By Nicole Fletcher

Insert YET ANOTHER Google update…none other than Google’s own take on the ‘Like’ button. They’re calling it the ‘Plus one’. It’s goal? To further integrate social into search.

Google will now allow Internet users to vote on search content they find useful and then share that content with their personal connections within their Google accounts. Reports say, the ability to share this social content to twitter is coming soon. In search, people will now see the number of votes in addition to the name and photos of their Google connections who have shared content.

This would definitely be considered the most aggressive integration of social into search to date and we can only expect Google to incorporate the plus 1 button into their algorithm soon. Bryan Wiener, CEP of 360i, says:

“Its important for Google to bring in social influence into search results to prevent the social web from becoming a parallel universe. I do think they need to have the Facebook ‘likes’ in there because you’re going to have two webs, the social web and the open web.”

Interesting point Bryan. Indeed, if Google does not incorporate ‘likes’ into their algorithm, there will be further separating the social interactions that take place on social sites like facebook, from the rest of the open web. While they do of course have their differences, it certainly would be counter productive to compete with one another.

And here’s your answer…

Google’s Principle Engineer for Search, Matt Cutts, said, “When someone recommends something, that’s a pretty good indicator of quality. We are strongly looking at using this in our rankings.”

So far as SEO is concerned, inbound links have been of utmost importance when it comes to page rank. Last year, Google included Twitter updates to aggregate the most recent conversations on any topic. Adding Google’s plus-one will add yet another social component. Basically the point of this update is simple: you would more willingly visit a site recommended by a friend than you would click through the clutter that is modern search. This update makes it easier to find quality content because users are now able to see what their connections have shared.

This though, might not be the biggest part of this update. According to AdAge, “the biggest move here may not be about search at all, but about taking another swing at the social networking business — and at Facebook itself. The first time users clicks on a plus-one button, they will be prompted to create a Google profile, as well as be given the opportunity to adjust privacy settings.” Interesting. Is Google trying once again to compete with Facebook? And if so, will they succeed? Only time will tell. Bing integrated Facebook “likes” into their search at the end of 2010 but NOT into their algorithm itself. What that means is that a “like” does NOT, I repeat does NOT, affect search rankings. Google’s Matt Cutts also reported that Google does not have plans to include Facebook in their algorithm…but they also don’t have the authority to do so. He said, “It would depend on whether that data were available” …so again, time will tell.

In the mean time, keep an eye out for recommended content and small pics of your friends faces in your search results.

By Nicole Fletcher

It truly baffles me how even today, at the end of 2010, people are still completely blind to the wonderful world of social media and the endless list of possibilities this exciting new industry brings. I get that people ‘don’t have time to tweet‘, ‘don’t care what their sister’s friend ate for breakfast’ or simply ‘think this whole thing is just a fad’ – but everyone is on Facebook and everyone is inundated by the web daily. Why then are people so against learning about and taking advantage of all this new age of tech wonder has to offer?

I’m not one for conformity, after all, my personal blog is called Deviate From the Norm…but it seems clear to me that, unlike palazzo pants and bedazzled denim, Social Media is here to stay and some people just can’t, or won’t, accept that. People talk about the social verse like it’s some uncool food item in the nerdy kids’ lunchbox; like it’s something tacky or lame that the popular kids will soon force into extinction. I’m here to tell you, as Jacob Tyler’s new Social Media Director, it’s not. It’s here to stay and if you aren’t on it, well frankly, we’ll take off full speed into the future without you.

This new age of marketing that we are all so fortunate to be witnessing first hand, is just starting to bloom and grow. Social Media has totally redefined marketing, as your clients and customers can now take an active stance toward…or against your brand. With the billboards and television commercials of yesteryear, businesses never heard a peep from their clientele, who essentially hold the fate of their brand in their hands. Now, corporations, small businesses and public figures alike get to hear, see and feel it all. The truth might hurt…but better to hear it loud and clear in bold black and white, than not at all.

If you’re a business small or large you MUST know that you are not above this. You MUST take advantage of the marketing tools available to you for if you don’t, your competition surely will and probably already has. Most people don’t understand Twitter and I get that. I guarantee though, if you spend some time educating yourself, you’ll learn that thousands if not millions of people are already talking about exactly what you do for a living, or think about, or eat, or believe and those people should be on your radar as prospective clients and friends. The simple lesson is this: you must develop a presence for yourself..or hire someone to handle your social media for you. Most of the most modern marketing tools are available to you at no cost but your time, effort and passion. One of the most basic marketing fundamentals centers around ‘being your brand’ so if you’re not willing to give it some love, how can you possibly expect to succeed? If I haven’t convinced you on the vitality of this rapidly growing industry, here are some stats to gnaw on.

-500 million people are on Facebook
-Human beings spend 700 billion minutes on Facebook per month
-30+ billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook each month
-24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing declines in circulations- shock gasp
-There are over 200 million blogs
-More than 600 million searches take place on Twitter each month
-Lady Gaga has 7.2+ million followers on Twitter to date.

Get the point? Social Media is here to stay, so learn about it before we’re so far down the futuristic highway that there’s no hope of catching up.

Blogs aren’t anything new, but in the few short years since they’ve become a mainstream marketing tool, their best uses and impacts have become increasingly clear. We have learned, for example, that blogs are a great way to share industry news, offer informative articles, and improve your search engine positioning. On the other hand, they tend to work less well as a direct sales medium. People like to read blog posts to be entertained or stay informed; if you do nothing more than ask them to buy, they will simply stop coming back to check out new updates.

