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Why Google+ is an Inevitable Part of Your Content Marketing Strategy

by Brian Clark on January 16, 2012

image of Google+

Hear that, content marketers?

That is the sound of inevitability.

It’s the sound of you creating a Google+ page for your business and working diligently to build up a network there with content, conversation, and the occasional cat photo.

Goodbye … free time.

Shameless (yet eerily fitting) references to Agent Smith of The Matrix aside, here’s why every online content marketer needs to be building a Google+ network.

I’ll also tell you why Google+ may just become more important than Facebook or Twitter when it comes to deciding where to focus your limited time and effort.

What’s new with Google+

Since I first wrote about Google+ shortly after it launched, the search giant’s “social network” has grown to an estimated 67 million users as of November 2011, closing fast on Twitter’s stated 100 million active users. This kind of growth should put to rest claims that Google+ is dead or dying, and yet isn’t as meteoric as it could be given Google’s huge existing user base.

But the real growth of Google+ could be just ahead.

The main points I stressed in my original article were that Google+ is an excellent content sharing platform, and that the data gleaned from sharing and other activity would have a direct influence on Google’s search results. I said:

Building an audience on Google+ may be the smartest thing you do as a content marketer when it comes to improved search rankings. You still need to understand the language of your audience and reflect it back in your content, but Google will now have direct indications that you’re putting out quality stuff.

As of last week, Google did more with Google+ and search results than I (and most everyone else) expected. Much more.

Google+ is Google … period

Toward the end of last year, it became clear that Google+ was much more than a “social networking product,” like the failed Buzz. So far, Google+ has been significantly integrated with Google Docs, Chrome, Google Reader, Gmail, and YouTube.

Google also redesigned the header across Search, News, Maps, Translate, Gmail and many other Google products to incorporate Google+. In short, Google+ has become the glue that unifies Google’s various offerings into a seamless whole.

As Mike Elgan smartly put it, Google took its various products and turned them into features of Google+, rather than treating Google+ as a standalone social network. But that was just a warm up for what was to come with Google’s bedrock function, search.

Google gets all up in Your World

Last week, Google announced Search, plus Your World, which is the merger of personalized search with social search, including the addition of relevant Google+ results.

In other words, Google search results now more than ever send you to … Google.

You’ll only see the Your World aspects when logged into Google, and not everyone can see them yet (you can also easily turn it off if you want). The Google+ results are drawn from the people you have “circled” in Google+ (and vice versa for others who have circled you).

Search sensei Danny Sullivan calls this the most radical transformation of Google search results ever, and with good reason. According to Google’s algorithmic guru Amit Singhal, Your World takes personalized and social search and combines it into one seamless experience:

The social search algorithm, and the personal search algorithm, and the personalized search algorithm are actually one algorithm now, and we are merging it in a way that is very pleasant and useful.

“Pleasant” and “useful” are open to debate, and there’s plenty of debate happening right now. But the one thing that’s for certain, like it or not, is that content marketers can’t choose to simply ignore Google+ and sleep well at night.

Does Google have you in a stranglehold?

My opening Agent Smith reference makes a little more sense now, huh? Do you feel that metaphorical arm around your neck, with the inevitable sound of the train bearing down on you?

Let’s not get overly dramatic, young Neo.

But it does feel somewhat like a take-it-or-leave it deal. We already knew that participating in Google+ would have some positive impact on our search results, but now it seems as if you have no Google+ presence and your competition does, you might lose existing search traffic going forward.

That’s only the beginning of the drama:

  • Twitter issued a statement decrying the preferential treatment for Google+ results over Twitter. Google responded by revealing that it was Twitter, not Google, that chose not to renew the agreement with Google to use Twitter content for real-time search results.
  • Jon Mitchell of ReadWriteWeb thinks Google+ is going to mess up the internet, because Google+ posts about his content were outranking the actual content itself when he searched, and this was even before the official announcement of Your World.
  • Danny Sullivan points out that Google is violating what made Google so useful in the first place. Search engines provide value by sending you away to the best results, not keeping you trapped within a “sticky” web of their own making, no matter how expansive that web within the Web might be.
  • Lee Odden is skeptical about the usefulness of the new socially-integrated results that he’s seen so far, but he nonetheless encourages online marketers to get involved with Google+, build out a quality content presence, and actively participate.
  • John Battelle thinks it sucks for the web that Google and Facebook can’t play nice together. But as Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt points out, Facebook purposefully blocks Google, both with technology and terms of service, from indexing Facebook content and putting it on equal ground with Google+ results.
  • And the rumblings regarding privacy, antitrust, and FTC action are well underway.

