On Tuesday WebProNews reported that Facebook had been granted a search based patent. Although they applied for the patent back in 2004, good planning probably.

Facebook is no longer, and hasn’t been for a while, a place for university students to chat and share photos, it’s become a society. A mini culture that, not only groups of friends join but businesses and brands. If it continues to constantly attract companies to its Pages section then Facebook will have a lot of search authority.

We’ve been talking about Facebook and its SEO potential quite a bit over the last few months and I don’t know if I’m in the minority but I am not a massive fan of Facebook. I find it annoying, frustrating and not that intuitive. I don’t think by becoming a search engine it would improve or make me want to use it more.

I think the people that use Google, Yahoo and Bing are of a broader demographic than the people that use Facebook. If a receptionist needs to book a hotel for their boss in a Birmingham are they going to log into Facebook and have a look through there or are they more likely to do a quick search in Google/Yahoo/Bing? The search engine of course, this is a fact*.

So although I think Facebook would have potential as a search engine I don’t think it could ever steal Google’s crown. It could steal the younger internet users who are attached to their accounts but never take the SEO kingdom.

*Hypothetical fact

Increase Your Traffic with Long Tail SEO

It is important when working on your SEO that you include the long-tail method of SEO into your strategy and not just focus all your attention on the home page keywords. This is a common mistake that many people fall into when working to get their website to the top positions in google.

Research has identified that for an average site that is optimised with the long tail method as well as homepage keywords (via blogs and articles for example), the home page draws in less than half of the traffic. This is because the site is being found through other keyword variations which Google are relating to the site.

The rest of the website then, is responsible for more than half of the entry to the site so its important that these pages are optimised too, so they can maximise the traffic that you receive to your site. If this is completed correctly then your website’s high ranking presence across the search engines will be maximised and will improve the level of visitors to your site.

The long tail method of SEO involves you taking your main keywords and using a keyword tool, you would then search that keyword and discover the variations or long tail versions that contain your keyword that people do type into to Google to find the service or product you are offering. An example of this is if your keyword was “marquees” you would find in your keyword tool that people type in “wedding marquees for hire” a longer version that is more specific and less competitive. If optimised correctly this will most likely rank highly. People who do search these long tail terms know more what they want and are more likely to convert to sales.

Using these long tail versions of your keywords as new pages of content within your site will open your potential visitors’ scope for finding you in Google much wider. By using these long-tailed versions of your keywords as blog titles and article titles and optimising each of these new pages with good keyword distribution, meta tags, alt tags and links etc your site will most likely perform on page 1 for these keywords much easier as the competitiveness is very low for most long tail terms.

Getting the maximum volume of traffic to your site is a very important part of your internet marketing campaign and even though conversions are important to your website, without visits there will be no conversions!

After the main website is built using the best SEO techniques and you have added extra keywords to your other pages you can then, using these main keywords periodically, add content to your site via the articles or blogs as mentioned before.

Gearing all of your additional content to everything around these keywords will bring a variation of content of the main subject from your website enabling you to capture the interest of potential customers in many different sometimes more informal methods. As these pages account for much of the entry to your website and they contain you main keyword anyway then you are opening the umbrella of opportunity for your websites visitors much wider which can only enhance the benefits to your SEO.

The Journey For SEO Content

So the search has begun for the next Leona, Alexandra or Steve Brookstein (tell you what, we’ll forget about him, everyone else has) in this year’s X Factor. By Christmas there will be a new name battling for the number one spot; however currently we find ourselves viewing some of the best and worst talent this wonderful country of ours has to offer in the audition stages. In many ways a successful SEO article marketing campaign is like the road to the final of the X Factor and it all begins at the audition stage:

Round One- First Audition

Testing the water with a first song, or first article in our case is where the process starts. It is important you have chosen the right song, or keywords in the SEO world (can you see where we are going with this now?) because if you get this part wrong the initial impact will be minimal. You need to have the right keywords to grab the customer, whilst ensuring they are not overused and you have developed an enjoyable article to read them in (similar to making sure you nail the chorus of your song but are still able to sing the verses around it). Immediately grabbing the attention of your audience and gaining the approval of your client, (the judges), you will be sure to move on to Round Two.

Round Two- Boot Camp

Next up is Boot Camp and you need to improve the performance of your article once more. This is the stage where you need to make your writing voice, stand out from the rest. Adding improved links, (similar to adding that extra 10% to your voice as Simon Cowell so often says), is going to pull in more and more traffic to your client’s site and make you even more noticeable in the Search Engine environment. You’re starting to become a contender at this stage but you need to ensure you are still doing the correct basics in your article writing to move on to Round Three.

Round Three- Judges’ Houses

The numbers have been whittled down by this stage and you’re just one step away from the live shows. Your writing has got you to this stage and you are beginning to reap the rewards of all your hard work. The future is looking brighter as the SEO campaign is now in full swing and your writing is helping your client’s website to climb the page ranks. It is important though that you take nothing for granted and don’t start overloading your articles with links as they could be seen as spam and not taken seriously in the competition. The writing is intense at this stage and you have to perform more than you ever have before and make sure you are making the biggest impression on your own Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh or Cheryl Cole.

