Various question re SEO and social media
-
Hi all:
It is time for my semi-annual “I don’t have a clue” question. Actually it’s questions since there are three although they may overlap.
I am confused about the intersection of social media and SEO. A couple of years ago it seemed like one of the better procedures for link building was writing articles and having them published on Isnare, Goarticles Ezine and the like. Now I am not sure if this is effective anymore. It seems like all of the emphasis is being put on social media sites. Not just Facebook, Twitter Pinterest, and blogs, but big ones (that I don’t have a prayer in the world of getting on) such as Mashable, Reddit etc.
How are my efforts best served at this point? Should I still submit articles to article directories or should I concentrate on guest blogging (which isn’t so easy if you want a reputable blog) or try something that I can’t even think of?
Second, my blog is a Wordpress Blog that is no big deal and probably isn’t read much. It can be accessed either at Wordpress or through my site. It is listed in my Google Merchant Account, but I can’t imagine anyone reads it. It’s about gifts and products that we sell and is not going to stimulate anyone’s mind. Two things here: First (and I don’t know if anyone will know the answer to this) my site is hosted by Yahoo. There is a tab at the top of my site that takes you to the blog, but Yahoo also has some way to integrate the blog with the website. Does anyone know if this will make any difference? Second, the last several times that I ran by backlinks on Open Site Explorer my Wordpress blog has not shown up. It always did previously right at the top. Any guesses as to why it no longer shows?
Finally, in the last couple of months I have had a precipitous drop in orders and visitors to my site. The only thing that I have done is to lower my budget for Google Adwords, but it was never that high to begin with and shouldn’t account for the change.
Given the holiday season traffic should be picking up but it is going in the other direction. Does anyone know what is happening here and what to do about it? Anyone with really good insights might get a gift certificate from us (is that permitted on SEOMOZ – if not then forget it).
The website is www,uniquegiftsanddecor.com. Here’s a thought – buy stuff from us. (ignore if this is spammy).
Many thanks.
Don
-
Thanks for the encouragement. I'll keep plugging along.
Don
-
LOL, I really like the one about how the right home decor can make you feel better when you get a speeding ticket. Excellent!
You know, sometimes, I think the hardest part is sticking with it. In the beginning, Rand's blog didn't get a lot of attention either. It's a lot easier to be motivated to write when you know thousands of people are just waiting to gobble up your content...but no one gets there without writing a lot of posts with zero comments first.
-
Really funny. I love off the wall stuff. I once posted on our Facebook page that in an effort to be more controversial and cutting edge we would begin selling children. No one thought that it was funny. I also wrote an article a couple of years back about how we were stuck with a bunch of dragon hatchling statues who we couldn't find buyers for so they became homeless, meth addicted and troublesome when they reached their teenage years. I actually got a response to that one. I went through a period of posting things on our blog that only incidentally had to do with what we sell. One was about how the movie "Super 8" could have featured better home decor. Another was how unique home decor can make you feel better when you get nailed by a speed trap. Also one about how our candlesticks can be used to ward off burglars.
Some of our products are so weird that they look like they wee made up.
I check put ThinkGeek every once in awhile. My problem is that I have a constrained template that does not allow me the flexibility to add pages. I am having a yahoo store place look it over. However, budget is a huge problem.
Thanks again for your advice.
Don
-
Hi again Don,
I do have one sort of off the wall idea that was mentioned this year at Mozcon that I thought was brilliant for attracting traffic and links (well, I guess they go hand-in-hand don't they?)....Have you ever thought about creating a fake product? If you did this right, and make it quirky or funny enough it could do great things for your traffic, especially for the holidays.
Here's one example of a fake product that went so viral that they first received a "Cease and desist order" from the National Pork Board and then they actually made the "fake" product a real product...wel not "real" really...but a fake, fake product, LOL. The fake product even got an article by a blogger for the New York Times...not bad!
