I recently got into a discussion with a blogger who stated that any kind of social media work was not considered seo. I for one have to disagree with him, rather than email him my complete thoughts I have decided to write about it here.

Search Engine Optimization is what it says. You are optimizing something for search engines, period. This obviously involves the following (in no particular order);

1. Site architecture
2. Code optimization
3. Appropriate tagging
4. Content optimization
5. Keyword research
6. URL structures
7. Internal link structure
8. Link building
9. Redirects
10. Domains
11. Analytics analysis
12. Benchmarking

Now I perform and promote the use of social media campaigns as part of my overall seo strategy because it gets results! The list below includes additions I consider to be social media but what should be considered in an seo strategy.

1. Blog setup (including bookmarking plugins etc)
2. Social Bookmarking
3. Social networks
4. Community activity
5. Link baiting

Basically these additions to an seo strategy would help with optimizing a site for search engines. The blog would provide regular content updates, and the others would provide opportunities to generate natural links that search engines love.

It seems to be that “link building” these days should be considered as “social media” as old link building methods have now become near useless for producing results!

Thanks for the entries guys, not an overwhelming response by any means but thanks for the guys that took the time out to offer a seo tip for 2008. Some really nice tips that shouldn’t be ignored for the coming year. The Top 3 tips each won $10.00 from Seounique to spend on coffee, beer or your website! Please remember to email me at mridout@epictunes.com with your paypal ID’s so I can send over the huge wad!

Tip 1 (Winner) - Join your local Chamber of Commerce, you can get a link from them, plus you meet real people. Remember person to person networking rather than online networking. You may pick up more links from other members and possibly some consulting work. Don’t ignore what’s in your back yard. – Tip by - Lyndon

Tip 2 (Winner) - My tip for 2008. Do a bit of research, and publish posts showing the results and implications of the research. People love #s and stats. It doesn’t have to be complicated … often something simple. EG. Avatar experiment (http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/the-avatar-experiment-stunning-vs-cute-vs-guy.html) already performed. Tip by Jeff Quipp

Tip 3 (Winner) - Seriously, my tip would be to get a blog implemented and to take its upkeep seriously. Carve yourself a unique voice within your niche that people will happily return to. This can bring an enormous amount of traffic to your site, and more importantly for the purpose of SEO, if your content is good it will get you loads of naturally formed backlinks. - Tip by – Nick James

Tip 4 - Make all your SEM people build social media profiles for the company while they have down time - When they leave, you get to keep the profiles that can send a lot of traffic/new links to your clients with a couple clicks. Endgame 2008 SEO is going to be about Social Media and link baiting. - Tip by Wignut

Tip 5 - 2008 way of linking besides social and link bait is to find great articles on authority sites. Once you’ve found a great article that is relevant to you/your customer send them a small revision of that article that incorporates your link. Use your savvy persuasion ways and your in. You’ll be surprised how many people don’t mind a little tweaking for a free goodie bag. Good luck SEO’s in 2008! - Tip by Ashley Graham

Tip 6 - My tip for 2008. Make sure your site (or clients site) has plenty of ways for your visitors to promote the site via social media (Digg This! buttons, Add to del.icio.us etc.etc.) and then create “share-able” content. Link-able content and Linkbait is very good, but share-able is going to be better in 2008. – Tip by - John Carcutt

Tip 7 - Don’t waste your time with directory submissions and article submissions. Use link bait and good content to generate natural backlinks. – John Trumbii

Tip 8 - When creating the Title tags for your site make sure your primary targeted keyword is at the beginning of the description for each page, obviously make the page content relevant – By Me!

This is obviously quite a basic point from any experienced seo guru, but for a lot of seo newcomers to the industry there has been a lot less emphasis on the importance of page tags.

Back in the late 90’s and early 00’s these tags were ravaged to death with keyword stuffing and abuse, after various Google algorithm updates they dropped the importance of Meta descriptions and Meta Keywords a considerable amount. What about the title tags though? From my point of view many years ago when I was young and new to the web design industry, title tags were just a method to explain page content with less emphasis on keywords.

