Historians like to point out that the cold war might have been responsible for much of the technological and industrial growth the world has seen over the past few decades. Without the high-stakes competition and constant threat of attack, the thinking goes, we might not have been pushed to create the Internet, advanced mobile devices, and many of the other things we’ve all come to know and love.

But of course, there was that constant fear under threat of attack…

If you are involved in online business, you probably know what I’m getting at. It’s great that the web, and search engines especially, is growing by leaps and bounds, but at the same time, it seems like every new week brings another wrinkle in the SEO game – one that your competitors would love to use to put you out of business.

Since it doesn’t seem like people are going to stop trying to get to the front of Google, Yahoo, and Bing anytime in the near future, how can your business win a search engine arms race that never seems to stop?

Well, you can start by employing all the weapons at your disposal. Make sure that it isn’t just your web designs that are optimized, but that your social media profiles, blog, online videos, and other content are set up in a search engine-friendly way as well. Having all of these elements coordinated and working together is far more important than using any one of them perfectly

And secondly, you can do what the West did when it stood off against the Soviets: trust the market. If there was anything we learned from the whole experience, it was that rigid planning (in the case of the Russian economy) had a hard time competing with an open flexibility. Rather than worry too much about the future, simply concentrate on your short-term game plan and then adjust as needed going forward.

The search engine optimization cold war might be underway, making the game of finding customers harder and more competitive, but that’s no reason to hide in your virtual bunker. Just get all your forces moving in the right direction and let your instincts take over.

Want to put your SEO plan over the top? Talk to me or my team to see how we can help you reach the best positions on Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Over the past couple of years, Google and the other major search engines have made waves by beginning to integrate what those of us in the industry call “universal search.” Basically, it just means that in addition to webpages, results are starting to show other content as well, like videos, audio clips, pictures, and so on.

You might think that, since you don’t work in the Calgary web design or search engine optimization markets for a living, that this trend doesn’t matter to you all that much. And you would be wrong.

It’s no longer enough to simply optimize your pages

That’s because, by adding more weight to other types of content than they did in the past, the search engines are changing the game in fundamental ways. It’s no longer enough to simply optimize your pages, write a few articles, and watch the web visits come in; now you have to use, and be on the lookout for, all kinds of content that could attract your customer’s eye.

So how will this impact your business online? In two ways: first, it’s going to force business owners like you to pay more attention to where they are showing up in the search results for different terms. But more importantly, it means that all new content that you put online is going to have to be treated a little bit like raw chicken.

Just as you wouldn’t eat a chicken breast or wing that hadn’t been cooked through enough to kill off anything that can hurt you, neither should you upload any piece of content – whether it’s an article, video, e-book, or even a simple blog post – without being sure that you have fully optimized title, keywords, and so on.

Universal search means there’s not any such thing as “non-optimized” business content anymore. Get in the habit of paying attention to everything you add to your company’s website and social media pages, because these days, it all matters.

Search engine optimization is an important part of any online marketing plan. Let me and my team help you bring more buyers to your website.

Social media marketing, up to this point, has been something of a mixed bag. On the one hand, with hundreds of millions of users and more joining every day, it’s a trend that no business owner can afford to ignore. But on the other, lots of marketers have rightly pointed out that for all the fun and excitement, it seems hard to trace a clear line from having strong social networking profiles and increasing your sales.

Just because there isn’t necessarily a clear line, however, doesn’t mean there isn’t any line.

For one thing, social networking sites allow owners and marketers to communicate directly with clients and customers in a way that they’ve never been able to do before. Sites like Facebook and LinkedIn give unparalleled one on one with buyers, allowing you to establish deeper relationships with them, gain new customers through referrals, and get valuable feedback.

Maybe even more importantly, though, is that Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft’s Bing are increasingly weighing social media content more heavily into their rankings. In other words, the stronger you are on social networking sites, the easier it is for customers to find you everywhere else. Knowing that search engines love social media, here are five things you can start doing right away to help your business online:

Start social media profiles. If you don’t already have accounts on the major networks, create them today. You can’t benefit from profiles that aren’t there.

Post regularly. Likewise, the best thing you can do for your social media marketing plan is to use it. Accounts that aren’t updated can’t do you much good.

Be interesting. Social media marketing is all about what your customer wants to read. Find out what issues and problems matter most to your buyers, and then comment on those.

Market softly. Don’t try to hit customers over the head with your marketing message. Instead, consistently reinforce it with interesting and entertaining content.

Put everything together. No single account on Twitter, Facebook, or any other social networking site is going to be enough to put your search engine optimization efforts over the top. Use them all together, linking each profile to the others so you can get the most out of your time and effort.

If you’d like to see your search engine optimization and social networking profiles do a better job of working together, contact me today to see how our team can help.

David West
Calgary Web Design Professional