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/unicorns-theyre-not-the-other-white-meat/
I'd totally love to brainstorm the idea of a fake product for you. It's something I just can't do at the company where I am an in-house SEO because our customer base isn't going to appreciate the humor.
Just an idea!
Dana
-
Thank you. I posted a response to the other person who answered this. Perhaps you have some thought.
Thanks.
Don
-
Hi Marcus - Actually I'm not bored with content so sorry for the misimpression. I meant this as a true statement based on the fact that feedback to what I write and to my blog in particular is non-existent. i write some of my own and have outsourced to others. I have posted on other sites lie Gather and Squidoo, but nothing major. I have an active Facebook site although not a lot of followers. I have large postings on Pinterest.and Wanelo and I'm posting to a new place called Manteresting. But this isn't content - just pictures and links.
The problem that this creates is that I no longer know where to post content. I used to use the article submission places, but as danatanseo states this is probably a waste of time now. So do you know of places to post now that don't have to be highly rated blogs? I am still pursing highly rated blogs but I never hear back from them. Do you know what other people are using these days to get content out if their site is such that content cannot be posted on it?
Thanks so much.
Don
-
Hey Don,
I am not really sure where to start on this one.
If you have a blog, that by your own admission, is not very interesting and no one reads, then I can only assume that it exists purely to generate links. Likewise, if you are doing article marketing, I assume that is also purely to generate links with exact match anchor text and it has little in the way of value beyond that.
Problem is, that jig is kind of up and is likely a good indicator of why your traffic has been declining. Whether you have some specific penalty or those links have just been devalued would need some further analysis - have you had large drops on a given date or dates?
You have really got to go back to the drawing board here and think about creating content that people will enjoy reading it and using that to promote your products.
Re social, you can't really use social in a meaningful way to promote your site until you have something to share and for people to link to.
Sorry, not great news, but sometimes the best friends are the ones that tell you the things you don't want to hear.
This community is great, ask more questions, get involved, and people will certainly help.
Happy Halloween.
Marcus -
Hi Don,
I have a couple of suggestions for you. Regarding article submissions, no, it's probably not worth your time any more. Yes, guest posting would probably be way more beneficial, provided you are selective and relevant about what and where you choose to write.
Regarding social media, do you have a Google+ account? If not, establish one and then establish authorship of your Website and blog. There are numerous articles that can guide you through this process. Here's one just for reference: http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/authorship/index.html Learn everything you can about and start participating in Google+. Skeptical? Here's a great post that makes the case: http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/author-rank
Regarding your blog. I notice that it is a Wordpress.com blog instead of a blog built on Wordpress.org I made the same mistake myself when I first started blogging and built a blog on Wordpress.com out of expediency. I only found out later that Wordpress.com is terrible for SEO because it is inherently limited. Last I checked you can't even install Google Analytics. If at all possible, move your blog to its own hosted domain. I'm not sure how complicated a migration from Wordpress.com to a regular Wordpress ite would be, but I can't image it's that bad. If there's an alternative to move it onto its own domain via Yahoo that might be a good possibility too.
Lastly, and this is very subjective so please take it with a grain of salt, you sound bored with your own content. If you aren't passionate about it, that lack of passion is going to come through. Perhaps it might be worth outsourcing some of the content production if it's something you don't feel a fire in your belly to do. There's just so much competition out there that if you aren't communicating passionately about your products, services or whatever it is, then it's going to be nearly impossible to persuade a complete stranger to care about it.
Those are my suggestions. I hope they help somewhat. I think some of your products are cool and quirky. I hope the holidays bring an upturn in business!
Dana
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Main Site Social Media SEO impact on different product specific site
Hi, Few months ago I have created a minisite for a particular product category for the online store Giftcampaign.es with a different domain name. The idea was to focus this minisite on selling personalized usb memories and to have a different design, functionality and content that the main one (the site is http://www.usbpersonalizado.es). What I have done here is to link on my site the Social Markers of Facebook and LinkedIn of the parent site GiftCampaign.es, as we are not planning to open and maintain an account for those social networks, and we are already maintaining the ones for the parent site. I would like to know if the SEO Positioning of my minisite can benefit from the links of the Social Networks of the parent site or whether it makes not really an impact in SEO positioning unless I create and maintain new social network accounts for the different minisites that I create with different domain names. I look forward for your response. Best regards, Oriol .
