Curation Revolution

An all in one. It's really an extraordinary item for doing the right things to improve your ranking. If you have a blog with great articles, but not many visitors, apply the ideas in this article, it'll help you for sure. [note mg]

Think about semantic keyword research to help you focus your content and and improve your rankings.

From Google’s Panda, Search Plus Your World and Venice updates, in the last year alone the SEO landscape has changed. And while that means your SEO strategy will change, too, there is one thing that remains the same…keywords.

Keywords remain important to your content and link strategies.

But there is one change coming down the Google pipeline that will change keywords…semantic search technology and the human element.

What is semantic search?

Basically, semantic search is technology that tries to determine what users mean when they type in a certain keyword.

They explore the semantics of those words…or the meaning behind them.

For example, if someone typed in “laptop” do they mean:

• That they want to buy a laptop?
• Have one repaired?
• Upgraded?
• Are they even talking about a computer, but something entirely different?

In the real world most people don’t search with one keyword…additional keywords give additional clues.

Read more: http://mz.cm/J9nABP

"The social web is more than just a bunch of social networks."

Forbes has been crushing it lately about social media. Who'd a thunk the bastion of old-school capitalism would be one of the most reliable commentators on this new technology, especially since social media threatens how business is done today.

This article says, basically, make yourself relevant and Google will find you. Playing the SEO game without understanding what will really make your brand sustainable is a fool's game. A must read.

The impact of Social Media has changed the way SEO is being conducted and webmasters now need to play catch up again.

Social Media has been creeping upon us for some time but it is only this year that it has become so entangled with SEO as to now be an integral part of the way a site gets its content ranked and increases its traffic.

The socialisation of content which began with content sharing in Facebook has, with Google Plus, become an imperative.

Whereas in the past a webmaster could get away with a good SEO strategy and a certain amount of automatic social bookmarking of content, these days, he faces the struggle to create content which is of sufficiently high quality to engage interest in social media networks and the pressure to get that content seen as widely as possible.

Social Media has gone from being an adjunct to SEO which increased its effectiveness to the engine under the hood which drives some of its most basic functions and which, in addition, determines some of its forms.

Here 3 important steps to follow:

1) Have a Content Creation Strategy in Place

2) Create Content that is useful

3) Share your content.

Full Post: http://helpmyseo.com/seo-tips/647-how-social-media-changed-seo.html 

Just because you recognize that social media marketing and SEO go hand-in-hand, that doesn't mean there aren't pitfalls you should  be aware of.

As search and social become ever more entwined in Google’s and Bing’s algorithms and search results, search engine optimizers cannot afford to turn a blind eye to social media.

For all companies, search engine marketing (SEO and Paid Search) was their most effective lead generation and sales tactic, with 75% of companies indicating so.

This was followed by social media marketing, which was reported 25% of the time as having the biggest positive impact.

As the social media world evolves, it appears companies are learning that social media may be a more of a branding and awareness tool than a lead generation and sales tool.

There’s a guy I know who’s VP for the digital arm of a global PR firm.

He’s a blogger, true social media player, and marketing stud — like I said … a smart guy.

A while back, he threw out the proposition that social media was going to kill SEO, specifically because “social media signals” would replace keywords.

Your website's Google ranking could be helped with social media activity.

**** Some of the relationship described here is serendipty (i.e. what is popular on your Twitter is popular without clear cause and effect), but there are benefits to drive links from social to your digital stuff. People say the links are "no follow" links, but sizable people drink direclty from the Twitter and Facebook fire hose (the source not the RSS feed). Link juice moves to those sizable drinkers (online reputation management tool Radian6 is one example of a drinker).

What I know for sure is @ScentTrail popped a PageRank5 in 2 weeks. My ScentTrail Marketing blog recently moved froma PR2 to a PR3 and it has 300,000 words on it. My Tweets take much less time and are almost square the power of my blog, so I was an early believer in social (2008 or so) if for no other reason than its impact on search.

I wrote an article for @atlanticbt recently (Facebook The Most Important ROI) describing the other considerable TRUST benefits of social. Add TRUST plus PR and there is little question that social network marketing may be the most important marketing any team is doing (or not doing as the case may be).

The two ideas have become one thing in my thinking, a tapestry I think of as "social/search" mirroring Einstein's idea of the tapestry of space and time he called space/time. The reason I toss the big E in is the tapestry idea seems a helpful way to think of content networks. Content network marketing is a tapestry where every thread is connected in some way to every other thread. Thinking of social/search as a tapestry of connected points helps eliminate the "silver bullet" thinking that it is easy to fall into, ah if Internet marketing was only that easy (lol).

Marty

"The traditional world of business we know is changing.

Well-known brands are struggling to get anywhere in the new economy precisely because they are not getting what it is they must do in order to talk to their customers.

A number of global brands, in 2011, suffered humiliating PR disasters because they failed to understand how to use social media.

The picture which is emerging is that transparency in communications with potential customers, responsiveness and the personal touch always win over corporate slickness."

(curated by the amazing Robin Good) (emphasis mine :)

My note to Robin:

One of the strange results of Google's absolute success is the rapid and growing anti-Google movement. Not anti in a No Logo, Occupy Wall Street way but anti in the, "What else can we do we are desperate and organic takes too long," way. The other thing we are noticing is Social + Mobile can form a powerful Google shadow government capable of carrying companies and brands to good places with almost no Google blessings though only the bravest are opting out of PPC. Thanks as always. Marty