Moving away from SEO

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How important is SEO to SEM today? Is SEO losing the edge? Are small businesses finally breaking free from the power of SEO and getting recognition still? Are we moving away from the obsession with SEO? Some intriguingly different questions indeed!

SEM rules still

The number of online customers making their purchases is continually on the rise. One click opens the virtual store and shows a range of products and services and all the information needed and another click clinches the deal most satisfying mutually. Today internet marketing is very much in; SEM rules the roost.

Importance of SEO

Until now, SEM blended the free SEO and the PPC to increase the exposure of any website. Search engine marketing campaigns all focussed on search engine optimization with keywords or increasing the pay per click – again on a key-word related ad. And SEO was the favourite all round. SERPs, Meta tags, keywords, keyword-rich contents, SEO keywords and keyword research – these words seem to be resonating in the web writing world. The first advice to any freelance writer is still ‘learn all about SEO.’

A Change is on the way?

Maybe it looks like things are changing, albeit slowly, but steadily. No, no, the SEM is here to stay and keywords and keyword-rich contents are all still the way to go. But maybe a day will come when search engine ranking or search engine optimization will not be the ruling factors to define the success of a website. Google has developed systems which are not SERP controlled and which are giving more attention to small businesses with far better analytics. Now the trend is moving beyond just the search engines and the search is on to find and nurture customers on social media – on networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Importance of Social Networks

Today, social media is gaining more importance and relevance in the search world. Search engines are incorporating media status updates into their search results – kind of a mixture of search and social media! So Digg, Delicious, Facebook and Twitter – where people like to belong to, are gaining importance and status updates on these sites influence the ratings. Already Google and Bing ratings are linked with social media site postings.

How to attract Social Users?

Quality content! Quality content is the only way to go. Make the content attractive enough and there will be enough flies to flock to the honey! Content that gives answers to their search, content that provides solutions, content that pen-pictures the product and content that will stir the consumer’s interest will make the visitor come away satisfied and eager to go back to and recommend to friends. Original and quality content will increase conversion.

Google’s definition of need for quality content is illuminating – “Delivering high quality, informative and well constructed content is what differentiates you from your competition and defines your web presence.”

Adding fresh content will keep the visitors come a visiting to the site. RSS feeds and even videos can be used to keep the content up-to-date. But unique and web-product relevant content should dominate the site. Quality and high-value content will be the major force to sell the products.

Will SEO be one day really obsolete?

Definitely not! Already the algorithms are changing. Blog-driven links and social-media tagging are taken due notice by the search engines. Google is also implementing personalization. Actually a highly efficient SEO never just is counting keywords or their placement. It recognizes the value of good and quality content. Compelling to read and easy-to-find content will truly be the king and SEO will revel in it.

Ways to Improve Your SEO With Content

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Repeatedly, Internet gurus (at credible-content.com we don’t generally believe in such terms) have always stressed the importance of content. Whether in a website or in a blog, content can make or break your search engine optimization (SEO). Readers would not want a blog or a website without contents. Content, no matter what other Internet marketers say is still king.

Below are ways you can improve your SEO with content.

  1. Article Marketing. Article Marketing is the process where you write articles and submit the same to article directories like Ezine Articles, Go Articles or Sooper Articles, to name a few. These articles, aside from being of quality, should have a compelling resource box, where you put your name, who you are or your expertise, and a call to action through a link pointing them to your website or blog. Most article directories allow a maximum of two links, depending on the number of words your article has. Most article directories require a minimum of 300 words. This is also where you could make use of keywords. Most Internet marketers advise on using long tail keywords or Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), to make your keyword not redundant in your articles.
  2. Pillar Content. Despite your Article Marketing process, your blog should have at least five (5) pillar articles. Pillar articles are words coined by famous blogger, Yaro Starak. Later, several bloggers coined words such as flagship content (Chris Garrett) and cornerstone content from Brian Clarke. In his article on pillar content, Yaro defines it as: “A pillar article is usually a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice.” This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good “how-to” lesson (OK, we’re blowing our own horn here, but well, whatthaheck). This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn’t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.
    Pillar content is also one way of creating backlinks (other sites linking to your site) because they find your article compelling and helpful. Thus, search engines will start crawling at your website or blog through those links and, in the long run will gain a good page rank. Search engines also rank websites or blogs with the number of quality links that points to it. This is how they measure the blog or website’s authority. Additionally, always remember to use keywords in your articles as this is also instrumental for search engines finding your contents and of course your sites.
  3. Guest Blog Posting. Writing for other websites or blogs, especially those that have gained authority and/or popularity is one way of gaining good search engine optimization. Your content placed on an authority blog or website will likewise create quality backlinks and links to your site. Not all are given the opportunity to guest post in other popular blogs. Usually, blog owners who already have gained popularity or very good page rank would always qualify their guest contributors.
  4. Fresh Content. Readers of your blog or website will usually like fresh content. Thus, it is necessary for blog or site owners to post a least three (3) quality articles in a week to ensure your readers that they can expect new things from you on a weekly basis. Fresh quality content means more visitors. And more readers mean more traffic. More traffic will definitely be of great help as far as search engine optimization is concerned.
  5. Reader-Centered Content. In general, all contents must be reader-centered. You must always know who the target of your articles is. When writing contents for your site, you must always focus on what would your readers like to read. Always ask yourself whether the article you are writing will help your readers, and if you think they will, are your articles simple enough to be understood by all? Make your articles simple so that they can be understood by readers from myriad backgrounds (or at least from your niche).