One the plus side, others see this development as inevitable in a good (or at least not evil) way:

  • Stephan Shankland of CNET argues that Google had no choice but to make this move. The web is more social than ever, and the primary search engine on the planet must evolve along with the web, with or without the cooperation of Twitter and Facebook.
  • John Henshaw of Raven Tools says Google knows exactly what they’re doing with Your World, and it’s not an act of desperation or necessarily devious. He recommends avoiding cheap SEO tricks that Google is already anticipating, and rather immerse yourself in the Google+ social ecosystem while continuing to create great content.
  • On the anti-antitrust side, Eric Goldman of the Santa Clara University School of Law points out that when Google+ launched, it was welcomed by many as competition against the massive dominance of Facebook in social networking. Now that Google+ is actually getting competitive, everyone’s getting upset.

The only inevitability is change

Look, I’m as concerned about Google’s dominance and the potential for abuse as anyone. I have been for years, which is why I designed Copyblogger Media so that it would survive (and even thrive) if Google sent us zero traffic.

That said, I like getting targeted search traffic from Google. It doesn’t suck, not one bit.

And let’s face it … I also like Google+. It’s been a great experience to hang out over there the last 6 months or so, and I think it’s clearly superior to Facebook, while providing a truly different environment than our primary social networking / content distribution platform, Twitter.

Regardless of all the other potential issues laid out above, the fact is that we online marketers hate changes like this. But Google is constantly changing, and must change, as the Web itself changes.

Universal search (the last “most radical change ever“) arrived in 2007, and personalized search arrived across the board in 2009. Each time, people wrung hands, gnashed teeth, and wailed hysterically about how everything was different and wrong and awful, and they’re still doing it today.

As content marketers, we really have limited choice when it comes to what Google chooses to do.

One choice is to simply decide that we don’t really need search engine traffic.

Another choice is to observe, adapt, and conquer in ways that make the most sense for our businesses.

My guess is Google is going to be tweaking things rapidly over the course of the year, rolling out more cool new features, and generally looking to strike a balance that rapidly grows Google+ without becoming cannon fodder for the Justice Department.

Circle me up on Google+ and we’ll observe, adapt, and conquer together.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and CEO of Copyblogger Media. Get more from Brian on Google+.

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The Straight Dope on Facebook, Twitter, and SEO

by Sonia Simone on February 2, 2011

image of a twitter icon

Ever wonder if all those links that result from people retweeting and sharing content on Twitter give you a boost with SEO?

For a long time no one was sure, because the dreaded nofollow is in use on big social sites to keep those links from being counted as a “vote” for search engine purposes. No matter what, social networking links are still highly useful from a traffic perspective, because they have the power to get new readers to your content.

But in December, Google confirmed that the playing field had changed a little. Here’s what that means for you and your content:

In May, 2010, Google’s Matt Cutts announced that Google was not using social media links as a signal. And then in December, 2010, he announced equally firmly that they had changed their mind:.

We do use Twitter and Facebook links in ranking, as we always have in our web search rankings, but in addition we’re also trying to figure out a little bit about the reputation of an author or a creator on twitter or Facebook. […]

This is something that is used relatively lightly for now, and we’ll see how much we use it over time, depending on how useful it is and how robust it ends up being. The one thing I would caution people about is, don’t necessarily say to yourself, “Aha, now I’m going to go out and get reciprocal follows and I’m gonna get a ton of followers,” just like people used to get a ton of links.

In the same way that PageRank depends on not just the number of links but the quality of those links, you have to think about what are the followers that mean quality, who are the people who are actually not just bots, or some software program or things like that.

What that means is that Google has decided that social media sharing is a smart way to weed the creeps from the good guys.