Round Four- The Live Shows

Congratulations, your articles have helped to get the company’s website onto the first page of Google. Now is the time where the real battle begins as you have to get past a number of other competitors to reach the top. As your articles continue to be written each week you are continuing to impress the judges and are starting to get the company recognised. Each week your work is helping move the company up the rankings until you get to the final three. It takes that extra push with some great titles and exciting articles (thumping power ballads) before you can be declared as Page Rank One or SEO X Factor Champion 2010.

The Journey Goes On….

So that was the Article Marketing journey your content takes in order for it to reach the top spot. The hard work does not stop there though as you have to continually produce exciting and informative articles to keep the traffic coming into your clients’ website to maintain the number one spot that everyone is fighting for. Good luck for the future and just one final point, (note to Simon Cowell) please don’t release ‘Unchained Melody’ again because we’ve all had enough of it now.

Over at WebProNews the ever delightful Chris Crum has an article reporting July’s search market statistics (for the good ‘ol US of A).

No surprise; Google is still top dog, Bing is making waves and Yahoo has been losing ground over the last year (a nice selection of metaphors).

One interesting stat The Crumster picked out was that searches in America are down from 10.5 billion to 8.8 billion.

This stat is probably linked to the rise and rise of smartphones and the popularity of apps.

I wonder if the recession has made any difference, people will have less disposable cash therefore being reluctant to buy/do things, though surely people use the internet to look for deals…hmmm. Sorry, wasn’t very conclusive there was I?

Google’s been expanding as a brand, Bing’s been trying hard to increase market share, there haven’t been any acts of debauchery linked to any of the major search engines (though there was that whole Google Street View thing); after that high level of analysis I guess that leaves us with smartphones and apps.

I think the Nielsen figures may be a bit flawed. People with smartphones have them by their side all day, they have the internet with them all day. If they have a question, if they want to find out something important (like; Dany N’Guessan goals) they can do that within about 10 secs. So surely these users will make use of search engines, what else will they be using their smartphones for? Making phone calls? No.

If searches had been in decline for the past year I don’t think SEO would be doing as well as it is.

Does this information bring up another point, will there come a time where someone develops a search engine especially for smartphones? At the moment there are sites which have mobile versions, in the future, will we have  Google SERPs that take smartphones screen size, chubby fingers and the fact you’re probably making the search in a bar, trying to prove a friend wrong, into account?

That’s Good.Clear.Search.Engine Results By The Way

You may have noticed that everyone seems to be on edge these last few weeks. Schools across the UK have been handing out pupil’s futures within tiny brown envelopes. AS and A Level results were being celebrated (or commiserated) this time last week and now many school leavers have received a similar fate with their GCSE results.
Yet, everyday businesses feel the same fear or rejoice when they log online; they find out their very own GCSE results each time they type G.O.O.G.L.E into the URL bar. Sometimes it is good news, sometimes it’s bad and goes to prove that exams are most definitely not getting easier!

To ensure you don’t have the anxiety that many youths across the country have felt these past two weeks, I’ve put together a list of revision notes for you all to abide by which will ensure your website is an A*-C grade every time

Don’t Cram:

I think many of us have done this at some point in our lives and have reaped the disappointment that result from doing so. You may well want to watch the final of Big Brother but are any of those contestants really going to help your search engine listings?

No.

Give yourself the time to link build properly. Don’t turn to keyword stuffing in every article you write, and most definitely do not look for ways to cut corners. The only way you’ll get the rewards is to put the hard work in yourself (yes I am sounding like your Mother) and that way you will find it easier to maintain your listings in times to come.

Revise in Bite Size chunks:

It can be tiring looking over the same thing again and again and sometimes a fresh pair of eyes makes the answer pop out from the page. Don’t force your website to perform; take a step back and work on getting links built properly within bite size sessions over a series of weeks.

Avoid the obvious black hat techniques such as link building farms but do the work small and often yourself instead. SEO is a time consuming task and that means you don’t have to do it all in one day. Take the time to research each stage that you need to complete and you’ll absorb much more information that way.

Organise Revision Sessions:

It is hard to move with the times, especially within SEO. Social Media is an ever changing outlet and with trends always evolving it is impossible to find out on your own what you need to be doing. With this in mind, speak to other developers, consultants and experts. They are all in the same boat and hoping to achieve the same goal.

Ask for help and research via blogs and other media outlets for advice and inspiration. We learn and discover through others’ mistakes; so use the tools that are out there and get together with experts in your industry to help progress further.

Don’t Cheat!

Make your work your own and remember what your elders say; ‘Cheaters Never Prosper’.

It is too easy within the world of technology to get information from others online. Relying on people to do the hard work for you means they can also undo it and the Search Engine judicators will most certainly find out and penalise you.

With so many places to turn to for help there is no longer a need to practise poor internet marketing techniques and those that offer such services are hoping you fail; they are passing you the wrong answers.

As tempting as it may be to look over your neighbours shoulder (even if it to just check you’ve got the answer correct) you will be caught. Search Engines have eyes in the back of their head and any wrong doing and you and your website will be punished.

There is no such thing as getting something for nothing, and for a website to perform you need to be committed to getting it there. For good, clear, search engine results, following these tips and the hard work will be done.

If you are happy for your website to remain at a D grade, then put down the books and turn on the TV, but for those who want to succeed within SEO and get a website to the top spot, revise, revise and revise some more.