We are now seeing that links which are present in Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn posts are being recognized in Webmaster tools as external links to the domain which the Webmaster tools account is tracking. This is a new development. So what does this mean for search engine optimization and social media?

We already know that Google is a huge proponent of social media. In fact, Matt Cutts, the head of web spam at Google, has stated on multiple occasions that one great way to succeed in SEO is to create a blog and push those blog posts out through social media profiles (learn more about this here). So we know that Google wants social media to succeed. We also know that this tactic works excellent in the search space already, in fact, we have helped many clients establish this relationship. But what does this all mean from an external linking perpective? This is the missing piece.

Well, in my opinion it means simply this: Google is recognizing theses links as they would any other inbound link. But here are some things to keep in mind. These links are no follow links and they do not have anchor text. So they are not a huge help for search engine optimization. But there is more to consider.

While these links are not the ideal link, it can be assumed that they act as an inbound link would from any other website. If that is the case, these links would still benefit search results to some degree. It has long been speculated that even if a link is a no follow that it does still pass some ranking power (link juice) on to the website it is pointing to, especially if the site has high page rank and fends well for the term you are trying to optimize for.

So there it is! We are now seeing that links from social media posts are registering in webmaster tools. In my opinion, this only strengthens the argument to join the social media movement. What is your opinion? Also, if you have a question please feel free to ask!

By John E. Lincoln

Since Google announced the upgrade of their AdWords Certification program on April 26th, the SEO Inc. PPC marketing team has been busy taking and passing the newly required exams.  SEO Inc has a long a successful history as a full service search engine marketing agency and was already part of the Google Advertising Professionals program and had achieved AdWords Qualified Company status.  When the announcement came all AdWords Qualified companies had 6 months to pass the updated exams, but we wanted to showcase our abilities by becoming certified immediately.

The new program raises the bar for certification in the following ways:

• New, comprehensive curriculum designed to improve strategic and tactical knowledge
• Introduction of annually refreshed advanced level exams illustrating competency in search, display, reporting and analysis
• To match the updated training materials, we’ve increased the exam requirements for individual qualification to two – Advertising Fundamentals and one advanced exam

As the test has become more difficult it is our belief that being AdWords Certified Partner will mean more as many agencies will not be able to keep up with the level of ongoing training and knowledge required.

Today Google formally announced on its blog that it has completed its launch of he new indexing system dubbed “caffeine”. Google originally announced the caffeine indexing infrastructure in August of 2009 and then launched a version of it on a single data-center later in the year. Today’s announcement makes it official that caffeine is live on all Google data-centers.

Highlights of the Caffeine Announcement

1. The size of the Google index is larger than ever
2. Google claims that all search results are 50% fresher meaning that new content being added to the web will appear in search results faster. This does not change the frequency of Google’s indexing of websites, it simply means that new information is pushed live to the index faster than before.
3. Storage Capacity Increased Greatly- Google’s caffeine currently requires 100 million gigabytes of storage. (that’s 625,000 of the largest ipods to you and me).
4. The primary reasons for the update are to deliver fresher content at a close to real time rate and to create a foundation for the future as the internet grows.

Impact on Search Engine Optimization
For right now existing search engine optimization best practices will not be impacted or impacted only slightly. Google has been adamant that the caffeine update does not impact search results. However, they are also very clear about the fact that the new indexing architecture allows it more flexibility in the way that Google stores data and associates data together. In an interview with Vanessa Fox, Matt Cutts stated ““It’s important to realize that caffeine is only a change in our indexing architecture. What’s exciting about Caffeine though is that it allows easier annotation of the information stored with documents, and subsequently can unlock the potential of better ranking in the future with those additional signals”.

These types of statements and subsequent statement out of the Googleplex clearly indicate that they have increased the potential to make rapid algorithmic changes based on changes that occur with the internet. As we have mentioned in previous posts, Google cares more about page speedso it is still recommended to work hard increasing the efficiency of your website. In addition, Google’s capacity to consider “additional signals” in the future means that they will have the capacity to consider many additional factors in their ranking algorithm including on-site and off site factors.

1. Very few developers actually understand flash well enough to implement search engine optimization best practices.

2. Very few flash developers understand SEO strategy

3. While you can get search engines to read html embedded in flash and therefor read content, there are limitations to the optimization of site architecture specifically

Bottom line…Apple has only added more reasons to the flash is not good argument. Thank You Steve Jobs!

Upon arriving at SEO Inc. this morning it was quickly realized that things were out of sorts, in particular, Jay Dunigan’s office suffered a serious blow. Let the picture explain.

White sheets of unpleasantness lined Jay’s walls, hung from his ceiling, blanketed his windows and occupied a significant amount of carpet space. Jay’s office had been, you guessed it, TP’ed!

Search Engine Optimization Inc. will be using their Internet marketing skills to find the culprit. Each of us is furiously Googling away. More on the story as it develops.

Until we find the person responsible, feel free to read some recent posts

How to Optimize Twitter Lists

Google Announces AdWords Certification

Search Engine Optimization vs. Website Usability

Changes in the PPC World Could Benefit You

Not sure if your in-house pay per click department is giving you the ROI that you need as part of your search engine optimization? Well good news! Today I read that Google is replacing their Advertising Professionals exam with a new Adwords certification exam. This new program will “provides agencies with comprehensive, strategy-focused training and certification on the latest tools and best practices for managing AdWords accounts.”