Here are a few more tips for putting your company’s blog into action:

Post consistently. Perhaps the greatest challenge of business blogging is simply remembering to be a business blogger. For the average business owner, online marketing manager, or other busy professional, writing posts can easily become an item that gets consistently stuck at the bottom of the day’s “to do” list. But if you hardly ever post to your blog, readers – not to mention search engine spiders – will notice. Aim for a modest goal, such as one half-page post per week, and then be sure to make it a priority.

As a side note, one of the easiest ways to keep coming up with new blog topics is to come up with a series – just like this one. All you have to do is find a subject that can be explained over several weeks and in many parts, and then start writing one small chunk at a time. Taking on a topic in that way keeps you with a new subject always at your fingertips, and gives readers a good reason to come back again and again.

Stay on target. Because blogs tend to be less formal than industry newsletters and other regular forms of publishing, lots of bloggers tend to let their minds run free when posting. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; a good “stream of consciousness” first draft can often lead to ideas you didn’t even know you had. But try to clean things up a bit, and keep your ideas focused, before you get around to posting. A blog that isn’t about anything isn’t written for any particular kind of reader, so keep your posts centered on the issues at hand, like industry news, expert insight, etc.

Remember your voice. Earlier, we talked about keeping a consistent voice and tone throughout your social networking strategy. Your company blog is a great way to find and hone that, since it requires you to compose a fresh article every seven days or so. Have fun with that challenge and discover how you like to communicate with people. Over time, that’s going to give your blog – and your company – a style that customers and colleagues will expect and respond to.

Add links to other blogs, materials, and parts of your own site. Since most blog posts tend to run around three quarters of the page, they’re usually a short take on the subject a hand. That’s no problem; no one is expecting you to solve a global crisis in a few hundred words or less. What your blog should do, however, is shed some light on a particular issue, or offer a unique viewpoint. The best way to back those up, or continue the conversation, is by linking from your blog to other articles, parts of your site, or other supporting documents. Doing so shows that you’ve done your homework, but also that you have more to offer to the reader.

Be on the lookout out for keywords and phrases. It’s never hard to tell articles and blog posts that were written primarily with search engines in mind. They are so (awkwardly) stuffed with various keywords and phrases that they barely make any sense at all. Obviously, producing posts like that is going to be bad for business. You might get search traffic, but no one is going to stay to read anything.

On the other hand, it makes sense to be aware of your best keywords and phrases and insert them a few times and to each post, if it can be done naturally. As your posts build up, having the right phrase inserted consistently will do wonders for your search engine positioning – and even if it isn’t your primary goal, being more visible to Google, Yahoo, and Bing can only help your business.

Sell softly. As with every other activity in social network marketing, there is going to be a time to come straight out with your sales message. Just be sure it isn’t all the time. The best strategy – as you’re probably starting to guess by now – is to embed your marketing message consistently in a long line of interesting posts. If you are the preeminent authority in your field, show readers that’s true; once you do, it’s going to take a quick line here or there inviting them to contact you for more information to turn your blog into a source of leads. Remember the golden rule of social network marketing: sell softly, take your time, and make connections. The rest will take care of itself.

By definition, search engine optimization is the process of making a site optimized for search engines. While this may seem a little bit of a simplified definition, let’s think about concepts of design and the intended audience. Would you choose English as your language for a Chinese website? What font is the right font? What colors should be used? I bet legibility, grammar, and spelling count for something, agreed?

Let’s take the ideas behind the design principles and apply them to a non-human audience, Googlebot. Googlebot, for example as one of the most important web crawlers, isn’t going to look at your photo except to see what alternate text will be provided if the image doesn’t load, and perhaps the file name, file size, and file type, which may or may not give Google any index-able material you care about having indexed.

Googlebot cares about the structure of your page in a similar way that any one of us would read a book, starting with the ISBN, then the number of pages, then by looking at the table of contents, looking up the number of illustrations and where they come from if referenced, and memorizing where all chapter titles are placed on a page. That’s how you read a book, isn’t it? SEO, in simplest terms, is making sure that your website is easy reading for Googlebot to kick back and relax with.

Wikipedia.org:

“As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.”

At Jacob Tyler Creative Group, we’re also able to take a deep dive at how search engines look at your web host server setup, and how to get the most out of your configuration in terms of speed, user experience, and of course being easily found. Note: Currently, we are offering this service for LAMP systems only, but these systems constitute most of the web so, most likely, you’re in luck.

Note: Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) should not be confused with Search Engine Marketing (or SEM) which has the broader scope of bringing in traffic from external sources. To cite Wikipedia.org,

Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs). According to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, SEM methods include: search engine optimization (or SEO), paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion. Other sources, including the New York Times, define SEM as the practice of buying paid search listings.

Most SEM strategies outside of SEO by nature are not concerned with either usability or with the ease of parsing through an electronic document. SEO, specifically, is not focused on external linking strategies, social networking, email campaigning, pay per click, and the many other types of online marketing. Questions like “Are you on Google Local business or not?” are irrelevant to SEO.

Stay tuned for our next Search Engine Optimization posting…

For part two, click here.

Better SEO Article 1 of 3

-jb