Right now the effect is still probably small, while the Google teams figure out if social media sharing patterns are a reliable way to uncover the best sites and pages — and leave spam at the bottom of page 10.

(Remember, the first rule of SEO is a lot like the first rule of Copyblogger — don’t try to send users to crappy content.)

Signals

Google uses about 200 “signals” to suggest if a given page is useful or junk.

Right now, links from Twitter or Facebook are still a weak signal. That means that more weight will be given to the usual suspects — how many traditional links you have, the authority of the pages that link to you, what kind of anchor text they use, and your on-page keywords and related copy.

(Check out our free report on SEO copywriting if you want to know more about how this works.)

But those links from social sharing are now a signal that search engines using — and if it proves a reliable way to get better pages to the top of the SERPs, they’ll turn up the volume on it.

Authority matters

Google and Bing have confirmed that they do take into account the authority of users who tweet links to your site.

If someone who looks, acts, and smells like a real user with actual authority tweets a link to your site, that counts for more than if a newbie (or a bot) does it. Which makes sense — just like if an authoritative site links to you, that counts for more than if a small, new site does.

Does that mean you should suck up to people with lots of Facebook friends and Twitter followers? Not exactly.

It does mean that you’ll want to create content that stands out in the crowd. Because of the nature of social sharing, the best stuff tends to find its way to the top. You may not have 100,000 followers, but someone in your 100 followers knows a bigger fish, and so on and so on.

But your content can only capture the attention of the biggest fish if it’s exceptional. So create the best work you can, always.

What should you do differently?

Probably the worst thing you could do would be to start gaming social networking sites to try and manufacture bigger follower/friend numbers.

Forget lame tricks that you think will make you look bigger than you are. Put that time and energy into creating better content — either by becoming a better writer or by partnering with a fantastic writer who needs what you bring to the equation.

(Your side of the bargain might be a paycheck, or it might be business expertise, or a great sense of graphic design, or killer chocolate-cream-cheese cupcakes. You’ve got to figure that part out on your own.)

If you’ve put off social media because you rely exclusively on SEO to get traffic, you might want to reconsider that.

Not only because social sharing will probably become a stronger signal, but because of the many other benefits that get the right visitors to your site.

That’s why Scribe SEO added Twitter to its link-building tools late last year. (And we’ll include more social media link-building tools in upcoming releases.) As SEO evolves, Scribe evolves.

Social media and SEO were never actually as separate as people think — but they’re becoming more entwined every day, and there’s every reason to think that will continue.

What if Google changes their minds tomorrow?

This is always a good question to keep foremost in your mind when you’re planning your SEO strategy.

Using Twitter or Facebook purely to generate links for SEO is a short-term play that probably isn’t worth your time.

But using Twitter and Facebook to:

  • yes, generate links and also …
  • get content in front of readers and …
  • develop relationships with other content marketers that will earn you high-quality organic links (the old-fashioned kind) and …
  • let prospective customers come to know, like and trust you and …
  • translate online connections into real-world relationships and …
  • do market research by listening for customer problems you might be able to solve …

… well, that’s a smart long-term play that will build your business.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is co-founder and CMO of Copyblogger Media. Share your content and copywriting insights with her on twitter.

P.S.

If you find SEO confusing, Scribe SEO was designed to make it simple. It helps you optimize content faster, choose the right keywords, and build quality links — and all with writing that sounds like you, not a robot. Check out Scribe SEO today.

StudioPress Designs take WordPress further


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Scribe 3.0: SEO Made Simple

by Brian Clark on September 30, 2010

image of Scribe logo

Some people think search engine optimization is a dark and mysterious art. But for online writers and content producers, it’s really as simple as 1, 2, 3:

  • First, you need the right keywords, so you understand the language your readers, customers, or clients are using when they search.
  • Second, you need compelling content that people love and search engines know is relevant to those searchers.
  • Third, you need incoming links so search engines treat your site as a trusted and relevant source.

I’m proud to announce that version 3.0 of Scribe now goes beyond on-page content optimization. We’ve added upfront keyword research (in addition to our keyword suggestion tool), plus three great link-building features that help you cover all your search optimization bases.

