SEO Consult - Seo Techniques

Posts Tagged ‘seo techniques’

Are you using your SMO fully?

Sunday, November 21st, 2010

Many businesses take the decision to launch a social media campaign alongside their search engine optimisation campaign. Social media can be a huge help when you’re trying to further your online campaign, in many ways. This raises the question: are these businesses using their social media optimisation fully?

It can be easy to become blinkered when developing off-page SEO techniques. Because your main aim is naturally to develop links, you may be overlooking some of the other benefits open to your business. Such is often the case with social media optimisation. Social media optimisation, sometimes known as SMO, is not only a way to seed links, but to develop relationships, further your online reputation and can even be used as a media avenue.

Here are a few of the ways your social media campaign should be benefiting both your business and your SEO:

Coverage. Gaining coverage with Google using your social media profile is something that is intrinsically linked to your search engine optimisation. The basic idea is to occupy all the top spots for your brand keywords, and your main keywords wherever you can. This allows you to effectively push your competition out of the way. Full coverage cannot be achieved without careful SEO planning for your social media campaign.
Reputation management. It can be a good idea to include reputation management in your search engine optimisation strategy. This isn’t so much because it benefits your SEO, although it does, but rather because reputation management slots in very neatly to an SEO campaign. It slots in even more neatly to SMO.

Social media sites can be powerful tools for reputation management because of their direct connection to your target users. In a crisis, your Facebook or Twitter account can allow you to respond swiftly and effectively. Your social media campaign can also allow you to develop your reputation proactively, putting you in a better position should a crisis occur.

Brand management. Brand management is closely linked to reputation management. Using your social media connections, it is possible to monitor the responses to your brand very closely. The search functions and popular tags will show you when people are talking about your brand and other keywords.

Monitoring your brand in the social media can be a good idea even if you’re not participating. Talk to us at SEO Consult Australia about using the social media to help your SEO research.

Customer service. This should really be an obvious one. Social media sites are an ideal place to get closer to your customers. This presents not only an opportunity, but sometimes a responsibility to respond. Some businesses have found that customers are bringing their concerns and comments through social media, so it’s important to be prepared to deal with them.
As a press avenue. This is possibly one of the more valuable uses of SMO. Once you’ve established your campaign, your social media profiles can be used as media avenues for press releases and product launches. Many businesses have been using SMO in this way to great effect.

Tags: Keywords, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, SEO Consult, seo techniques, social media
Posted in Social Media SEO | Comments Off

10 things seasoned SEOs should know

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

SEO pros get into habits, just like the experts in any other field. The trouble with habits is that they can sometimes be detrimental to good working practises. Here are ten of the things every seasoned search engine optimisation professional usually keeps in mind:

Every site is unique. Even search engine optimisation experts who have been in the field since the start are surprised by the new sites they encounter. SEO requires a clean slate for every site. Cookie-cutter solutions don’t tend to work very well.
Keep moving. New SEO techniques are invented every day. It’s important to keep up with the Joneses with optimisation. This means looking at what your competitors are doing, and checking back in every few months.
Stick to the white. White-hat SEO is really the only way forward in the long term. Black-hat techniques tend to fail after a very short time. If you have any confusion about white-hat versus black-hat SEO, you can talk to our experts at SEO Consult Australia.
Know the dark side. Although the techniques you use should be white-hat, it’s important to know what black-hat SEO is. This helps to avoid current techniques, and to predict which techniques are likely to go to the dark side eventually.
Keep an eye on the grey. The grey area of SEO shifts constantly. Something that was formerly white-hat might move through grey and then firmly into black-hat SEO. Keeping an eye on the grey area can help you to spot underused techniques or avoid bad ones.
Not everything is about Google. As the internet develops, it’s becoming apparent that Google’s supremacy isn’t going to last forever. Social media sites are rising in influence for search functions. Keep an eye out for changes.
…Most of it is about Google, though. Things haven’t changed yet. Unless you’ve determined that your target users come from elsewhere, concentrate on Google.
Share and share alike. Some of the best innovations in optimisation have come through SEO experts freely sharing their expertise. With so much freely available information, it’s almost a crime not to tap into the knowledge pools of the industry. Subscribe to a couple of reliable newsletters or join an SEO forum to keep up to date.
Get out there and build relationships. The optimisation industry knows the value of relationships. Even though it’s an incredibly competitive field, SEO pros are constantly making friends and helping each other out. This is because sites cannot survive by themselves. The average site owner would do well to learn from the example.
Nothing is forever. SEO is an incredibly changeable field. This is a reflection of the net itself, which changes all the time. This is one of the reasons a smart site owner will re-evaluate their SEO plan every now and then. Techniques flow in and out of style, and are sometimes banned. It’s important to go back to your pages every six months or so and check on your techniques.