Learn SEO | Search Engine Optimization Tips and Techniques

Online relationships have certainly evolved over the last 18 months to the point one starts to wonder if social networking has overtaken SEO for getting your website in front of interested viewers. In the past on site search engine optimization was the name of the game. I have always been an advocate of SEO planning from the moment the initial idea for a website is presented. Now I begin to wonder if pure onsite SEO is where it’s at and if it is worth the effort when social networking can drive a better quality of visitor.

What do I mean by “better quality of visitor”? Referrals have always been the golden nuggett in sales.  Isn’t that what social networking is all about at its core? I find something I like on the web and I share it with others who like the same thing. Simple but very effective. Through social networking referrals I know the visitors want exactly what I have to offer, whether it is a product or service. Someone has told that visitor about my website and has recommended they visit it.

I am starting to believe that social networking will surpass SEO as the primary means of getting a website in front of the right viewers.  By having social networking as my primary means of traffic generation I am freed from having to worry whether or not I have offended the powers to be that control the search engines; I am free not to worry about correct keyword to text ratios or page layout. I am still concerned with inbound links but beyond that all the other apsect of SEO can go out the window.  As long as I have a good service or product and good quality content tha solves a persons problem, then I should focus on developing relationships with my visitors and their contacts.

True I may not get as many visitors but the visitors I get are more apt to use my service or purchase my product based on the fact that someone referred them.  What do you think? Has social networking overtaken SEO?

We all know that fresh original content and one way inboud links are good for SEO.  How can a blog be used to get these inboud links and to display content that the search engines like? I have in the past said that for each new website being built there needs to be an accompanying blog that supports that website and has a different domain name. By using a blog to display regular updates with news and information about your sites service or products, you are creating fresh content that will be linked to your site as well as one way inboudn links to your site. This is especially good if you have a large static website that would take too long or be too cost prohibitive to redesign in a more SEO friendly fashion.

By building a blog under a different domain name you do a couple of things. First you establish a second identity in the same industry. This second identity can be developed to the point where you are considered and expert on your particular field of interest.  As your build your blog you can use it to display the latest news and achievements from your company as well as your industry niche. When these news articles are written you have the opportunity to use anchor links in your text to link back to your original site.  Of course it takes time to build credibility so those links will be effective but with good quality original content you can achieve that status in a few months. Quality is definitely the key to this process.  In addition to anchor text links throughout your articles and news you have the opportunity to use a keyword based link from your blog roll back to the original site.  Place a banner ad on your main site displaying a visual link to your blog and set up a Twitter account with an auto updater plugin so your blog entries will post automatically in Twitter.

Before long your secondary web presence (blog) will be driving traffic to your site and you have the opportunity to actually rank more than one site for the same company high in the search engines.

What is your experience with using blogs and websites together.

Here is my example:  Main site at www.bbq-festivals.com and blog at www.bbqhub.com

I am curious how many companies are offering special discounts on products and services via Twitter only. When you think about it, Twitter based discount offerings is a very good idea to gain followers as word gets out that discounts can be had. By doing this you can almost guarantee a higher visitation rate to landing pages than you would via other means such as AdWords. By giving a reason to follow and offering daily discounts to your products or services you can increase the traffic to your website and conceivably see an increase in sales conversions.

The next time you have a special discount, why not use Twitter to advertise your savings and see what happens. I would be curious to see the results.

On May 6th I posted how a theme change on the blog caused my Google ranking to drastically drop and that I intended to go back to the old theme and layout.  Well I made that change and waited for the friendly Google spider to pay me a visit. I am pleased to say that x7SEO.com is now back on the second page of Google for the search “learn SEO”. Now I just have to work to get it to the front page of Google. One step at a time.

Lesson learned:  Be prepared for a change in your search return positions when you make major changes to the layout of your site or blog……..

What has your experience been?

Page layout and structure play an important part in the search engine optimization process.  This was driven home the past couple weeks when I made a major change to this blogs layout. Prior to this change (using the format you now see) x7SEO.com consistantly showed up on the second page of Google for the searches “learn seo” and “seo techniques”.

That was not to be with the new theme. After Google crawled the site it fell to number 47 and you know what that means; traffic took a definite hit!  So I have switched back to this WP theme called “Seashore”. It is a simple format and may not look as good as others, but it presents the information in a simple and clear way to the reader and it would appear is “spider” friendly. 

If you opt to expirement with different layouts and themes on your WP blog, be willing to see fairly substantial flucuations in your rankings.  Now I must wait until the next Google crawl to see if this blog comes back up to the second page.  Then it will be time to work on moving it to the first page for the search “learn SEO’.

What have your experiences been when changing layouts? Have you seen a drop in rankings and what did you do to get back up to where you were?