Scribe 3.0 makes these three SEO fundamentals easier and more efficient than ever:

  • First, the Scribe keyword research tool tunes you into the right language before you write. Once your content is created, the Scribe keyword suggestion service shows you keyword phrases you might have missed.
  • Second, Scribe analyzes your natural, reader-focused content, and tells you how to gently tweak it to spoon feed search engines based on 15 SEO best practices.
  • Third, Scribe’s link building tools help you build back links from other sites, crosslink the content within your own site, and identify influential social media users who want to share your stuff.

With Scribe on your side, you’ll:

  • Discover the correct profitable keywords
  • Stay automatically up to speed on SEO best practices
  • Optimize your content better and faster
  • Avoid content that reads like it was written by a robot
  • Build quality links with less hassle and confusion

But most of all, you’ll achieve higher search rankings and increase the targeted traffic to your site!

As part of your subscription you get Scribe Web, plus integrated versions of Scribe for WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. We’ll even throw in free educational seminars to help you get more out of Scribe.

Check it out.

Scribe Web:

Scribe Web allows content creators of any type to optimize any web content for search engines, regardless of platform or content management system. It’s especially popular among professional writers who create search optimized content for clients, and that’s why Scribe Web allows you to generate detailed content optimization reports so your clients can easily understand the work you’ve done.

Scribe for WordPress:

Scribe for WordPress allows online publishers and bloggers to optimize their content for search engines directly from inside the WordPress interface, by tapping into the Scribe software service on our servers. This means you’re constantly getting new-and-improved, state-of-the-art keyword research, content optimization, and link building tools.

Scribe requires the ability to enter a custom title tag and a meta description via your WordPress interface. Most popular themes and plug-ins, both free and paid, enable these two functions so you can use Scribe directly from WordPress.

Themes that work with Scribe for WordPress:

SEO Plug-Ins that work with Scribe for WordPress:

Scribe for Joomla and Drupal:

Scribe also helps you win the search engine game with the Joomla and Drupal content management systems. The keyword research and link-building features have been built in by our respective Joomla and Drupal ninjas, and are in beta testing as we speak. We expect the new and improved Joomla and Drupal plug-ins for Scribe to be live and kicking by next week.

New design, new videos, new offer:

Because these new Scribe features are kind of a big deal, we’ve done a complete makeover in their honor. We’ve got a completely new site design, new copy, a new video tour, and new demo videos.

There’s also a special offer that makes Scribe an even better deal (if you look hard enough). Hint: Look at the “test drive” page.

Check out Scribe 3.0 for yourself.

About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and CEO of Copyblogger Media. Get more from Brian on Twitter.

Scribe for SEO Copywriting


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How Cornerstone Content Gets You Traffic and Subscribers

by Derek Halpern on May 11, 2010

image of cornerstone in stone building

Blogs are great resources. They let you publish high-quality content quickly, efficiently, and inexpensively.

The problem is, the default functionality of blogging software makes it easy to show what’s new — but hard to show off the depth of what you’ve done over time.

Blogging excels at presenting new content, but fails at aggregating old content in a way that works for people and search engines.

So what can you do? How can you help both people and search engines find your content efficiently?

Create some solid cornerstone content. If you’ve read Brian Clark’s new SEO copywriting report, you know how important this type of content is to attracting links and ranking for the terms that are central to your site.

If you haven’t read Brian’s report, you should to get the full picture. But for now, it’s enough to know that a page hosting cornerstone content helps readers by pulling all of your content about a specific topic together in one place.

In other words, each cornerstone page is a home for related content. If you want an example before I continue, check out Landing Pages or Copywriting 101 in the “resources” sidebar to the left of this post.

Cornerstone pages let you highlight your most important archived content. They also help you attract links, get subscribers, and increase traffic.

Keep reading to find out how.

Cornerstone pages are great targets for link-building campaigns

Remember, links matter first and foremost with search rankings. But complete, in-depth content on the topics you want people to find you for is important, too.

When you group similar content into a home on a single page, you’ll have a keyword dense page which will rank in search engines when you build links to it.

Sticking with the Copyblogger examples, do you think they chose phrases like “landing pages” and “SEO copywriting” by accident?

Absolutely not. These are two popular keyword phrases that the Copyblogger crew wanted to rank well for in Google. And sure enough, they do.

