Google has really mixed up and turned upside down how website owners now go about trying to get organic placement in this past year. It used to be that on page optimization was the first and foremost thing to do to improve placement on Google.com. Now on page optimization only impacts organic placement by a meager 25%.
So what are the big impacts that bump up organic placement on Google now?
- Sharable content that other blogs and users want to link to for more information.
- Resources that speak about you and your site as authorities and experts in your industry.
- Social media chatter about your business and content.
- Followers that become advocates for you and your services through social engagement.
- Authority websites that link to your content.
With only a 25% impact coming from on page optimization, is it worth the time and trouble to update your meta title and meta description tags? You bet! Although this is now a small part on what it takes to get ranking on Google.com, it is one of the easiest factors for you to update quickly and may give you the “bump” in placement you need to move above your competitors.
Sure the other 75% of factors are tough, really tough to impact, but with great content and being active in social media, you can work to engage others and start buzz that will directly impact placement on Google over time. Personally I believe that having a great content strategy is the very first step.
In this strategy you’ll want to look at the following:
1. Set a schedule for creation of sharable white papers to be done on a monthly basis. This gives your site something unique to push in social media and provides value to readers. I would not necessarily lock this new content down behind a gateway, but rather allow it to be used free and widely as long as links back to your site are maintained.
2. Set a schedule about how frequently you’ll self-promote in your social updates. Typically we recommend one soft sell update a day out of five updates.
3. Make sure your blogger is focused on supplying content for your target audience. The days of pushing your service in each and every blog are long gone. Now you’ll want to provide something of substance in your blog posts that others you want to have become customers will consider real value.
4. Monitor your progress. You won’t know if what you are doing is working if you don’t have a starting benchmark and check regularly (monthly) to see if what you are doing is impacting your organic placement.
5. Know that everything you do now should be to improve your user experience and not to cater to search engines. By putting your customer and prospect first and foremost in your new strategy organic placement is sure to come over time.
If you need top level, but down to earth practical help with your content strategy, it all starts with our initial SEO evaluation. Take a few moments to find out if we may be a good match for your needs.