DISCLAIMER:  This post is NOT written for SEO professionals, so Mozzers will probably find nothing new here.  Rather, it is an exercise in explaining some basic concepts of Social Media Optimisation to Joe Public.  There's a lot of simplification there, but I strongly believe that SEO and search engine algorithms should be something you can explain very simply to clients, rather than mystifying it with jargon. The basic idea is to shift people's thinking from wanting to trick their way up the Google rankings (which is often a client's first idea of SEO) to realising that this can only be done by creating a more useful, more engaging site.  I'd be very grateful for Mozzers' thoughts on how well argued this is, and what your strategies are for changing a client's mindset in this way. (Go easy on me, its my first post!)

“How do I get on Page 1 in Google?”

It’s the question that everyone is desperate to answer, and with good reason.  Getting ranked in the coveted Top 10 results guarantees you a significant increase in visitors to your site at a fraction of the cost of online advertising.  How exactly do you attain this Holy Grail?  Well, the recent explosion of social media or Web 2.0 sites such as del.icio.us, Facebook and Wordpress can help.

How Search Engines Work

Think of search engine rankings as a kind of online democracy – in a nutshell, the more people like or trust your site, the more they will link to it on their sites, and the higher your ranking will be in the search engines.  But just like in the real world, everyone’s “vote” is not equal – some people are more influential than others.  A link from the BBC News website is much more impressive to a search engine than a link from your local rag’s site.

Enter Social Media

Until a few years ago, the power to create links to your site (and therefore improve your search ranking) was held by a very small proportion of web ‘creators’ – mostly businesses, organisations, and cybergeeks with their own websites.  What is exciting about Web 2.0 is it has thrown the doors of content creation wide open – it is now a doddle to set up your own online presence and share and interact with a huge online community, whether it’s through a blog, a MySpace page, or a Flickr profile.  All of these activities usually involve circulating links in some way – it might mean referring to a website on your blog, or giving it a ‘thumbs-up’ on social bookmarking services such as Digg, Reddit, or del.icio.us.  And where there are links, there is potential Google Juice…

Socialise Your Site

How can a brand or organisation harness the linking power of social media?  Well, in two ways.  The first is by creating unique, useful content for your site.  This has long been a fundamental part of Search Engine Optimisation in general, but is even more important for tapping into the social media world.  Let’s say you are making a site selling dog biscuits (it’s the first thing to pop in my head, don’t ask me why).  Now unless your brand of dog biscuits happened to be particularly amazing (maybe it gives super powers), it’s not going to be a site people talk about in their blogs or pass on to their friends. But what if you were to create a blog on your site that provided well-researched tips on how to keep your dog healthy, or Top 10 Tricks to Teach Your Pooch, or some articles on pet psychology?  How about adding ‘share this’ social bookmarking buttons to each article and subject tags for each post to make it searchable by Technorati, the blog search engine? Let’s take that a bit further – what if you were to set up an online community where your customers could share their own tips and stories about their dogs, comment on articles on the site, and connect with each other?  Now that’s a site that dog owners would really be interested in linking to in their blogs or sharing with their friends. 

The second way to use this potential is by participating in the Web 2.0 community.  Things like getting prominent members of your organisation to set up a corporate blog, contributing comments to other leading industry blogs, having profiles on social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn – all of these activities involve creating high value links back to your site.

These are just some examples but it gives you an idea of where the possibilities lie.  Gradually your site evolves from being a ‘bare minimum’ product site to a valuable, regularly updated online resource that attracts external links – and eventually a boost in search rankings.

Good Search Strategy = Engagement

A funny thing starts to happen as you go down the path of social media optimisation – you actually start being a lot more connected with your audience.  Even if you started out being obsessed with what the search engines want, if you do things right you’ll end up being obsessed with what your clients want, need and think.  This is the key to any good search strategy: focus on creating a brilliant, unique and useful site for your audience and the search engines are clever enough to pick you up.  Try and cheat your way up the rankings with hundreds of paid-for links without decent content to back it up, and the search engines are clever enough to catch you out and potentially blacklist you into a world of online darkness.  I know which path I’d choose.