Using Social Media to Boost Search Engine Results

Most of us are well aware that the search engines frequently change their algorithms to improve search results for users (and foil spammers), which can make it challenging for small businesses just to keep up. But as web technology continues to evolve, it also creates new opportunities for small businesses to improve their SEO strategies and boost their rankings as well. Social media (sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Technorati, Digg, etc.) provide an excellent opportunity for small businesses to not only promote their products and services online, but also to gain significant ground in the search engine results.

One of the most critical components to getting top search engine rankings is the number of inbound links and link popularity a web site is able to build. Although there are several existing link building strategies available to small businesses (e.g., press releases, directory submissions, article syndication, etc.), social media can help create additional high-value, on-target inbound links that are essential to achieving top placements in the search engines.

For example, each time you use Twitter to publish a link to new content on your web site, that link gets “planted” on the Twitter page of each person following you, and has the potential to spread even further as your followers share that information with their own network of contacts.

Integrated Social Marketing (ISM)™
If you have properly integrated your social networking profiles together, that same Twitter “tweet” could then be fed via RSS to your Facebook business profile, your corporate blog, your LinkedIn account, and any number of other social sites that you have set up for your business. It’s not a far stretch to imagine the link you broadcast on Twitter could reach dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of other places on the web, all pointing back to your web site!

Quantity AND Quality
In addition to the sheer number of inbound links that are created through social marketing, the value of the links that are created is another important criterion that search engines consider. To be valued by the search engines, inbound links must be from relevant, “quality” web sites, and search engines today give social sites like Facebook and Twitter great value. These sites are highly visible to the search engines, and are constantly taking updates from users. Links tend to be shared according to subject matter, which means the search engines will see them as being relevant and on-target. All of these factors combine to create high-quality inbound links in the eyes of the search engines.

Online Visibility and Branding
Creating visibility for your business and your “brand” is really key when using social media for building links. The power of social media is realized when other users see your links or content, then share that information with their own network of contacts. Simply adding a bunch of links to your social profiles is not enough; you need to have a strong reputation and a brand that users trust so they will feel comfortable sharing your content with others. Brand recognition typically leads to natural link building anyway, which means your inbound links will end up coming from bloggers, colleagues, customers, and other people who are exposed to your links and find them useful enough to share with their own contacts.

The Proof is in the Rankings
A recent example from Website Magazine explained somewhat surprising results when they searched for their publication’s name in Google. As expected, their web site came up as the number one listing on the results page. But what was not expected was the number three listing on the results page was the magazine’s Twitter page. They then performed a number of Google searches for the terms “Chicago Tribune,” “Chicago Public Golf,” and “Daily Career Tips,” all with similar results in Google – the Twitter page for each of these terms came up near the top of the search engine results every time.

The conclusion was that given these results, Google must be giving serious weight to Twitter content, and I happen to agree. The search engines of course keep their ranking algorithms top-secret, so there’s no way to know how much weight (if any) is really given to Twitter or other social media sites. But results like those in the example above are hard to ignore!

A Great Opportunity
Social media is here to stay, and small businesses are beginning to use it to effectively promote their businesses, reach their customers, find new leads, keep customer mindshare, and instantly communicate with customers. But maybe one of the biggest benefits of adding social media to your marketing mix is the creation of high-value, on-target inbound links that can help improve visibility in the search engines and boost your business to the top of the search engine rankings.

A Good Reputation: Priceless

With so many ways to market a small business today, it’s more important than ever to protect your reputation – especially your online reputation. The web today has become very conversational, with users of all types contributing to the overall picture of your business. It’s very likely that whether you currently have a social media presence or not, people are already talking about you, your products and services, or your employees online. With blogs, social networking sites, link sharing sites, etc., just about anyone can be involved in forming your company’s reputation, so you need to know what is being said about you online.

Here are five reasons you should monitor the conversation online:

1. If you don’t follow what’s being said online, it will be impossible to counter anything negative or untrue. Your reputation will be defined by what other people are saying about you, even without your knowledge.
   
   
2. If a reporter or a blogger has a negative impression of your products or has experienced a bad customer service incident, it could end up at the top of the Google search results. Even if the information is untrue or inaccurate, news sites often have lots of authority with Google, and also a large readership with lots of links. Your reputation could quickly spin out of control without an opportunity for you to clear up a misunderstanding.
   
   
3. “You ARE What You Publish,” according to online expert and best-selling author David M. Scott. Whatever you publish about your company, combined with what others online are saying about you, becomes your online reputation. Make sure you are intentional about what you do and say online, since it will become part of your company’s online story.
   
   
4. Things can change almost instantly online, so just because you did a Google search on your company’s name a month ago and everything looked good doesn’t mean that it still looks good today. Monitoring the conversation can help you find out important information sooner rather than later.
   
   
5. Negative news tends to travel fast and far on the web, especially with the popularity of social networking sites. It’s incredibly easy for someone to post something negative on a blog, which can then get picked up and shared on Facebook, or posted to Twitter, where it goes out to countless customers and potential customers all over the web. Monitoring your reputation makes it much easier to intervene and combat the negative before it gets out of control.

So now that you know why you should monitor what’s being said online, here are five free tools you can use to monitor the conversation and help keep your online reputation intact:

1. Google Alerts (www.google.com). This tool lets you set up certain words or phrases that you want to monitor, like your company name, product names, key employees, etc. Then each day Google sends you a report of each time it found these phrases online, including the links to the place where it was found.
   