    6. There you go – the five basic ways by which your contents can greatly affect your SEO. Without these five basic things, you will have a hard time creating the popularity, the authority and eventually the page rank you would want to achieve. Besides, all bloggers and website owners would want their sites to be search friendly. Would you not want your site to gain the same thing?

Choosing the right keywords for content marketing

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What is content marketing? It is claimed that content drives the Internet. Does it then make content marketing too this powerful? Are right keywords all that essential to successful content marketing? And how can we choose the right keywords for content marketing? So many questions! Come, let us find a few answers.

How different Content Marketing is and the principles of content marketing

As opposed to traditional marketing, content marketing is all about sharing quality information that is relevant and current, with your prospective customers and clients. Whereas the traditional marketing uses interruption techniques, content marketing will gently but firmly hold the consumers’ attention and build brand loyalty. This is done more by educating the customer and letting him/her recognize the advantages of the product/service and go for it with the conviction of right choice. Knowing more about the product/service, trusting and starting to like it will be the way content marketing works.

The idea of creating and sharing content is aimed at rather gentle persuasion, targeting an intelligent and informed audience to let them accept the brand as a thought leader and industry expert. This shared content will grab a potential customer’s attention, make him read it, think about it and decide after learning all about it. Most of the content will aim at solving their problem along with entertaining them and make them feel good all over.

Some of the different forms of content marketing are

  • Custom publishing – Custom media
  • Branded entertainment – Branded content
  • Database marketing
  • Corporate media – Corporate publishing
  • Corporate journalism

What is the importance of keywords in content marketing?

Online information that is concisely and succinctly expressed and worded elegantly and interestingly will be the way content is going to be presented. But how to get the customer know about the content? What will make him/her visit your site? Videos, blogging or PDFs are all great platforms but the most essential will be the right keywords that will drive the traffic towards your content. The keywords should be such that the search engines are able to index and rank your website according to the relevant search terms being used by their users; your website is then rated high in SEO.

Choosing the right keywords for content marketing

Right keywords are those:

  • Words that fit as header tags (HI, H2, H3 etc) to facilitate the search engines to pick them up; especially the H1 tag carries a lot of weight.
  • Words that fit individually as page tags depending on what is on that page.
  • Words that can flow naturally and meaningfully with the content but yet can be repeated for the required density without an obvious put-on effect.
  • Words that can be bolded and italicised where needed fitting with meaningful flowing text.
  • The operative principle is that written text and chosen keywords present a meaningful and naturally flowing text.

Well, it may not be an exaggeration if tomorrow more than 80% of marketing strategy will be via content marketing. Content marketing creates so much credibility and trust with such persuasive authority that there will be no sales resistance left against it.

Why your website content should pre-sell

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Pre-selling assumes that your customers are usually on your website to find answers to their questions or problems, and not to buy. The difference between selling and pre-selling is how you present these answers.

Pre-selling is just the opposite of selling, which is perceived as something that pressurizes you to buy. Pre-selling recommends subtly through one or two links in the informative content, building rapport with the reader and positioning you as the expert. Wouldn’t you be ready to listen if your trusted consultant recommended something to you? And that’s what pre-selling does. Pre-selling works because when people think you’re selling, their defenses go up; but in pre-selling, people are ready to listen.