I know what you’re thinking. Copyblogger is a large site. They don’t need to focus on building links to each page, because they will gain links naturally over time.

(Never mind the fact that, like every blog, Copyblogger started with no links and just one subscriber — which in this case was Brian.)

That’s why cornerstone pages are even more important for new bloggers. These resource-rich pages are perfect for you to link when you do guest posts on other blogs. They’ll help you rank for specific keyword phrases and help you find new readers.

2. Cornerstone pages help you get subscribers

People listen to authority figures. Brian also wrote a complete report on authority: why you want it, what it will do for you, and how to get it. People also tend to bookmark, share, and reference authoritative content.

Cornerstone content is authoritative because it demonstrates your knowledge around a specific topic. And if it’s genuinely useful, people won’t hesitate to go further with your content, such as subscribing to your blog or signing up for an email newsletter.

Does this strategy really work?

Yes. How do you think Copyblogger became one of the top blogs?

Scroll through the left sidebar and you’ll see all of the Copyblogger resources. Most of these are cornerstone pages, grouping several pieces of valuable content with a call to action to subscribe to the blog.

3. Cornerstone pages are shareable

Since each piece of cornerstone content helps people address a specific need, they often remember it.

For example, any time someone asks me how to write a great blog headline, there’s one resource that comes to mind . . . the Headline Writing series here on Copyblogger.

Even though I first read it almost three years ago, I still refer back to it every time I need some inspiration.

Whenever anyone asks me how to write a headline, I send them to this resource because of how helpful and complete it is. I don’t have to send them to five different sites, just one simple URL that’s easy to share.

How do you create cornerstone content?

There are two ways.

One, you can start from scratch and write a blog series with the main goal of turning it into cornerstone content.

This is a great way to kick off a blog, or to give your blog a boost. But if you’ve been blogging for a while, there’s a faster way to benefit from this strategy . . . without doing extensive content development.

Let me explain.

You probably have blog categories, right? Take a look through some of your more important categories. What if you hand-picked some of those category-specific articles and grouped them onto a cornerstone page? It would be easy, right?

Now what would make this content effective?

First, you’d want to do some basic keyword research to make sure you’re targeting a keyword phrase that makes sense.

Then you’ll want to write a snappy, informative introduction that builds desire for your content, using smart SEO copywriting to make it search engine-friendly.

And finally, you fill out the page with links to content you already have on your site. It’s that simple.

Now get to work. If you focus, you can get your first cornerstone page posted in 30 minutes. And of course, the next time you write a guest post, make sure you link to your new cornerstone content page using the appropriate keywords as anchor text (Brian’s new report gives an example of this).

How about you? Using any terrific cornerstone content on your own blog? Let us know where to find it in the comments.

About the Author: Derek recently launched the blog Social Triggers. Check it out to learn how to use human psychology to get traffic, sales, and subscribers. Also, don’t miss out on his cornerstone content page, Online Sales 101.

Scribe for SEO Copywriting


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How to Run an Effective Pay-Per-Click Ad Campaign

by admin on October 2, 2009 · Comments

Do you have a product or service that you need to get in front of your audience RIGHT NOW?!

The fastest and easiest way to get traffic to your website is with pay-per-click advertising … but are you doing it correctly?

Too many businesses rush to setup a campaign and then see little or no conversions because they missed a few VITAL steps. What exactly are those steps?

betsykentBetsy Kent, the President and Founder of Be Visible Associates will talk about those vital steps in a live interview on Monday, Oct 5 at 9pm eastern.

Betsy’s search engine marketing firm is based in New York and her client list includes everything from real estate companies and restaurants to photographers and medical organizations.

“When I first went into business my goal was to introduce as many companies as possible to the exciting power of paid search advertising on Google, Yahoo & MSN. My clients were very successful with the programs I set up and it wasn’t too long before many of them began to ask me for more help: help improving their websites, help with their email campaigns, help getting better organic search rankings, and so on.”

“Today, Be Visible Associates is the one-stop-shop for companies that want to be visible to their target market on the web in the smartest, most strategic and most successful ways.”

Listen to the interview with Betsy on the Internet Marketing Radio Show.

 
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