I realized how lately I’ve been writing a lot about topics that, while related to SEO, aren’t necessarily discussing what I would call more traditional optimizing techniques. The reason? It’s not just about SEO anymore.

Yes, you should optimize your site. But going are the days where that is enough. Not only is SEO an ongoing process, but so are other types of web marketing outlets – and those are exactly the places you need to invest your time in order to even hope to succeed in the search engines.

Video

Let’s not beat around the bush. It’s all about YouTube. Sure there are a ton of other video outlets, but YouTube is the best out there. With its easy-to-use interface, it also provides easy-to-embed options (AKA no code knowledge necessary).

Better yet, views from your site or blog add to the total views on YouTube. Why does that matter? The more views a video has, the higher it will rank in Google’s search – and with universal search, that’s just one more way to rank. Not to mention, it’s an easy way to optimize for smart phones.

Photos and Images

Can you say alt tags? Search engines can read, but they can’t see very well. So we have to help them out a little. But when you do it right, and create great keyword rich descriptions for them, images are another way to rank in the search engines.

Social Media

Pretty shortly, if you’re not using any sort of social media outlet for your business, you’re going to be behind the game. Not only is social media a great way to share links and increase buzz, but it also humanizes your business and can almost be used as a PR medium. Plus, while it would really only affect searches for your company name, your social media profiles typically rank extremely well.

Here are some of my quick guides to where you should be, why you should be there, and what to do once you’re there:

• Facebook: Why it’s for your business
• LinkedIn: How to leverage your account
• Twitter
  - A guide to get started
  - What you should tweet about for business

Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking is great way to make things go hot. While there’s no SEO power to sites like Digg, Sphinn, Delicious, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc., the traffic you get from just being “sphunn”, “stumbled”, “dugg”, or the like is entirely worth it.

Nicki Hicks
How are you working toward better online visibility?

It’s funny how something like a flu strain can cause such a ruckus in search.

Google Search

Google Insights for search gives some really helpful data – including the recent trends in the “flu” category. Below the graph, you’ll find “rising searches”, which is great for brainstorming hot keywords for copy or blogging.

Twitter

Twitter search gives real time hot topics – whether it’s an epidemic or hashtag glorification.

Facebook

Facebook groups and fan clubs are the perfect spot to find out what’s hot now.

YouTube

You don’t have to go searching far for that latest videos and newscasts on the swine flu from YouTube.

iPhone

Even iPhone apps are getting a new addition via IntuApps.

Nicki Hicks
The bacon phenomenon has finally caught up with us

Mobile searches are becoming the norm, not the exception.  Optimizing for mobile as well as computer browsers is becoming a necessity, not a choice.  So what can you do to increase your mobile visibility?

1. Install Google Webmaster Tools. They’ll be able to tell you right off the bat whether or not your site can be accessed via smart phones.



2. Optimize for Local Search. Now that GPS is replacing the need to have physical map books, and most of us can no longer function without it (myself included), it’s crucial to be found.



3. Have easy-to-access contact information. Always include your contact information both on your site (in the footer is the cleanest place) and in your meta-description so that mobile searchers can click to either email or call you directly from the SERP!



4. Upload your videos to YouTube. Sometimes, smart phones have trouble indexing and loading large sites that don’t already have a specially equipped smart phone counterpart. By uploading a YouTube video, you guarantee that your site can be accessed via mobile devices; plus be found on YouTube!



5. Create an App. Apps are expensive to develop.  However, they get your name out there the second they’re created!

Nicki Hicks
I’m not craving pizza or anything

Thanks to Barry Schwartz and Keri Morgret from Search Engine Roundtable for taking the time to live blog many of the SMX West sessions!  Here are a few of my notes from Tuesday, Day 1…

Technical SEO Issues for Developers

(Archived version from SE Roundtable)

• Disallow certain forms from being crawled (like Contact Us page)
• Use Webmaster Tools
• Need both human and XML sitemaps
• Canonicalization (www vs. non-www issues) fix: stay the same throughout the site; the fix when someone links to the wrong version: redirect it
• Meta/title tags: HAVE them, CHANGE them
• Be simple.  Use static HTML, meaningful page titles, clear anchor text, don’t link to spam.
• Brevity is GOOD for URL’s, make them simple, stable, and scream COPY ME!
• Improve crawler discovery by leveraging robots.txt (use only if fully understood, validate with Google), sitemap, and metatags
• Use Yahoo Site Exploreer and Google cache to see what’s indexed
• Use easy-to-crawl and search friendly URLs, keep titles and content close to the top
• iFrames = good for gadgets, bad for homepage
• Eye tracking software results: put your BEST keywords FIRST in the title tag (people read them first, and don’t always read all the way to the right)
• Absolute URLs = BETTER

