Can the Launch of Google Buzz Broaden the Horizons of Social Media Optimisation?

Google has recently launched its ‘Buzz’ social networking platform that it hopes will rival established giants such as Facebook and Twitter. We all know the magnitude of Google, so could its own network mean a new dawn for SEO? In a word - maybe. Not the most conclusive answer I know, but until a few technical issues are addressed it is hard to know if it will add anything of note to the industry.

Google Buzz will enable that crucial link-building though, including YouTube, and also allows users to connect feeds from Twitter and Flickr as well. Everything from images, videos, links, ‘Tweets’ and blog content can be sourced from these other applications quickly and easily. In this sense, search engine optimisation can be undertaken, as material will be indexed by Google.

As I noted in a previous blog regarding Google’s Social Search function, until the organisation secures some sort of link-up with Facebook then their social media aspirations are unlikely to prosper. This is widely-regarded as the web’s largest community network, and SEO organisations are becoming increasingly aware of the possibilities that it provides.

As with the Social Search, users will have to be logged into a Gmail account to participate with Buzz. While Gmail is the third most popular email service on the planet with an estimated 177 million users, it still lags behind Hotmail and Yahoo in popularity, which will naturally have an impact on the amount of traffic that Buzz will generate. But is likely that many individuals will sign up to a Gmail account if Buzz does ‘catch on’ in much the same way as Facebook and MySpace previously have.

What is unique about Google Buzz is that it offers a basic email function alongside the ability to consolidate social content in one place. This is a clear advantage over Facebook and ultimately Hotmail, and something that Google will look to build-on.

While it is unlikely that Buzz will dethrone Facebook in the near distant future, it is an important step in keeping all of the social networks on their toes and ensure that they keep creating new technologies and features that can be exploited to maximum effect by the SEO world.

Mixed media search isn’t a new thing, Google’s Universal Search has been around for ages, it’s just now that people are starting to realise that you need to incorporate more than just web based search into your SEO campaigns.

What does this mean?

It means that your brand needs to be incorporating more than just text based search into its SEO campaign. You should ensure that your brand performs in all the different strands of search results available today. These include, video, image, news, and more, including the newest; real time search.

Larry Cornett of Yahoo simply puts it this way: “Am I really being represented the way I want to be in every one of these search experiences?”

Video for SEO

Video is going to play a bigger and bigger role online. Why? Because it’s interactive, it can be interesting and informative as well as entertaining and fun all at the same time. And that’s what people want. Of course you must optimise your videos, otherwise they will get lost amongst the thousands of competing videos.

You can say a lot with video. You can have a video presenter on your homepage to introduce your company. This is great for visitors as it means they don’t have to read everything written on your site (though don’t remove the words - that’s all Google can consume at present) to understand what services your company provides.

Maybe you could have a video to demonstrate your products? This, again is very useful to your end user, they can see exactly what it is you are offering. They can see how your products work, and more importantly how they can benefit from what it is that you are providing.

Your videos must be optimised, or you’ll lose the benefit of having them in the first place. You will need to make sure that our videos appear in Google’s video search. This is important for your brand, as you want your videos to appear when someone searches for your brand. Make sure you choose an SEO company that has experience in video optimisation because there are subtle differences in the approach to video SEO.

Ensure Articles And Press Releases Gain Maximum Exposure With Good Headline Choice.

The headline is arguably the most important element in any form of copywriting, whether for an online audience, magazine or a newspaper. The reason why the headline is so important is that it helps the reader to decide, should I read this or shouldn’t I?

For search engine optimisation, consultants use varying techniques to ensure that their website’s appear in the top positions of search engine such as; Google, Yahoo and Bing. These techniques include article and press release writing and distribution. Not only does this generate back links and drive traffic to the website, but it also acts as a key brand building exercise.

However, to ensure that these articles and press releases are accessible to potential readers, SEO consultants need to place them in places with high levels of exposure and include headlines that will draw the reader in. They also need to think carefully about what the website’s customer is most likely to search for.

This is even more poignant due to the increasing use of social networking and bookmarking websites such as; Twitter, Facebook, Digg and Delicious.

Taking Twitter as an example; at just the push of a button users can spread a link to one of their articles or press releases to hundreds or even thousands of ‘followers,’ which can then be ‘re-tweeted’ numerous times. Essentially, the article or press release could eventually reach huge numbers of Twitter users.

Generally, Twitter users will include both the link to the post and the headline in their tweet. To stress the importance of the headline, in order for followers to re-tweet or even read the post it is essential that the headline draws them in and utilises popular key phrases.

Dan Zarrella from Copyblogger recently posted a blog, which included some of the most and least re-tweetable phrases. Here are some examples of how these could be included in a headline;

More likely to be re-tweeted-

• Take a look at this great new blog post about social media, please retweet!

