Google’s #1 question is, Who Cares?

The Rise of Social SEOBy Rob Campbell

Search Engine Optimization has changed, again…

In 2014, you can’t do SEO link building like we did in 2010. It just doesn’t work.

Never mind using paid link directories, robot comment spam and article spinning sites which were phased out many years ago, today even what we used to consider good incoming links from respectable articles, blogs and forums are not helping clients achieve the same results ...

Why?

Today the SEO value of an incoming link to a client website is directly proportional to the amount and quality of people who care, as measured in social signals.

Rewriting the same content and publishing in many places with links to one client, doesn’t work.

Buying links in existing content, or doing any form of automated content creation is now considered a negative ranking factor, and it doesn’t work.

Giving your company links from the bottom of other websites (that you designed, or built, or modified) doesn’t work.

Article marketing doesn’t work. Directory submission doesn’t work

Linking blogs and micro sites doesn’t work.

Making blog sidebar badges doesn’t work

The Ad Agency can do Search Engine Optimization better than the SEO company because they have more capacity for meaningful storytelling.

A creative agency engineers highly compelling User Generated Content collection schemes, web contests and live events which attract real world social media attention and bring real traffic though the links.

So what does work? Today, a link is a pipe that carries Social Signals, or it doesn’t work.

Red dot is a page on a client website, perhaps it’s the homepage, or a contest submission page, or photo gallery display page that collects user votes, or a sign up sheet for an event. Red dot is something that galvanizes a niche community.

The paid influencers are in yellow, and their tribes are blue. All use social media ie Facebook + Twitter + Pinterest etc.

Google has no choice but to conclude that red center is real and important to society and so that page ranks higher because real people use and share links to that page.

Incoming links must be reconsidered as ‘incoming pipes’ which channel social signals (the promiscuity of sharing).

If there are no social media signals coming through the pipe, the SEO value of the incoming link is greatly reduced.

Link in Magazine Article, blog or discussion forum website, or photo gallery site or… a contest page.

SEO Client Website

Article is shared on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIN, + 120 more. These shares make article more popular and so make client more important.

How to engineer User Generated Content collections that,1) encourage real people to care and share related messages.2) tell brand stories perfectly by emphasizing brand values. 3) make potent SEO friendly ‘pipes’ back to client websites.4) measure and deliver real SEO results! Sales are up too. 5) result in a repository of REAL INFORMATION to help all of

humanity …

Social SEO makes clients more important to society.

Chapter Two,

Imagine taking web marketing budgets, which used to be spent making mindless display advertising, and instead create educational resources, and story rich information pieces or curated User Generated Content collections of helpful data.