Tuesday, 23 July 2013

How Google+ Makes an Impact on Search Engine Optimization

Google+ is actually one of quite a few of Google’s attempts to break into the social media circuit. After a few failed attempts, they have finally found a winner. It stands no chance of competing with Facebook (at least not in the foreseeable future), but is still popular enough to enable you to grab a few SEO benefits from it. It is possible to use Google+ to help you get a little bit higher in the search engine results pages.

Google will follow some of your profile links

If you add a bunch of links onto your Google+ pages then Google may pay them a passing interest, but if you can connect a link to your Google+ profile, then the more popular your profile becomes then the more attention Google will pay to your connected
links. You can create connected links by putting them in your profile Bio. Your bio links can have the anchor text of your choice, and if you gain more influence on Google+, then Google will take more notice of your links and will rank up your website slightly.

Do not forget that social media is not the powerful and almighty tool that online “experts” are claiming it is. Google, Bing/Yahoo do pay attention to what goes on within the social media sites. But, just how much credit they give what happens on there is anybody’s guess. Suffice it to say that nobody has ever reached the number one spot on Google because of something that happened on social media.

You can embed links onto your posts

As mentioned above, you can add links to your pages on Google+ (or your posts, as they are also known). Again, as stated above, the links will only be paid a passing attention by Google and will affect your websites SEO (assuming the links point to your website). However, if your links are shared amongst a large number of people then Google will pay attention to them and rank your website up accordingly. This is because if a link is shared by a number of people, then Google assumes that the link (and therefore the page) is of importance, and will move it up the search engine results pages.

Learn a little bit about linking. The backlinks you receive from other websites are more valuable than the links you receive from social media. But that does not mean you should cast social media out to sea. If a few big hitters on social media start linking to your site and mentioning you online, then the Google algorithm is going to start paying very close attention to your website.

You can optimize G+ title tags

You may have noticed that when you post something on Google+ then the first part of the post becomes the posts title tag. The title tag can be optimized so that it ranks better and so that there is a higher chance of a click through rate increase. Just make sure to choose the keywords of your first line very carefully. If you do this then the link attached to your post will have a higher click through rate. If this is the case then Google will pay more attention to the link, and will increase the rank of the page it links to accordingly.

You should take time to learn a little more about G+ tags, as well as other tags on blogs and Meta tags on your website. They do act similarly to keywords within text, but do have a different function. This is because they are designed to speak directly to either the search engines or the social media engine. This means that there are lots of rules that apply to these tags that do not apply to web content. For example, it is okay to misspell words on tags, and it is okay to hyphenate words that would not usually be hyphenated.

People who are authors with Google+ gain SEO benefits

They have an authoring system where you can attach your Google+ profile to the content that you write off of the Google+ site. If you write a lot of good content then you gain a better reputation within Google+, and this comes with better SEO benefits and article popularity benefits. It may even help you to get your online articles indexed a little faster than they would be otherwise. This is because Google is able to find and index the articles a little faster than they would do via other routes. This is because they are following the link from your Google+ profile.

An online reputation is something that is hard to maintain. You need to be on the tip of people’s tongues, because otherwise they will forget you. The Internet is a big place and popularity jumps up and down like an ostrich on a hot bus roof. With Google+ and their authorship program you cannot really make a massive online-reputation splash, but you can leave a mark for people to research into. When a person normally hears you name then he or she may wait for your next publication in order to figure out if he or she likes you. But, with Google+ and its authorship program, he or she has access to lots of your old and already published works.

Original:  Google+ Impact on SEO

Tuesday, 16 July 2013

How To Use Infographics As A Useful SEO Tool

Infographics are the latest craze in the SEO community. They are a platform where you can demonstrate plenty of information through a graphic form. This means that they are an engaging way to communicate with your audience and ensure they want to come back for more.

If you post useful content through your infographics you’ll be much more likely to have an audience that appreciates your content and is willing to share. However the main problem is that many people don’t know how to use infographics or where to put them. Below is a series of places where you can place your infographics to get the most exposure.

Infographic Directories

The first place you should aim to get your Infographic into is the various Infographic
directories around. These infographics directories are there to expose your work and get it noticed by the people around. The good thing about Infographic directories is that if you complete a good piece of work it could be highlighted.

The best situation you want from an Infographic directory is for it to be featured on the homepage. From there you can hope for a large website to pick it up and use it on their website, both promoting your Infographic and your website.

Blogs

Another way to promote your Infographic is either through your own blog or through one of your partners. By exposing your Infographic on a blog you enabling you whole audience to be aware of it and have an opportunity to share or like it. This increases engagement and also increases the chances of more people finding it.

Besides this you could also get it featured on another relevant blog with the chance of gaining highly targeted traffic. As well as this if you manage to include the anchor text on the bottom you could also receive a good, authoritative link back from the site. This means you’ll be adding value to their audience but also gaining higher search engine rankings in the meantime.

Social Media

Social media is another fantastic tool to spread the word out about your new content. You can post it on your Twitter and Facebook page and ask your audience to share the content. Since it’s going out to an audience who is already interested in your content you’re more likely to actually get people to comply and get the word out.

Also as with related blogs you can also use social media to utilise partner relationships with affiliated brands. By doing this you have access to their audience and have an opportunity to share your Infographic with them.

In the end Infographics are a great communications tool, but a good SEO tool at that. If you contain your URL at the bottom you will see people come to the exact link and share your content, it can also be used to push social media presence. However way you use it, if you get it right then you have a fantastic opportunity to go viral and reach a large audience.

Original: Infographics As Useful SEO Tool