Up Close with Google Maps & Local

(Archived version from SE Roundtable)

• Google Local data from:
  1. Google Local Business Center
  2. 3rd party providers
  3. General web crawl
• Submit/verify your site at: infoUSA, Localeze, Yahoo, Best of the Web, OpenList, CityVoter, InsiderPages, SuperPages
• Search for “your city and blog” for good blogs in your area
• Factors that influence Local rankings:
  1. Proximity to city
  2. Reviews, number of reviews, positive reviews
  3. Overall SEO health of site
  4. Keyword relevancy
• Make sure your address is on your homepage, contact us page, etc.
• If you have multiple locations, submit them ALL to local sites; you still only need ONE website
• No permanent address? Use a PO Box.
• Claim listings with ALL applicable categories
• Add videos!!
• Track calls for free:
  - Pretend to start a Google AdWords account
  - Go to Audio Campaign page
  - Get free phone number
  - Track calls!
• Large companies with multiple locations: create landing pages for geographic locations
• One speaker encourages customers to follow up with work done with local reviews with Visa coupon incentives for next services
• Remember – you CAN report Google Maps spam! (They welcome it!)

Marketer to Developer Translation

(Archived version from SE Roundtable)

• Marketers need to access the data Engineers have; need to access the website that IT/developers control.
• Every website should have a blog. (Bold statement made by one of the panelists)
• What people are searching for is not always what a company calls its product(s)
• What developers need:
  - Data
  - Timeline
  - Details/Structure
  - To know what YOU need
• “Pre-flight” Checklist
  - Company analysis (Who’s your audience?)
  - What’s your tone?
  - What are your project goals? (Rankings? Social?)
  - Sites you like, sites you don’t like
  - Emerging trends
  - Budget
• Don’t exclude anyone from the brainstorming process!
• Be creative, but don’t overdirect your creative team

Diagnosing Website Architecture Issues

(Archived version from SE Roundtable)

• Steps to diagnose:
  1. Assess where your site is today.
  2. Identify problems.
  - Traffic drops
  - Traffic not expected (wrong search terms)
  - Your SERP is not appealing
  - Customers have bad click thru rate
  3. Root cause analysis.
  4. Make improvements.
• Goal = CONVERSIONS!!!!!!
• If PageRank goes down, does NOT mean there’s an issue
• Number of pages indexed = wrong, MAY be a problem
• Indexation ratio change: as you add new pages, # pages indexed vs. what exists
• Another panelists’ steps to diagnose:
  1. Get data, need data to diagnose problem
  2. Find cause
  - Indexing problem: fewer pages indexed? entire site indexed?
  - Ranking problem: drop for all keywords or just some? same pages ranked or different pages?
  - Look at sitemap(s) with Webmaster Tools: submitted vs. total URLs
• Yahoo: use nocontent tag for duplicate info issues on page

Up Close with YouTube

(Archived version from SE Roundtable)

• YouTube is…
  - largest video site
  - 2nd largest search engine (behind Google)
  - 4th largest web property
• To improve YouTube rankings:
  - have good, descriptive titles
  - descriptions: descriptive, accurate, unique; use complete sentences
  - include tags – DON’T stuff them!!
  - share with members, annotate, embed videos on site, be social and share!
  - get community involved with video
  - use stats (Insights) to get metrics (the “About this Video” button)
• Links in YouTube profile:
  1. Right under profile picture
  2. Website URL
• Links ARE nofollowed, but put them in – Google STILL looks at them!
• YouTube metas:
  - title = (meta-) title tag
  - description = meta-description tag
  - tags = meta-keywords tag
• 100% put watermarks in videos
• YouTube has Google Maps integration – your video can show up in local search!
• Obama & White House have YouTube channel!

The Search and the iPhone SMX presentation I went to a few weeks ago opened my eyes.  I had already been aware of how important optimizing for mobile devices was becoming – but it wasn’t until this presentation I realized JUST how much.

An article from eMarketer this morning confirmed and reminded me how SEO for mobile is very quickly becoming a necessity.

Mobile marketing, alone, should be taking the industry by storm, and it is – when 53% of users have access to the SMS function on their cell phones.

Optimizing your website for smart phones is the next step, but just the beginning.  While 17% of people have access to the internet on their phones, 15% have access to email.  So, even seemingly simple things like mobile emails that do not download pictures are helpful in faster download times.  This begs the question: why include so many pictures in email marketing campaigns?

Now, ever increasingly popularity of video, music, picture, and game downloads makes asking what type of movie, game, or app your company can create that people will actually download an inevitable one.

Nicki Hicks
What’s your YouTube channel?