Today (March 20, 2012) I read an article I found on LinkedIn about Google introducing what they call Google Social Search. This ultimately means that a site has the capacity to jump from #30 to #3 in the SERPs simply because someone in your Google+ circle shared the link. Traditional SEO suggests that it would have been very difficult for a small start up company to compete against popular sites in terms of search engine ranking. Social SEO levels the playing field and allows smaller companies to compete against the big guys. The article suggests that social media should already be implemented into every company’s business strategy and below lists 7 of the target strategies to start using right now:
Published link of 8 steps I’ve turned into 7
- Beef up your Google+ presence– Google is implementing Google+ into almost every Google social search. This has the capacity to put your company in a number one spot because someone put you in a Google+ circle.
- Build relationships and Increase Followers- Every new follower you get has the potential to see your brand’s site in his or her SERPs in the future and building strong relationships (whatever it takes) helps facilitate a follower base.
- Post your Articles Immediately on Social Media- If you tweet your content, it helps your content get indexed faster (if your material is time sensitive, then this could be very beneficial). It also helps to have your articles posted on Google+ and LinkedIn (where I actually found this article) to get indexed faster.
- Have Shareable Content- If someone that doesn’t even follow you on any social media sites shares your content, that persons entire network may see the post by searching relevant material in a Google Social Search.
- Add +1 Buttons to Everything- This is the Facebook Like button of Google, add it anywhere you can.
- Get on Pinterest- Pinterest sends nearly as much referral traffic as Twitter and Google now crawls pins and boards (hashtag relevant keywords on each pin).
- Add A “Pin It” & A Stumbleupon Button to Your Site- Stumbleupon is second to Facebook in terms of referral traffic.
I had been resisting getting in to Google+, it just seemed like one more thing in a long line of new internet social media trends that I didn’t really want to be a part of. Looks like it’s pretty important after all if you want to be seen.