   
2. Twitter Search (www.twitter.com). Twitter’s search feature enables you to find mentions of your company, brand, or products in almost real-time, enabling you to take swift and immediate action if necessary.
   
   
3. Monitor This (www.monitorthis.info). Lets you monitor mentions of your brand in 26 different search engines feeds at once. Simply enter the phrases you want to watch, then paste the list of feeds into your feed reader.
   
   
4. Twilert (www.twilert.com). Twilert is a Twitter application that monitors daily tweets and emails you a list of those that contain mentions of your company, brand, products, etc.
   
   
5. Who’s Talkin (www.whostalkin.com). This social media search tool allows you to search for relevant terms and phrases related to your business on 60 of the most popular social networking sites on the web.

The best way to protect your online reputation is to pay attention and monitor what is being said about you online, so you can be proactive if necessary to fix problems early or set the record straight. You obviously cannot control what other people say online, but you also cannot solve problems or defend your reputation if you don’t know what’s going on in the first place.

Eight Signs it's Time for an Extreme Web Site Makeover

Let’s face it – if your small business web site is outdated, looks unprofessional, or doesn’t meet today’s user needs, you are probably losing money and driving away new customers every single day. If you’re like most small businesses, you’ve already invested a considerable amount of time and/or money into your web site, so you need your site to work FOR your business, instead of working against it. If it’s time for you to take an honest look at your web site, here are eight signs to help you determine if your site needs an extreme makeover:

1. The site is image-based, Flash-based, or contains too many graphics. The biggest issue with these types of sites is that they are invisible to the search engines and cannot be effectively read or indexed by the search “bots” that visit the site. Another issue with these sites is that they are nearly impossible to update in-house, and even the smallest change requires your graphic designer to re-create the image for the page. Instead, use standards-based content and go easy on the images. That way, the site is much easier to maintain going forward, the search engines can actually see your content, and the page will download faster for your visitors as well.
   
   
2. The site has the same information as it did a year ago, six months ago, or even a month ago, and nothing ever changes. What is the incentive for your visitors to come back to your web site if they have already seen what is there? Why would users want to come re-read the same info that was there the last time they visited? If your site is just sitting there with nothing new, it’s definitely time for a change. Create new content for your site, or re-use your other marketing materials as content on your site. Update it regularly with interesting, useful content and you will give your visitors and the search engines a reason to return to your site and take notice of what you have to offer.
   
   
3. It’s all about you, and nothing about them. Visitors don’t really care all that much about your company, but they care very much about your ability to solve their problems. If your site is filled with content that talks about your company, its history, how the owner got his or her start, how your products are developed, how great your service is, etc., you’re missing the point. People come to your web site to see if your company can help them solve their problems, so you need to focus on how your products and services meet their needs, solve their problems, and provide BENEFIT to them.
   
   
4. The site looks unprofessional or has an amateurish design. You might be able to save a few bucks by having your neighbor’s cousin design your web site, but it’s just not worth the negative effect it has on web visitors and potential customers. It takes visitors less than four seconds to form an impression of your site and decide if they should stick around and explore what you have to offer, or if they should click on the “back” button and visit your competition. Don’t represent your company with a web site that looks amateurish or contains unprofessional web elements like hit counters, time/date stamps, or template based designs – these can send your potential customers straight to the competition and cost you considerably more in the long run.
   
   
5. The site is hard to use, or has inconsistent navigation. Web site usability is critical in turning visitors into customers, and if your site is confusing to use, your visitors will simply give up and go somewhere else. Be sure that your navigation system is consistent across all pages on your site, and that the pages are well organized, making it easy to find information. Users should always be able to find their way back to the home page or other key pages, and nothing should be more than 2 or 3 clicks away from the home page.
   
   
6. The site is a “static” web site, with no interactivity or updated features. In the age of social networking, web widgets, mobile messaging, and web video, users today expect to have at least some level of interactivity on the sites they visit. At the very least, try to include a blog on your site, or an interactive online calendar or photo gallery. Use the web 2.0 features that make sense for your target market (e.g., insurance sites that offer instant quotes, customer service pages with how-to videos, etc.), but offer your visitors something more than just static, brochure-like web pages.
   
   
7. The site is not integrated with anything else useful. (Also related to “static” sites, above.) The most useful sites today are the ones that offer users additional value beyond the web site itself. Integrate your web site with your blog, and with your social networking profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Use e-mail campaigns and e-newsletters that direct recipients to specific landing pages on your site with information on special offers or coupons. Use online response forms and surveys that provide users with an easy way to give you feedback.
   
   
8. The site cannot be found in the search engines. If your web site cannot be found in the search engines today, that is definitely a red flag. There are many reasons the site may not be listed; such as an image or Flash-based architecture, improper coding and non-standards-based practices, not enough inbound links, or incorrect keyword densities, just to name a few. But search engine visibility is critical to the success of most businesses, so if your site cannot be found in the search engines, it may definitely be time to consider an extreme makeover!

Five Sparrows is a Michigan web site development firm and search engine optimization provider offering a complete line of web site marketing strategies and services designed especially for small businesses.

Because Five Sparrows specializes in working with small businesses, we understand their specific needs and challenges.  We offer a full range of products and services at a fraction of the cost of what traditional marketing and web site firms charge, all designed to help small businesses get a big-company presence on a small company budget.

Our services include web site development and re-design, online shopping, search engine optimization, e-newsletters, email marketing, search engine reporting & monitoring, and more.

Contact us today at editor@fivesparrows.com, or call us at 810.923.1874 to see how we can help your business!

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