Least likely to be re-tweeted-

• I’m really tired, going to bed, night!

As the web becomes more competitive than ever, it is really important that those practising search engine optimisation learn what Internet users are most likely to search for, optimising headlines is the first step towards gaining maximum exposure for articles and press releases.

I was going to write an article about optimising your Google Maps listing, but a recent video on WebProNews alerted me to something called hCard Microformats. This is something I’d never heard of before, and feeling a little daft for not knowing something I asked around the office, and it seems I wasn’t the only one living in ignorance.

So what is hCard Microformat?

Basically hCard Microformat is a way of coding contact information to make it accessible for other parsing tools to extract the information. In other words, with hCard microformatting your web browser can easily recognise and then extract this information to transfer into your address book, or even mobile telephone. How useful is that?

There is some evidence that Google recognises hCard microformatting when crawling websites, though this has never been confirmed. However, we do know that in 2007, Google Maps started to use the technology, to enable you to export a Google Maps search result to your address book.

Why use hCard Microformat?

There are many reasons why you should be using this technology. It increases usability, which should never be ignored. In my opinion, if it makes contacting a business or company easier for the end user then it should be used, regardless of whether it makes any difference to your Google listings.

But, it could make a difference to your Google Maps listing, inasmuch as an hCard can tell Google without any ambiguity that this address is the exact address of your business.

So, what code do I need?

Well, this is the tricky part. The code is quite complicated (well, for me anyhow…) which is why I am so grateful that someone much cleverer than me has built an hCard Creator. How easy is that? The one thing to remember is that hCards require the name property, so you will have to change things slightly.

I did it for Creare Communications:

<div id=”" class=”vcard”>
<a class=”url fn org” href=”http://www.crearecommunications.co.uk/”>Creare Communications</a>
<div class=”adr”>
<div class=”street-address”>16a Church Street</div>
<span class=”locality”>Lutterworth</span>,
<span class=”region”>Leicestershire</span>,
<span class=”postal-code”>LE17 4AT</span>
<span class=”country-name”>UK</span>
</div>
<div class=”tel”>0116 250 5455</div>
</div>

Creating this output:

Simples…

To make all this truly useful you can download Ooomph: A Microformats Toolkit from Mix Online.

This means that you don’t have to rely on the end user having add-ons installed on their browser. Follow the instructions for downloading the Source Code, and away you go.

For more information about hCard Microformatting visit microformats.org.

Earlier this year it was reported that Bing and Yahoo will be forging a deal sometime in the future to integrate their search facility. With this in mind it’s important to realise that although Google is going to stick around as the number one search engine, but we must pay more attention to Bing’s search if we are to get the most out of or SEO campaigns in the future.

On Web Pro News yesterday Rick DeJarnette of Bing Webmaster Center has shared some link building ‘rules’. These ‘rules’ read a lot like Google’s own, as one blog commenter already pointed out.

Some Do’s of Link Building for Bing

1. Develop your site as a business brand and brand it consistently
2. Find relevant industry experts, product reviewers, bloggers, and media folk, and make sure they’re aware of your site/content
3. Publish concise, informative press releases online
4. Publish expert articles to online article directories
5. Participate in relevant conversations on blogs/forums, referring back to your site’s content when applicable
6. Use social networks to connect to industry influencers (make sure you have links to your site in your profiles)
7. Create an email newsletter with notifications of new content
8. Launch a blog/forum on your site
9. Participate in relevant industry associations and especially in their online forums
10. Strive to become a trusted expert voice for your industry, while promoting your site

Do you do all the ‘Do’s’? I think it’s important to take note of this list, as the variety of links you will get by doing all of this is what’s important here. Without doing numbers 1 – 9 you have no chance of becoming “a trusted expert voice for your industry”. You must participate in your area of expertise, because if you don’t somebody else will.

Some Do Not’s of link building for Bing

This list is so similar to Google’s list of bad behaviour, that I’m almost certain that if you read this SEO blog, you don’t do any of this, right? But I will break each point down for SEO novices.

