The SEO Puzzle
Let’s talk about the SEO puzzle and how we’re all struggling as business owners and marketers to create websites, blogs, content and social site posts that will come together to generate traffic, and that traffic then generates business for us.
For years now, we’ve concentrated our efforts in large part on two major puzzle pieces, the “Who” of search optimization being the first. We want them to find US, so we work on creating a brand and presence to get them to our marketing. And, we’ve also concentrated very much on the “Where” piece.
The Where piece of course is all about creating content in our niche and trying to optimize it so that searchers find our location on the Web using search phrases relevant to our products and services. We very much want them to find our content and click on it to come to our websites and blogs. The Where piece has been the place we’ve focused most of our SEO efforts.
The Where piece is still quite important, but it’s taken on a new angle. Based on where searchers have connected with us in the past, they may just see search results in a whole new order, with our content moving closer to the top of their searches. You see, the default for a Google search is set to show results of connections on Google+ higher. So, if you’ve developed a relationship with someone on Google+ and they’ve placed you in their Circles, your results for their related key phrase searches will move higher in their results, usually to the first page. That’s a big thing, so you’ll want to work on developing social relationships, particularly on Google+.
However, there is a really big gorilla in the wings, and few business owners and marketers have realized just how powerful the “When” piece has become. Searchers have learned how to adjust Google search results based on when the content was published. And, more and more, searchers don’t want old material in their searches, so they tell Google to show them content in relation to when it was published. Currently, they can elect to see only content within the previous year, month, week, or 24 hours. Most of them understand that the 24 hour limit is going to be best for breaking news. However, they’re using the week and month limitations more every day.
They want to see newer content, not something out of date. And, here is a real-life example of how that looks, with a study by one marketer on their most competitive and valuable key phrase search:
- phrase entered with no time frame and there has been no social connection between searcher and business: position 20, bottom of second page of results.
- phrase entered when the searcher has the business in their Circles: three results on first page.
- phrase entered with one year time frame: position 7 on first page.
- phrase entered with one month and one week time frame: TOP POSITION.
So, the When piece is now something we can’t ignore. Are you creating new content on a regular basis?