This is a time when almost all the major brands are publishing their newspapers and electronic media ads. The latest buzz is over the Google Panda and its possible effect on SEO. So how does a company marketed exclusively online cope with a new kind of publicity that is impossible to predict?
The SEO, or search engine optimization, industry is still trying to piece together the puzzle of how the internet world has changed the playing field for organic searches (without paying for Google advertising to do so), and how this change affects the SEO world. But the possible effects of the Google Panda are already apparent.
High profile brands are possibly going to start driving less traffic to their official websites. Another possibility is that fewer people are going to click on sponsored links and hence more of them are not going to end up buying.
There is also a chance that popular branded search phrases will start to yield less search traffic. For example, the search term “Nike shoes” may have a lot of traffic but a website that sells those shoes is likely to have a lot less traffic than a site selling actual Nike shoes. More surprisingly still, is that these may result in increased clicks and more sales.
A brand name becomes more valuable when associated with a high traffic website which consistently answers their customer’s questions and other such questions. Today the website is not just a link with a few pages and a logo. A website must be engaging in active and useful content and user interaction.
One of the major changes in the Google algorithm is that it gives more weight to a website’s content and social media signals. If a website has a lot of traffic, has interesting and creative content, and basically is like a really cool and unique website, they will have a boost in their search engine ranking.
Some websites seem to already be getting this “boost” and page rank in response to their active and creative content. Among them are the following:
At time of writing, the rankings for these websites have increased a lot in a short amount of time. It is therefore exciting to think that by having such a great content the website could be ranked in the top page of Google and take up that coveted spot of number one. You can’t find a downside to that.
Social Networks
Having a social media presence can’t hurt your search engine ranking, but only if you make use of the social networks in a few, well-planned ways.
The best bit of advice you can have in this area is to try to be social and interact with users. Being active on social networks and discussion platforms provides two important benefits:
So how do you go about it? Well, it isn’t enough to create a company Facebook page and start messing around with your fans. You need to make sure your content is top quality. Also, don’t post answering or entertaining questions on your Facebook page daily. You need to build relationships with customers and those that run your business. By doing this, you have a better chance of getting customer loyalty for future need if you continue to provide good online content.
Business directories
You can list your business website on as many business directories as you want; even in established directories it takes a bit of time for each one to be added to Google’s index. You can start by submitting your website to DMOZ which, along with many of the other directories on the internet, is a free service. It provides quickly and easily found listings of businesses. The easiest way to submit your business to Google’s universal business listing is to create a Google Places listing for your business. In Google Places, you can optimize your listing by filling out the third profile and the name, address, email, and website information.
With more than one Google Places listing, you are welcome to add your website URL to the description and category text. If you have more than one listing, you can also include a hyperlinked “breadcrumb trail” for users who are interested in following the route taken by the crawler to the website. This essentially gives Google a map to your site and will improve the user’s navigation.
In conclusion, the steps you take above will help your website to be identified and indexed by Google. This in turn will help you to be in the workload and to have the success you want for your website!