, crawlable sites with tons and tons of contextual, relevant links from powerful domains.  Social media is an ever increasingly important component of holistic, natural search.  One of the best things an organization, association, group, or business can do to improve their web presence is to introduce a social media strategy that keeps SEO in mind during the strategy, execution, and analysis phases.

Search engines and search sites today are putting ever increasing value on authoritative social and multi-media based sites.  Links from video sites like youtube.com and posts on sites like Digg, Stumbleupon, or Delicious are beginning to become incredibly important for any organization competing for their own space on the web (http://www.bestrank.com/blog/how-social-media-can-help-improve-organic-search-rankings/).

So remember when you are articulating your new social outreach program to your client or internal management team, you can remind those decision makers that your social and new media strategy will help measure and monitor the brand, it will help you communicate, understand and grow your audience base, AND… when executive properly it will improve and solidify the SEO value of that website.

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Search Engine Marketing for .ORGs

17
February
2009

EyeTraffic Media is offering a free webinar to educate .ORGS on search engine marketing.

Stefanie Berliant
Media Coordinator

On February 25, 2009 from 3-4 PM EST, EyeTrafffic Media will host a free informational webinar tailored exclusively to .ORGs and associations. This webinar is the third of a series intended to educate cause-driven organizations on how to successfully apply online marketing strategies. The goal of these sessions is to help associations and non-profits to build stronger relationships with their customers and prospects at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing methods.

Online marketing allows non-profit organizations to attract awareness for their causes and events, and increase both sponsorship and membership.  This webinar will specifically focus on the distinction between Natural Search (SEO) and Paid Search (PPC).  In the presentation we will explain how associations and .ORGs can leverage these two tactics to:

·Drive site traffic
·Stay within a limited a budget
·Gain online signups and donations on a low cost-per-conversion basis

For more information and to register for this event, please visit the link below.

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Tips for Using Viral & Social Networks for Online Marketing

5
August
2008

Strategies to ensure success for social networking campaigns.

Stefanie Berliant
Media Coordinator

In today’s day and age, most companies engage in some form of online marketing. Search engine optimization (SEO),Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns  and media buys are the more established solutions of interactive marketing. However, newer mediums such as viral and social marketing are becoming more prevalent online marketing tactics among companies of all sizes.

Some viral and social marketing practices include blogging and creating profiles on social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.  There are 90 million active users on Facebook, 25 million users on LinkedIn and over 1 million users on Twitter, and over 112.8 million blogs (according to the blog search engine Technorati).  Of these millions of users, individual companies have blogs and a presence on social networking sites as well.

The goal is for companies to use these mediums to increase brand awareness, network, find new business and get better qualified leads. Though these tools companies can spread information about their organization through “word of mouth” and allow a company to interact with its audience on a more personal level. However, while using these tools may be less expensive than other interactive strategies, maintaining these outlets usually requires more time and effort. Below are a few key takeaways from MarketingSherpa to help utilize these new marketing tools. To see more tips, click on the link below.

1. Be selective with online networks. Pick networks that are relevant to you and your company, where you will be able to contribute to the online space.

2. Link to all of your social platforms. If you do choose to have multiple networking sites, make sure you link them to each other. This helps find new clients and contacts, teach them about the business and keep in touch with them over time.

3. Create a backlog to plan ahead. You need to continually maintain the dialogue between your company and your audience to keep them engaged and attract new business. This takes time and if in a rush, the quality of your conversations and blog posts will show.

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Give SEO Its Due Consideration

30
July
2008

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should be a key part of every online marketing strategy. However, the most common mistake that organizations make with regard to SEO is bringing their SEO consultants into the process too late.

George Assimakopoulos
Principal Manager

We have been involved with several enterprise level site redesign efforts where we arrive to discover that the new site plans have been built with no consideration for effective SEO.  The irony is that on many occasions when we try to guide our clients towards a righteous SEO path – their creative teams complain about "compromising the design or usability".

