What strategy should you follow to gain your business a higher ranking on Google?
With a number of recent changes to Google’s Search Engine Algorithm, it is currently speculated that social media could see the end of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as we know it today.
SEO techniques use strategies to try to ensure your company website is featured on page one of Google by using certain key words, for example ‘real estate’. If someone types into Google ‘real estate agent (your area)’, a list of local agents will appear. Your goal should be to have your company website appear on page one when anyone searches for an agent in your area. If you aren’t on page one, you have to do something about it! If you’re on page two, you may as well not be there at all. It’s unlikely anyone will find you.
The public perception is that if someone is on page one of Google, they must be the best. This may be true, but only because they have great search engine optimisation strategies. It’s entirely possible to be on page one when in fact your customers (if you have any) are less than impressed.
Ever since Google began, some crafty people have figured out how their system can be cheated. They found that you could do certain things to a website that would help it appear on page one of Google. From putting a company’s keywords hidden on the home page a hundred times (don’t try this at home – you will be penalised), to building artificial links by creating fake websites to link to yours, the possibilities are endless. These unethical methods of using SEO tools are called black hat techniques, used in order to try to cheat Google and help your website rank higher, always with the goal of achieving page one ranking.
Google is always looking for ways to make it hard for underhanded methods to beat them. As a business, they need and want the best quality content from the most reputable source to deliver to their clients, and they are always trying to arrive at the most natural ways to generate real results from genuine sources.
Keep in mind, there is always trial and error with Google. Some things that work today can change tomorrow. Today we live in a world where we have many different sources, creating real fresh content that people actually research and read on a company’s website. Then those pages of content get posted to social media pages. From there others read it, ‘like’ it and share it with their friends and networks, who in turn post it onto their pages.
These are real people, connected to other real people, who are linked to other websites offering similar relevant information to similar relevant people. There is a chain that can be followed, with links of commonality.
Let’s see how this works.
A real estate agent posts an article on their blog. They then put a link to that article on their social media pages, and say someone like Sold Magazine ‘likes’ it or shares it. That article has now been endorsed, so to speak, by a reputable relevant source. Then, if the real estate agent’s website has relevant videos with a YouTube channel linked to it, they also have social media links in place, and their friends or fans can share their content. They are well on their way to achieving a higher ranking with due to their social following.
Remember that Google will think you are who you hang around with. If you’re a spammer and have fake profiles hanging off you everywhere, you will be known by Google as associated with spammers and penalised. But social media trails with relevant content, linked to ‘real’ quality websites and built up into a chain of ‘likes’ and comments, make it easy for Google to determine that the ranking is genuine.
Will social media become the main driver with search engines? I believe social media sites will integrate more closely, and may end up being more relevant than straight SEO in the future. After all, you have to have content to post to social media. Your content needs to be relevant, and you can house it on your website. Post the links to your site through social media and that’s when the social media effect will happen – the genuine way to enhance your SEO presence.
