Here are some items to be aware of coming into 2013 to consider for your SEO campaigns. Some of them are your typical topics but with the changes we’ve seen in Google algorithms like Penguin and Panda there’s a couple of areas that have more of an impact on SEO that before.
Google Authorship
Content creation will be one of the most influential ways to increase your page rank. Start of by claiming your content and personal Google+ profile so you can be associated as the author. Google+ has been pushed across their products and will most likely show preference to recommended (more Google+’s) links in the future.
Google Authorship markup is very helpful in providing the best results for users. The more +’s a user’s link get the better the link shows up in results as top result. It also gives credit to that content creator and improves their connections on Google+.
Get a Twitter Profile
If your customers are on Twitter it wouldn’t be a bad idea to interact with them on Twitter. You can promote daily deals, updates, events, and new products or services. Twitter can be a great platform to let users share your links and it can increase your SEO campaign significantly. For the cost of a Twitter account (free) the potential audience is outstanding. Not to mention if your competition is doing it you’re missing out on your share of that target market.
Make Your Content Work Across Multiple Platforms
Convert your traditional media documents or files into digital and share them online. Post PDF’s of posters or ads you are running. If you have a sales coupon post it on your website and social media. If you have a radio ad use that file and put it into a video or like the audio for a Facebook post. PDF files can be placed on slideshare.com or scribd.com for customers to download and share. Create DIY YouTube videos with instructions you give out in your store. You can also use any of your content as a way to get customers to sign up for emails, contact information, likes, or shares.
Re-using content across multiple platforms lets you not recreate the wheel but giving you a chance to blend traditional marketing with online marketing. It also give your online audience a better idea of how you interact off-line and give your company more engagement avenues.
WordPress Websites
WordPress will be a largely used tool for small business in 2013. The self hosted site allows you to alter many things HTML or PHP doesn’t let you. They can offer mobile websites, responsive design, E-Commerce Sites, Search Engine Optimized Websites, and much much more. WordPress is free to use and allows a high level of customization. The site does a great job of letting users manage their own content without knowing how to code.
Link Diversification
Links still matter no matter where they are and even after Panda & Penguin updates everyone still agrees that a back-link helps search engines rank a website for a term. What is more important now is that do not rely on one or two types of links. Diversify your link profile across other avenues You priority of where you get links may look like this:
1. Link where you’re competitors are within the most powerful link neighborhood.
2. Golden linking that aren’t spammy are hard to come by. These opportunities may be industry specific sites that fit your SEO goals perfectly. These will be limited but should be hard for your competitors to get as well.
3. Foundation linking can be within Directories, web 2.0 sites, blog comments, guest posts, and more. This is your base layer of links that support your website’s initial link profile.
Learn more about social media marketing changes and how they can affect your small business by visiting us at Eric Wagner Marketing
Image credits: bobbigmac, Slava Baranskyi & Idea go
