3 SEO Myths Dispelled

Anna Ritchie : Community Maven
Anna Ritchie
Marketing & communications practitioner, and product manager for TMCnet. Focus on content marketing and social media with a specialty in Online Community-building for businesses. Follow @Connectincloud and @apritchie
| Expertise and Advice on Successful Online Communities

3 SEO Myths Dispelled

I’m in post-webinar bliss. Not only did a record number of people register for yesterday’s SEO-focused online event, but both the discussions from expert speakers and questions from attendees were extremely original and thought-provoking.

 Jonathan Allen, Director of Search Engine Watch, teamed up with TMCnet’s CEO Rich Tehrani to discuss the latest research and best practices for boosting your company’s SEO, and ways to use online communities to do so.  Even though many companies are utilizing smart SEO practices to boost their search engine ranking (hopefully many have learned from recent SEO-punishments as a result of the Panda update) there are still 3 myths which came up during yesterday’s session that I think yesterday’s webinar dispelled, and would like to gather additional reactions to.  

1)      You need to rank on page 1 of search engines

2)      Social Media doesn’t contribute to your bottom line

3)      B2B companies can’t get passionate community followers

 

1)      This is a little misleading by categorizing it as a myth, but I think yesterday’s speakers brought up two interesting points to consider for people who think that ranking on page 1 of a major search engine means you’ve hit SEO-gold. 

To start, you don’t need to be on page 1. You need to be number one (no pressure!)  Let me explain. With the rise of mobile and tablet usage, a smaller screen means companies really need to rank in the top positions of a search engine results page (check out Search Engine Watch’s statistics on just how much time people are spending on these devices). But don’t let this scare you, because there are ways to achieve a place at the top.  Companies need to get very targeted with their keyword usage, and really look for long tail opportunities and combinations, since many people will re-search again and again using different variations of terms to get the information they want, rather than scroll through a long list of results (example: Dog Kennel might be a hard to rank term, but “Dog Kennel with outside play area in the Bronx” – well that, probably not so much).

If you’re not on page 1, there still might be an opportunity for you to rank on the Google News page, meaning you’ll get picked up in Google news alerts and rank on that page rather than the main search results page. Why is this important? People searching to buy a product might go to the News page for recent press releases, reviews, and articles on your company. By getting your content funneled through a major media source that gets up on these pages, you’ll have an opportunity to still rank high on major search engines and be linked with the latest industry news as well – a win-win if you ask me.

2)      LinkedIn rocks, and can contribute to your bottom line.  

Even though many companies struggle with how to use Twitter and Facebook to actually make their company money (without paying for sponsored ads), Jonathan Allen brought up the great point that LinkedIn has become an amazing resource and even lead generation tool. With the professional, credible structure of LinkedIn, and the ability to join networks with people who have similar interests as you (example, I’m part of the Creative Product Managers group) it’s more likely that your content, if relevant and credible, will be linked to and shared by your fellow group members.  For example, Search Engine watch saw an increase of 600% in traffic to their website from LinkedIn in the last month.  Yes, you read that right. An increase in traffic, combined with aggressive content marketing and lead capture process, can mean real results for your company in a relatively small amount of time.

3)      It’s possible to be passionate about printers!

Many people speculate that it’s almost impossible to get a B2B audience passionate on social networks. But, as Rich and Jonathan advised during the webinar, don’t let these assumptions deter you from trying it out! If you use the right methods, it actually IS possible to get a community involved about your product- yes even a printer. How? Get in a dialogue with your audience, and get them to contribute topics they want to learn from you. Give them valuable, educational content, and give them the answers to their questions.  By interacting with your audience, you’re not only giving them a reason to talk about your services and products, but also getting content ideas from them.

What are your thoughts on these 3 myths?  Join the conversation online: Twitter|Facebook|LinkedIn


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