Search Engine Optimization

I love social media. I love what is happening to our world with social media. With tagging (@), hash tagging (#)....I can't wrap my mind around it sometimes. It will be interesting to see where social media can take us when it comes to companies and branding. I've found that the more a company implements social media, the more they can seem credible and knowledgable. Most of the time, businesses can be found through the web.  That's why I found this nifty article on search engine optimization. They had 55 tips. I choose to only name 10 but knock yourself out on the rest if you so desire (these are search engine tips mainly for larger companies but can also work for individual branding). 


1. Understand social marketing. It IS part of SEO. The more you understand about sites like Digg, Yelp, del.icio.us, Facebook, etc., the better you will be able to compete in search.


2. Use captions with your images. As with newspaper photos, place keyword rich captions with your images.


3. Search engines like unique content that is also quality content. There can be a difference between unique content and quality content. Make sure your content is both.


4. Give link love, Get link love. Don’t be stingy with linking out. That will encourage others to link to you.


5. Make sure your site is easy to use. This can influence your link building ability and popularity and, thus, your ranking.


6. Got a new web site you want spidered? Submitting through Google’s regular submission form can take weeks. The quickest way to get your site spidered is by getting a link to it through another quality site.


7. If your site content doesn’t change often, your site needs a blog because search spiders like fresh text. Blog at least three time a week with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers.


8. Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to help you get found in local searches.


9. Enable “Enhanced image search” in your Google Webmaster Central account. Images are a big part of the new blended search results, so allowing Google to find your photos will help your SEO efforts.


10. Broaden your range of services to include video, podcasts, news, social content and so forth. SEO is not about 10 blue links anymore (Another one I liked with this one was adding viral components to your web site or blog – reviews, sharing functions, ratings, visitor comments, etc.). 


Well there you have it. 10 ways to implement social media and better ways to search for and find your company. The more branding you can have the better marketing opportunities. And with a world continually changing with the internet, why wouldn't you want to make yourself/company known?