1. The number of inbound links suddenly increases by orders of magnitude in a short period of time
   To a search engine that relies on inbound links this is an important point. Links gained by honest means should increase gradually. A sudden increase of links isn’t necessarily going to get you banned, but it may trigger a reaction for the search engines to pay attention to your site and if you have anything slightly ‘black hat’ on your there it will be noticed.
2. Many inbound links coming from irrelevant blog comments and/or from unrelated sites
   Ah, blog comment spam. It’s not to say you shouldn’t blog comment, as this is a natural thing for someone who is a “trusted expert voice for your industry”. But, just don’t do a search for follow blogs and comment on blogs about knitting if your site is about plumbing. Make sure that you comment in relevant places.
3. Using hidden links in your pages
   Surely nobody does this anymore? I’m surprised that this even made it on the list, not that I agree with it, but just that it astounds me that such an old-fashioned black hat technique is still considered important enough for Bing to include it in their “Do Not” list!
4. Receiving inbound links from paid link farms, link exchanges, or known “bad neighborhoods” on the Web
   Again, I’m surprised that this made the list, for the same reasons expressed above. I guess there are a lot of green horns’ about who go right ahead trying to spam search engines without realising they are doing bad. Or they are just idiots.
5. Linking out to known web spam sites
   This one is a little bit trickier to determine. How does one work out what’s a spam site and what’s not? Use your common sense here, if you think it’s a spammy site, it probably is. Only ever link out to sites that are relevant, with information that your visitors will find useful.

Take Away

Your own site should have good, useful relevant content. This does several things; first of all it’s great for your visitors. With great content you are far more likely to get what you want from them, whether it’s a call to your sales department or to download an ebook, if you provide something useful and fulfil a need you will be rewarded.

Great content also gives other webmasters something to link to. Great content allows you to become an ‘expert’ in your industry. I personally think the secret of success online is content, after all ‘content is king…’

How Keywords Are Used For Search Engine Optimisation

Reading through any search engine optimisation guide you will be sure to see plenty of information focussing upon choosing the correct keywords for your company.

In the industry, picking keywords that reflect what internet users are likely to type into search engines such as Google is considered as somewhat of a fine art, one that can have a significant effect upon the performance of your website.

Search engine optimisation is both an internal and external activity. Website designers optimise the website whilst SEO consultants and copywriters focus upon offsite optimisation by link building, blogging and distributing articles and press releases to industry specific websites.

So why are keywords so important and what are they used for?

Website designers use keywords to optimise a website, they incorporate them into page titles, meta tags and website content. Consequently, when search engine robots crawl the site, they pick up on these phrases, associating them with the website and business. The main aim of on-site optimisation is to ensure that when customer’s type in a search term related to the business, their website will be positioned at the top of the search engine listings.

Articles, press releases and blog posts are an ideal way to get exposure for a business, if they include their selected keywords they can be a considerable SEO tool. Using keywords to link to a business’s website, SEO consultants and copywriters could not only increase the number of back-links to a site but they could potentially increase the traffic to the site.

Another technique that is used by consultants is link building, adding links which include keywords to well-known directories can enhance the sites SEO efforts and the traffic to the site could be increased.

There are a variety of sources that can be used when choosing keywords, Google even have a ‘wonder wheel’ function in their organic search that enables designers and SEO consultants to input any keyword and find related phrases that Internet users are likely to search for.

Whatever SEO techniques you choose to use, it is important to note that for any of them to have a chance of enabling your website to perform in the search engines, it is important that the correct keywords are chosen initially.

Yesterday Matt Cutts announced on his blog that the long awaited roll out of caffeine will happen shortly. They will begin by going live at one data centre (or ‘center’ if you’re across the pond!) only, and the full roll out will be after ‘the holidays’ (which I take to mean after Christmas).

Google have been kind enough to wait until after the busiest time of the year for many businesses. This makes me think that the search experience will change more than Matt Cutts lets on. He says “Most searchers wouldn’t immediately notice any changes with Caffeine, but going slowly not only gives us time to collect feedback and improve, but will also minimize the stress on webmasters during the holidays.”

So, how can you make sure your listings aren’t going to be a casualty of this roll out?

Well, I would say, go back to basics, make sure the coding of your site is clean, lean and, well… mean. Make sure you offer useful, relevant copy to your potential visitors. Give something back to your online community by participating in social media and social networking, use forums to benefit others (not spam them), even start a blog if you haven’t already.

Unfortunately Google weren’t quite kind enough to leave the caffeine sandbox live so we have no way of testing if any alterations we’ve made to sites in preparation for this roll out have been effective. Like everything else in SEO, it’s just going to have to be a waiting game.

For The Best SERPs, Once Just Isn’t Enough

Having an online presence as a business is a crucial requirement. What is even more important is ensuring that your online presence is visible to those who need to see it – your customers. Whilst existing customers may be aware of the exact location of your site, new customers need to be able to find it easily when searching for relevant services – and this is where SEO comes in.

However, one problem that is occurring more and more is having businesses who want SEO calling up and asking for their website to be optimised for the search engines, with no understanding of the fact that successful SEO is often a long term organic process. This is a common misconception, but one that must be addressed nonetheless. Your SEO cannot be just a one off – and if anyone tells you they can get great results that way, chances are they’re lying.