Last week I assessed SeoUnique’s title tag for the homepage, I originally set it as:

Seo Recourses Blog | Social Media | Seounique

I followed some basic standards, not making the title contain too many characters, including important keywords and most of all making the title description as relevant as possible to the page content. As I have been busy with my day to day management of clients seo I have neglected to benchmark my own keyword positions. Last week I looked at two phrases that I considered important to rank well in for this blog. The first being “Seo Blog” and the second being “SEM blog” – both phrases perform well according to Google trends and the posts I make should be picked up by people looking for information on those subjects.

I of course looked for my current positions under the terms, I hoped to be listed somewhere in the top 20-30 pages of Google for “Seo Blog” but knew I wouldn’t rank anywhere under “SEM Blog” simply because that term is very rarely listed anywhere on the blog or in backlinks anchor text.

Last Week Positions:

Seo Blog: Page 54 rank 532
Sem Blog: Not in top 1000

Obviously I was disappointed with the results even though I knew in the back of my mind that it was an accurate representation of my efforts. Don’t get me wrong, I perform very well for my blog posts subjects, often making first page top 3 but obviously long tailed keywords don’t drive enough traffic day to day. I looked at my websites content and decided to go for the direct approach, once again giving an accurate representation of the pages content:

Seo Blog | Sem Blog | Seounique

I decided to cut the length even more and just contain the keywords I wanted to perform well in. I waited 5-6 days and once again checked my positions for the phrases:

Seo Blog: Page 18 rank 176
Sem Blog: Page 5 rank 43

Nothing else was changed on the blog at all, only the title tag. These rankings have held for over 4 days so it’s not an “updated content” ranking.

So why has the Google Rankings improved so much?

I should have put “Seo Blog” as my first keyword in the title description because essentially that’s what the site is, it’s the most accurate description of the content listed plus it’s the keyword I wanted to do well in. The second keyword was a gamble because I knew the terms were listed throughout the site on previous posts but rarely did the terms “sem” and “blog” run side by side with each other. I would say that again it’s an accurate description of the site so its justified.

Overall I moved 356 positions for the phrase “Seo blog” and staggering 953 positions for the phrase “sem blog”, I have already seen a natural increase in organic traffic for both terms, so next time someone says to you backlinks, backlinks, backlinks – reply title, title, title!

Firmly a few weeks into the new year I’ve decided to hold a small contest. I would like to make a “2008 SEO tips list”, obviously I could just write the list myself but am feeling generous and creative. I will be holding the contest for 14 days from today and will accept entries up to the 23th January 2008.

Rules:

1. You must post an SEO tip that you think will be valid for 2008

2. It can be any SEO tip you personally think will be true

3. Only one entry per person

4. Entries must be posted as a comment

Winners:

I will use any tip submitted for the final list if I think it’s valid for 2008. The top 3 tips will each receive a $10.00 Paypal payment as a prize. All tips that make it too the list will receive a link to their web page or blog as a point of reference. I thought maybe a small cash offering to buy a few cups of coffee or to help with your sites sever cost might be a nice incentive, you can of course spend it how you see fit!

Why should you bother?

It would be nice to get some feedback from the SEO community as a whole as to what they think will be happening in 2008 and the possible trends we might start to see. It’s also a bit of fun!

Good luck with your entries and please read the rules before entering!

Reports of a new Google Page Rank have hit the long seo shores already. Before everyone started with the blasphemy, I couldn’t care less if it is or not.

Page Rank thread on Digital Point today had at least 3 or 4 people based in North America reporting changes in different sites. Screenshots were provided for different sites and people were assured this wasn’t a bug issue. Like I mentioned I have no interest in PR, I think it’s dated and does not accurately represent a websites true rank for anything.

What I will say for anyone interested in PR (shame on you) is that before the last update in October 2007, there were reports of websites listed in different countries receiving an update before others. This could mean an update is on the way for certain people.

Before you start jumping for joy or begin preparation for a noose, just bare in mind that page rank holds very little weight on search engine rankings. You should always build and maintain a website for your customers and readers to provide them with the best online experience you can offer, the rest will come free!