Brandt Dainow, an independent web analytics consultant and the CEO of ThinkMetrics explains it best in his posting at iMedia Connection: "Many companies fail to give SEO its due consideration during a website’s design phase. In fact, many companies don’t give it any thought at all until after a site’s design has been finalized. However, it is during the planning and design processes that SEO considerations are most important and will provide the greatest advantage. The fact is that many companies don’t give SEO any thought at all until after a site’s design has been finalized. However, it is during the planning and design processes that SEO considerations are most important and will provide the greatest advantage."

The reality is that search engines are not required to list every site on the Web. In fact, all a search engine has to do is provide people with a list of 10 reasonably valid results from which to choose. Nevertheless, since we need search engines, it is important to understand that timely SEO planning and implementaion is essential.  As Brandt states, "bringing an SEO expert in after a site is finished is like deciding to do the electrical wiring on a house after you have moved in." By incorporating SEO early into the site design process, you can save time and money later. In addition, your site is likely to achieve listings that it could never achieve if SEO were undertaken after the site was already finished. Design a site for the search engines, and the viewers will follow. Design a site the search engines can’t read, and nobody will ever know it exists.

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Widgets: The New Online Marketing Tool

30
June
2008

The evolution of widgets into powerful online marketing tools.

Stefanie Berliant
Media Coordinator

A recent study by eMarketer predicts that US companies will more than double their spend on widget creation, promotion and distribution from 2007 to 2008.  Marketers are expected to spend about $40 million on web widgets in 2008, up from $15 million in 2007.  A widget is a miniature, portable software application that can be placed on a section of a website, a desktop, or on a mobile device.  Widgets have transformed from meaningless applications on social networks into a legitimate marketing tool. Its viral nature allows companies to increase brand awareness by extending their web presence, acquiring new customers at a minimal cost, driving qualified traffic to targeted websites and leveraging a website’s existing content.

We have not yet seen the full potential of widgets as an online marketing tool until they are able to improve a website’s natural search rankings (Search Engine Optimization).  If widget developers are able to place text links within the code of a widget, the website that the widget promotes should benefit from an increased link count and move up in natural search rankings. When widget creators are able to close this marketing loop, the widget will truly be a powerful online marketing tool.

Web Widget and Application Advertising Spending 2007 and 2008

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Optimizing Video Content for Search Engines

29
September
2007

Until recently, optimizing video content for search engine was never really a concern amongst marketers or webmasters. However, with the launch of Universal Search from Google, we can expect to see more and more video results occupying the search engine

George Assimakopoulos

Principal

Video optimization as part of your search engine optimization efforts can be an effective way to expose audiences to your site who may have otherwise not been familiar with your products or services. The challenge remains in the fact that there are no proven tactics in optimizing video content for better search engine placement. Furthermore, there is no confirmed practice that enables sites with video content to be indexed higher by Google. In fact, most of the video search results that show up in Google are actually clips that were submitted to Google Video or through YouTube (which is now a Google property).   

Nevertheless, here are certain standards to follow for optimizing video content:

– Practice #1: Give your video a Catchy Title – One way to get users to view your video is to give it a catchy title that contains a related key phrase that is relevant to your product, service or brand. Additionally, incorporate your URL inside your video so that it is seen. This is easily done with a watermark image logo.

– Practice #2: Optimize your video for Important Key Phrases – You might want to optimize your video for terms users are likely to be searching for. Consider naming the file name of the video with these keyword terms as well

– Practice #3: Tag Your Videos – tag your videos with key phrases that are reflective of the content

– Practice #4: Remember Inbound Linking Factors – Link to videos using important keywords in anchor text

– Practice #5: Add Descriptive Meta Data – optimize your video for relevant keywords and include a keyword rich description of your video content

After these standards are incorporated – consider the following tactics as additional SEO practices that may support video content optimization:

– Syndicate Your Video by submitting the clips to RSS feeds and directories

– Provide Transcripts of your Videos in standard HTML. Textual content is still a favorite with the search engines. If you want video to rank well, you may need to give the search engines something to index and rank. Surround your videos with on page copy that can be indexed by the search engines

– Make use of a Video Sitemap – For video that is native to your own website, make sure that users and search engine spiders can find your video content. The easiest way to do this is through the use of a video sitemap on your site. Use important keywords in the anchor text links to your videos featured on your video sitemap

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