You can have a website designed to be ‘SEO Friendly’ – so the architecture of your site is as easy as possible for search engines to read. But this in no way ensures good listings. For this, an ongoing process of link building, adding fresh content frequently and a strategic social media plan is necessary. Search engine algorithms evolve over time – mutating very slightly on a regular basis so as to be able to provide the best possible results for users. If your site is a static entity, that is only updated that one time when purchased and built, it has no way of moving with the search engines to ensure high listings are achieved and remain consistent.

To get the best for your investment it’s wise to choose a package tailor made to your needs and your budget and commit yourself to a dedicated SEO campaign. Often with the most competitive key phrases, the results will not be obvious for 3 to 6 months, sometimes even longer. To see true search success – you have to be in for the long term. When your listings continue to rise, your site holds increasing authority, and as a result of this you’re seeing a massive increase in enquiries and purchases, the true benefits of SEO will become evident.

How Can E-mail Marketing Help Towards Search Engine Optimisation?

Alongside general Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques, you may have noticed that we have been explaining some of the benefits and techniques used in the old-school method of reaching potential clients, e-mail marketing.

In one of our latest blog posts we explained how to carefully craft an e-mail to attract a target audience, in the right way. Today, we are going to explain some of the benefits of e-mail marketing for an SEO campaign, plus how you could spread the word to the masses.

E-mail marketing is a tried and tested method that businesses the world over have been using for years, to contact potential and existing customers. What these businesses may not be aware of, is that e-mail marketing could significantly enhance your SEO campaign.

One of the main techniques used by SEO consultants to get their websites ranking in the search engines is link building; there are various ways that consultants can go about this for example, through articles, press releases and blogging.

By including links within your newsletters that are archived on your site, it will strengthen any internal Search Engine Optimisation, by adding keyword rich content and links to other pages of your website.

All web optimisers know the importance of original content; search engines such as Google favour websites that are regularly updated with fresh, original content. This offers another opportunity to utilise your newsletter, by archiving regularly on your website you will automatically be adding fresh content.

Of course we mustn’t lose sight of the main purpose of an e-mail marketing campaign, which is to communicate with existing and potential customers. Reaching potential customers does not have stop with the contacts on your e-mail list; existing customers that are satisfied with your service are often more than happy to refer you to their friends, and similarly if your newsletter is worth reading potential customers may send it to their contacts too.

This often results in your newsletter being forwarded to two or three more people, but there could be a way for you to target the masses.

Anyone that has read an article or blog post online will be familiar with the ‘share to social’ button, the one with the Twitter, Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon icons. Social bookmarking and networking is a popular tool used by SEO consultants and general web users. Adding a ‘share to social’ tab to your e-mail may encourage readers to share your newsletter, potentially to hundreds or even thousands of people.

If you are considering running an e-mail marketing campaign and want to harness it to it’s true potential, consider the SEO benefits that it could offer and why not add a ‘share to social’ section, to see how the traffic to your website could increase.

The SEO industry is largely unregulated, which makes for a mixed bag of the services you may receive for your money. Many companies and firms promise page one listings with timescales that in my experience are unattainable by honest means. Many of these firms just set up PPC campaigns, which would be fine if they were up front about this but many of our customers have reported that these companies are not honest about the methods they use.

So, what should you look for in an SEO company if you are thinking of employing them?

1. Choose a company based on their abilities to achieve lasting results for you.
2. Don’t believe that they can manage to get your site listed on page 1 in less than three months. This is almost impossible.
3. Check their own listings – can they do what they say they can?
4. Will they make you sign a yearly contract? – As SEO cannot be guaranteed they shouldn’t tie you in to a year of services that they may not be able to deliver.
5. Don’t believe them if they say that they ‘have a special relationship with Google’ – nobody does! Google wouldn’t be as successful at what they do if they sold out in this way!
6. And finally, Check that they are promising you organic SEO and not PPC advertising.
   

Can they do it for themselves? They should be optimising their own website for the keywords: “Search Engine Optimisation”, “SEO”, and the American spelling: “Search Engine Optimization” at the very least. Where they are on Google for the main keywords is most important. This shows how good they are at their job. And remember, if they can’t do it for themselves then how can you expect them to do it for you?

You may find that the company of your choice also does Web Design, this is often the case as these two industries are so tightly intertwined, indeed I am of the opinion that you shouldn’t attempt one without the other – you need basic knowledge in coding to implement a good SEO campaign, and you shouldn’t be building websites if you don’t know how to give them at least a fighting chance in the search engines. Check the listings for “Web Design”. This is one of the most competitive keywords around, so if your SEO company is on the first page for this keyword then they really are very good at what they do and should be able to achieve similar results for you.

The Creare Group have recently released a fun music video with the release of “The SEO Song“. The purpose of this release is to raise awareness of the problems encountered by many small and medium sized businesses - The Backbone of our Economy - businesses who face an uncertain future and may be taken in by unscrupulous SEO companies. Please help us to spread this important message!