Just about anyone is capable of doing the hard-sell on a product or service on the Internet. What makes the difference between a consistently successful online business and the ones that are looking for a quick buck boils down to the website’s ‘tone’. Every website speaks to its visitors and when the visitor reads the content, it should create the impression that the website knows what it is talking about.

Depending on how this content is expressed, it can establish you, the website owner as an expert. Rather than publish yards of running text that most visitors on the move are unlikely to read, the content must be presented as informative bite-sized pieces. Obviously no visitor wants to buy without knowing more about the product or service. To reach that fine balance between no information and the overdose, “pre-selling” is the answer.

Around 400-800 words is acceptable for pre-sell content to position you as the expert even as you gently pre-sell your visitors on your product or service. Here are some benefits of pre-selling:

  • Ever wondered why NASCAR, Wimbledon, the Olympics, etc. always start on time? It is because they are pre-sold. When you pre-sell, you set a deadline. On that date, you’ll have your product or service out with no excuses
  • When you pre-sell, your project is already funded. Which means – you don’t have to get all stressed out. What you need to do now is create compelling content and attractive packaging!
  • You get a good look into your customers’ behavior for your product or service. Based on this information, you can tweak and tone before you launch your product/service.

Your next thought is probably about what you can pre-sell – here are some ideas:

  • Books – can be pre-sold long before you write them.
  • Products – obviously
  • Seminars and workshops – you probably know this already. Some marketers pre-sell a series of these ahead.
  • Consulting sessions – where your customer pays you before the event
  • Membership sites – can be pre-sold even before they exist.

Just imagine how motivated you will feel to deliver when your first customer pays you!

How to engage your social media fans and followers

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Social networking (or call them social media) websites are extremely crowded. Although there are hardly 33-40% social networking users who actually use the websites to interact on an ongoing basis, since everybody is talking with everybody and everybody is talking about everything under the sun, to really make an impact, you need to engage your fans and followers on an ongoing basis, so that they remember you; and not only you, but also what business you do.

Here are a few activities you can carry out in order to engage people on social media and networking websites:

Participate in relevant discussions

Using various Twitter and FaceBook search tools you can find out what people are talking about and then participate in the ongoing discussions in a fruitful manner. Agree with them, add your two cents, disagree with them (give reasons), and seed new thoughts. Don’t worry if you don’t have anything constructive to add…just follow the discussion attentively and soon your thought process will be triggered.

Ask questions and offer answers

We remember people who make us think and a question mark normally does. Whenever you ask a question it offers someone an opportunity to show his/her knowledge. Similarly, when you post an answer in response to someone’s question, he/she is surely going to read it and if your answer is impressive, many more people are going to get curious about you, and consequently, you’ll make a mark.

Share your knowledge and wisdom

As you keep working you’ll excel in your field. You have a collection of experiences, opinions and tips that you can easily share with your followers and fans on a regular basis. Remember that “regularity” is the key here. Unless you’re already quite well known, you need to be “usefully visible” on a regular basis if you really want to engage your social networking fans and followers.

Regularly publish new content on your blog or website

It’s good to post links whether they’re from your own website/blog or from other sources, content on your own website brings in direct traffic and it helps people formulate opinion about you. Whether they like your content or not, whether they agree or not, an opinion is very important.

Communicate on their blogs and websites

When people post links to new articles and blog posts on their websites, if possible, leave a comment and let it be known that you are a visitor from the mutual social networking website. Whether people admit it or not, everybody likes it if visitors leave comments and appreciate what you’re doing.

Be helpful within means

Social networking doesn’t always have to be you-scratch-my-back-and-I-scratch-yours; you can help totally unrelated persons without expecting anything in return. For instance, if you know A offers content writing services and B needs someone to write content for his website and they don’t know each other but you do, you can introduce them. If you feel someone has a business link worthy of promotion don’t hesitate to post the link.

Be personal

Your social networking profile mustn’t always be about business. Act like yourself and if possible, use your name instead of your business name. Without getting carried away, show that you are interested in politics, in social causes, in arts, in sciences, or whatever topic interests you. Just don’t overdo it because then a person visiting your timeline at a particular time may not be able to make out what you actually do.

Conclusion

Social media, as the name suggests, is all about being social. In a society we become visible and memorable by doing something that highlights our presence. Of course our contribution must be positive — you’ll prefer to be known as a good-doer and not an evil-doer. Networking works everywhere and politicians, businesspersons and actors spend huge amounts of money to remain visible (and in the reckoning). While talking small strides and not spending much, you can achieve the same using social media and networking.