Beyond Optimization

As we look at the state of the internet, we’re seeing a time in which the greatest invention in the history of mankind has left its panicked adolescence behind. It’s not quite the Wild West anymore, and long-term strategies are not only possible but necessary. An SEO strategy for 2013 is less about optimizing your website and more about creating a comprehensive, authoritative web presence for your organization, your industry, and your content authors. This is our advice for you as you build your 2013 SEO strategy:

Audit

Start with an audit of your web presence and your online industry presence. Your site doesn’t exist in a vacuum, so look at what your competition or industry cohorts are up to. You might notice that everyone has a blog but you or that you’re ahead of the game with social media. Make note of any trends you see, but don’t try to copy a competitor—you’ll only suffer the law of diminishing returns.

Next, look at your own web presence. Are you accessible on major social media channels? What search terms are people using to find you? What types of content are you using (images, text, video, downloadable PDFs, etc.)?

Don’t jump to any conclusions during the audit. This is just the data collection phase. After the audit, you’ll want to sit down with the whole picture and develop a comprehensive strategy. You should establish a 12-month plan with monthly evaluations. SEO isn’t a short-returns game, so you need to stick with your plan. Just like the audit, use your monthly evaluations to collect data, but don’t make major changes to your plan based on a bad month. A good SEO plan could take some time to show results and shifting gears too early could derail your efforts.

Keep an Eye on Visitor Behavior

Search engines are putting more weight on what visitors do on your site. Everything from how long visitors are on your site to whether or not they scroll through your content will impact your SEO.

Search engines focus on user behavior, because while there are always new tricks to lead someone to your site, the way that users react is an excellent reflection of how satisfied they are with what they find. The weight of user behavior means that you need to put more energy into user experience. Your traditional SEO might give someone a reason to click your link, but your substance will give them a reason to stay and become a loyal customer or reader.

Be Clear and Be Honest

You still need a prospective visitor to click your link instead of some other link in their search engine results, so you need to have a strong title tag and a relevant description. The title and description tags are what people will see in their search results.

When you write your title tag, be as clear and detailed about your page as you can in 65 characters. What would you rather click, “SEO tips for 2013 | Media Genesis” or “SEO Strategy Advice for 2013: Beyond Optimization | Media Genesis”?  Your title doesn’t need to max out the 65 characters, but the more specific you are the better.

A great description can support a great title, and with 165 characters, you have more room to add substance. Remember what Simon Sinek said: “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” Take this opportunity to tell people why you do what you do. What we do, in this case, is offer SEO advice, but we do it because we want to make the web a more beautiful and useful place for everyone.

You want to be clear to your visitors, but you also want to be clear to search engines. There are technical details that should go into a site to be in line with SEO best practices, but this kind of housekeeping work is best left in the hands of a web developer.

Link Naturally

Link farming is over. With the launch of the Penguin algorithm update, Google checks to see if your links are occurring naturally, so if you have a lot of links coming from the same types of sources and all of those links are surrounded by very similar content, it starts to look unnatural. The key to healthy linking is giving someone a reason to link and a reason to click that link. You’re probably noticing a user-focused trend forming.

One way to encourage linking is to produce fresh content regularly. A blog is a great way to do this, but in general, you should post at least one piece of substantive, fresh content each month. The next step is getting that content out through social media channels or, depending on the content, press channels. The point isn’t to increase your links, but to let people know there’s something worth reading (user behavior) and worth linking to (natural link building). A stream of insightful content also establishes you as an authority.

Be the Authority

Google’s algorithm is increasingly considering the source of content when deciding how valuable it is. To build a reputation with Google, you want to use Google Plus (G+) to bolster your Author Rank.

If you’ve built a good reputation, it can be tied to your website by adding a bit of code that tells search engines that you’re connected to the site (rel=author). Then, use G+ often and stick to your subject of expertise. If you contribute to other blogs, fill out the “contributor to” section of your G+ profile to fortify your reputation network. As your G+ account is tied to your content, your profile picture will also show up beside your content in Google searches, which creates immediate recognition for viewers.

Google’s desire to connect author and content can backfire, like when they credited Truman Capote with writing a New York Times article… in 2010.

If you don’t have someone managing your content production, someone you trust to be a strong voice in your industry, consider appointing someone to take on that role. Having an in-house expert who engages with other blogs and the community at large can be very helpful if you can spare the manpower.

Mobilize

Mobile is huge. Mobile completely changes how we use the web, so mobile gets its own article.