Social Media | | oriolbandalux0 -
Tweet favourites or re-tweets, how does it affect ?
We have a small blog, which posts around 5-6 posts everyday based on Web Development and we get a lot of social traffic, as many of our followers which costs of some big websites and tech blogs too re-tweets and favourites or tweets. Almost 10-15 favourites happen everyday for our posts. Does this help us on this new age of Google social search engine ranking ?
Social Media | | monali1230 -
What is the value of having a social media feed displayed on your website?
This is something I asked myself this evening. You see a lot of sites with a Facebook or Twitter feed displayed, but I struggle to understand their value. OK, it shows that you are active on this or that social media channel, but unless you are posting great content consistently on the social media displayed, the impact of your feed could detract from the web page it is displayed on. It could also cause a visitor to that page on your site to click away from your site into the noise and distraction of that social media channel. I don't have an issue with using social media icons to link to your channels, but they are more discreet and the sort of thing people will look for if they are interested enough in your web pages to want to connect with you. Also, social sharing icons are good, but I do not see the value in social media feeds. Do you agree or disagree? I am more than will to be persuaded otherwise. Thanks in advance,
Social Media | | crackingmedia
Peter0 -
How is your social media profile?
Hi At the moment im trying to make a social media strategy for the company i work in, whcis is a big insurance company. Of course i want to add value on the different social media, but i also want to take into account which value the social media can add to my SEO. Facebook
Social Media | | Petersen11
We have a profile on Facebook, with around 5.000 likes, and as far as im concerned the important thing on Facebook is to get people to share your links? Google+ At the moment we dont have a Google+ account, but my suggestion would be that we create one . maybe not to generate alot of content, but in order to get more info on the branded search results - and i have a presumption that Google will put more and more emphasis on Google+ in the updates that lies ahead. Twitter We have a profile, but are there anything we could do in order to optimize the SEO-effect via Twitter - what i have heard is that because their links are no-follow it dosent have any effect on SEO. Instagram
Is there anything to gain on SEO if you create a profile on Instagram? Please let me hear your views on this. Thanks in advance.0 -
What could Google+ do for your SEO?
If your a Google+ wizard and do everything right, so optimise your profile, pick up 1000's of followers, followers engage with your posts by adding a comment or a plus, followers are even going to your website and sharing content using the Google plus button etc. What kind of effect would this have on your SEO? Would this kind of activity improve your Auth? Side question: Forget the above, what movement would you expect if one of your pages received 1000 plus's from real users, would you expect to see a jump in SERP's I know every website is different, im just looking to see what I could expect if the work was put in to achieve the above.
Social Media | | activitysuper0 -
Social Media Analytics Software?
Hi All, Do any of you have recommendations on basic social analytics software? We are looking for something that's not to expensive, that's easy to use, and measures the basic stuff, hashtag mentions, tweets, likes, etc. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Regards, Margarita
Social Media | | MargaritaS0 -
Myth or Fact: Social Media Dashboards Bad for SEO?
I want to start using HootSuite to pre-schedule Facebook/Twitter updates, but am plagued by nagging concerns because I have heard that HootSuite may impact SEO in a negative way. Is this truth or bull? If it i true, how so, specifically? And can anything be done to mitigate the negative SEO factors? Also, does anyone prefer another dashboard over HootSuite? Thanks in advance for your inputs!
Social Media | | 406lucy0 -
How to Start a Social Networking Site
I am thinking about starting a niche social networking site. My question is how big of a team would I need, how much up front costs would I incur and what specific coding languages would my team need to be well versed in? I'm thinking HTML, CSS, php, MySQL but are there any other languages needed for this type of endeavor ?
Social Media | | bronxpad0