Social Search Redefines SEO
Welcome to Resort Marketing Vids. I’m your host, and resident marketing expert, Michael Grimm. Here for the Resort Developers Association to help you navigate the world of online marketing.
Today we’re touching on a new subject that affects every one of us – search engine optimization. Specifically, how Google’s new social search function redefines search engine optimization.
Since the rise of Facebook, social media has been playing a bigger and bigger role in how sites are ranked and found online. But, with the release of Google Social Search, the rules have changed…again.
As always, the Exact algorithms Google uses to rank pages is kept secret. The basic concept, however, is very simple and quite intuitive. Essentially, the more endorsements a page gets from users, especially your friends and trusted authorities on that particular subject, the higher it’s going to rank. It’s almost like asking a friend for a recommendation.
The beauty of the new Social Search  is that it levels the playing field for smaller businesses and businesses that are a little late to the internet game. The big fish that have been around for years and have buckets of money to throw at SEO specialists are no longer are guaranteed the upper hand. Now if one of your tweets or videos goes viral, you could very well see yourself listed right up there on the first page of Google. As you rack up on those shares, re-tweets, and +1s, you’ll see your page start flying through the rankings for various search terms.
So, what should you be doing?
1. Get in good with Google.
Embrace Google’s social network, Google Plus. It looks like it’s here to stay, so learn to love it. After all, you’re competing to be at the top of Google’s listings. It’s only common sense that your involvement in Google’s own social network will greatly impact your placement in their social search results.
What you want to do, is start adding Google’s Plus One buttons on all of the content on your website.
It’s simple to add social share buttons. In fact, all of your content should have, at a minimum, Facebook, Twitter, +1, and Pin It buttons. Pin It buttons are for Pinterest. If you’re not familiar with it, don’t worry, we’ll cover it soon enough. StumbleUpon is also a great one to have. After Facebook, it ranks second in terms of referral traffic.
The idea is the same though, start getting your content off your static website and into the dynamic social space. As long as your content is infused with relevant keywords, you’ll start seeing a spike in your search result positions for the various terms you want to rank for.
That’s all the time we have for now. Join us next week and we’ll share other ways to boost your SEO via social means. I’m Michael Grimm for the Resort Developers Association, I’ll see you later.