The challenge for every website owner is to keep their websites updated with quality content catering to all search options. SEO 2012 is all about Content Creativity , Content Excellence and Content Marketing . The main focus is on creating unique content in all forms – images, videos, infographics, text, audio, etc. Google has focused on quality content like never before with their series of Panda Updates in 2011.
Content marketing and social media presence are not the new SEO and are certainly not replacing search, they are supplementing SEO along with all the other on-page and off-page factors on which we have been working on till date. Panda or no Panda content has been king since the first web page was published on the web. It is Google who has become capable in picking quality content in 2012 and hence wants to reward sites with quality content with more visibility.
So, adding regular great content is the key to the right start, but just having great content is not enough, as the search engines are checking the social buzz too. So, this content (the Link) has to be shared on the social media platforms for a good outreach and a viral ripple effect. The conversations around the shared content add the valuable trust and authority factor and the contextual mentions and the replies add to the magnitude of this factor.
Every piece of content in any form and on any platform created by you or shared by you is adding on to the data on the web. This data created and shared by you gets inter-linked and becomes your online identity. The social signals add to the reputation and this online reputation is the lifeline of any online presence. In the real world, “You are what your thoughts are” on the web “You are what You Share and where you share”.
As Tim Berners-Lee (The Man Who Invented The WWW and created the HTTP protocol ) has shared in the video below all this data on the web whether it is government data, enterprise data or social data is inter-linked and has relationships and all these signals are establishing your web presence. The likes, the shares, +1s, etc. are just a medium to quantify these signals .
The statement made by Avinash Kaushik at SES London this year is also stated below gives an indication about the social search impact. [Embedded Tweet]
Social media is not about facebook, twitter etc…it has arch deeper impact than we appreciate right now @avinash #seslondon
— SES Conference (@SESConf) February 21, 2012
SEO is like establishing your business online and whatever factors apply in real life to establish a business are also applicable for online presence.
The SEO just tries to help you to highlight these factors and makes it possible for the search engines to record it in their index to influence better search presence. Just like in real life you need to have an attractive sign board, a good product, a competitive price, good WOM, efficient sales people, etc. which help in improving your business .
Google also tries to find such signals via many platforms and metrics. The social media buzz and the UGC generate your digital WOM, your website content reflects the product details and company ethics, The Time On Site and the bounce rate metrics indicate the interest level of the people in the products, the online sales indicate the acceptance of the product and pricing, etc.
SEO is all about helping you establish your over all web presence in a qualitative way so that each and every foot print of yours on the web gets indexed and your best foot is put forward, for every search made on the web. Though SEO is a subset of online marketing , it is has got its own niche in the whole online marketing scenario.
Whenever we talk or discuss about organic rankings we discuss about how the search engines are improving their algorithms for churning out quality results as per the ranking factors which mainly revolve around the content and other quality factors of the website.
When we discuss about PPC campaigns , conversations and discussions get focused on the bid amount and how the search engines are working on reducing the click fraud rate. This basic difference itself tells us that PPC is pure advertising but SEO is about overall quality web presence and therby getting ranked for quality results as an offshoot benefitting the site and the search engines.
SEO is a service which every website owner will require constantly as the web and as a result SEO are evolving all the time hence every website needs the SEO attention to adapt the site to these changes and keep pace with this evolution. Companies will need to have an in-house SEO team or outsource it to some SEO agency but they cannot ignore SEO.
Whenever we compare SEO to Paid Search or every time we try to rename SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, we are destroying its true identity and existence. SEO as a whole is not facing any identity crisis , it is the people or companies who are selling SEO as a quick option for getting online business and are misleading the business owners are facing a crisis. SEO today has evolved and has an additional dimension of social signals but its true essence still remains the same of making your web presence qualitative and helping you put the best foot forward. Good SEO focuses on qualitative over all web presence which is indexable and thereby high rankings and returns and not vice-versa.
Author Bio: Bharati Ahuja | WebPro Technologies | @webprotech | +Bharati Ahuja is founder WebPro Technologies India, SEO Trainer and Speaker, Web Entrepreneur, Blog Writer, Internet Marketing Consultant.
