Get Friendly, Get Branded and Get Optimised with Social Search Engine Optimisation
Search engine optimisation requires having a friendly nature. Loners do not make it into the top search engine result pages. Socializing with social networking is a friendly search engine optimisation strategy that can brand your website and get some virtual word of mouth marketing twittering and digging about your wonderful traits.
SEO is a cheerleader’s dream. The art of search engine optimisation – or the sport of search engine optimisation – is getting a virtual crowd cheering for excellent content. The greater the crowd roars, the more the search engine recruiters stare at the content to see what the noise is all about. If the cheering is for excellent content or a great play, the virtual crowd and the search engine recruiters push the content to the top of the SERPS (search engine result pages). Socializing with social networking is a necessary search engine optimisation strategy to create a cheering crowd big enough to get website content listed in top search engine results.
Social networking is not passive, it is interactive. A website profile created for a social networking website that has nothing more than a flat presence will fail to bring a cheering crowd and will not succeed in reaching its full potential. Successful social networking for search engine optimisation requires a website profile to be vocal, engaging and extroverted. The social network profile must begin by cheering for itself in order to create a crowd cheering for related content. Although a flat profile is better than no profile, without an active profile social networking can not optimise your website through word of mouth (which builds necessary linking strategies), or create a contributory branding impression (necessary for building trust with consumers and the search engines).
Internet users enjoy the social interactivity of social networking. 67% of Internet users participate in the intertwined worlds of social networking and blogging, and Nielsen Ratings reports it is now more popular than email as a favorite Internet activity. As aptly described in Jenny Sudens’ Material Virtualities, Internet users can “type oneself into being." Networking through social networking websites is as much about showing oneself as it is about meeting others, and search engine optimisation is about showing oneself to the search engines through meeting others.
Because social networking websites blatantly expose user preferences and personalities, it is much easier to develop a network of individuals that fit into your narrowly defined target market, thus eliminating the need of wasted branding efforts on non-interested individuals. Social networking websites provide not only search engine optimisation opportunities to link and have links forwarded, they also provide the opportunity for introductions, and branding and reputation management which is necessary for any long-term strategic marketing plans.
Search engine optimisation requires active participation in social networking opportunities to build your reputation, trust and branding strategies with potential website visitors and with the SERP decision makers. Social networking requires continuous oversight, participation, and management to be successful in search engine optimisation and in building long-term relationships. An interested crowd is watching your social networking profile. It’s up to you to show them who you are and keep them interested.