The new program introduces preferred Adwords API (Application Programming Interface) pricing so an advertiser can chose an agency that fits his or her business model. These changes will allow agencies to compete with companies who have in-house pay per click departments. Changes are also being made in the spend criteria to become qualified.

Although these changes allow small and medium size advertisers to compete with larger ones, the new advanced exam will also allow larger companies like SEO Inc., who work with larger budgets to prove competency in “search, display, reporting and analysis”. This will help advertisers find companies who are capable of handling their accounts.

The bottom line is that advertisers will be more willing to turn to companies like SEO Inc., who use API tools, to manage accounts due to the lower costs. The exams will be evaluated and changed on an annual basis to ensure that advertisers can stay competitive by being up to date with strategies and best practices. We here at SEO Inc. will be taking the fundamental and advanced exams in the following weeks.

What do you think about the new AdWords Certification?

The Challenge
Every good social media campaign needs to have a challenge. For instance, maybe you want your fans/followers to upload a photo of themselves or create a video stating why they should win the prize. The challenge is what you request from the community/contestants in order to play the game.

The Rules
Every good social media campaign needs to have rules. What must occur for this to be a legitimate and reputable business marketing campaign? Do you need to make sure the content being submitted is clean? Should the video be a certain length? Does the video need to be created within a certain budget? Do you have to live in the United States to enter? Make sure these things are laid out before you announce the project. I always make it a rule that the user has to follow you on Twitter or be a fan on Facebook to play the game; this is a great way to build your community base. This idea also ties into the benefit section mentioned below.

The Benefit for the Campaign Creator
When creating the campaign it is important to make sure it will have a quantifiable, positive ROI for the campaign creator. Before the campaign is created ask yourself, is the payoff worth the effort? If it is not you need to rethink your campaign, if it is then start firing off those press releases, T.V. commercials and web ads, because it’s game on!

The Benefit for the Contestants
Let’s face it, no one is going to pay any attention to your social campaign if there is nothing in it for them. For instance, if you are only handing out $10 worth of goods in exchange for someone submitting a video then you are most likely not going to get many submissions. Make sure the benefit for the contestants is worthwhile. As with everything in this world, you get what you give. The same concept applies to social media, and search engine optimization for that matter…

The Promotional Strategy
No one will notice your campaign if you do not promote it. The key to making any good campaign pay off is to promote, promote, promote!! I cannot stress this enough. If you do not promote your campaign it will fall flat. Make sure you are doing everything you need to get the word out. And when you are creating your advertising budget for the campaign make sure you tie it back into your ROI. The amount you are paying for promotion, campaign costs and all other expenses should not exceed the projected benefit, as with any good investment.

Summary
Social media campaigns are a lot of fun to run; they also take a lot of work. Make sure you thoroughly consider all of the elements of the campaign before you engage. Also, make sure the campaign will provide your company with a valuable return.

Caffeine will be a new upgraded version of the Google search engine results. A study of the changes reveals that Google Caffeine will place a greater emphasis on fresh content, local results and social media. Most significantly, just as the name implies, for the first time Google will soon begin to judge websites based on the amount of time it takes a browser to load and refresh pages.

Therefore, moving forward, in order to compete for Google’s ranking’ results through search engine optimization, websites need to be aware of the following:

1. Page Speed. Every site should aim to have its pages load in less than three seconds. SEO Inc. recently launched our “Page Speed Accelerator” program that reduces the average page load time on our website from nearly eight seconds to under two seconds. Ultimately, this will place our clients in a competitive advantage over slower loading websites.
2. Fresh Content. Organic or word-of-mouth buzz helps build your site’s reputation with both users and Google. It rarely materializes without “fresh” quality content. We strongly recommend weekly or daily content updates to encourage search engine spiders to crawl your site more frequently. Update your site content with blog posts, social media services, emails, forums, articles, and press releases.
3. Social Media. Google results will place a larger emphasize on real time results from social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. Thus, website owners must stay active with corporate profiles and video syndication.
4. Local Results. Local search and Google Maps are growing in importance. Google is trying to figure out how to more effectively introduce online searchers with businesses in their local markets. The criteria Google uses to list businesses in local search are completely separate and distinct from their organic search algorithms. Unique local strategies must be incorporated to capitalize on these opportunities.

In summary, faster websites that are frequently updated and integrated with content drawn from social media networks will help you thrive in a Google Caffeine world. What won’t change, though, are the fundamentals that have characterized search engine optimization in the last five years. Search engine success starts with code optimization, site architecture, optimized content, external link popularity and regular XML Sitemap submission. These elements are precursors to ranking highly in organic search results.

If you’d like more information on SEO fundamentals, evolving factors such as Google Caffeine, or enhancements, I invite you to contact us at www.seoinc.com.

Here is an excerpt from the congratulatory email from Promotion World:

Congratulations!

SEO Inc. has been selected for PromotionWorld’s “Best SEO Company” listing for April 2010.

The Best SEO Company Awards are based on the offered services, package diversity, value, customer service, feedback and website popularity of the selected companies.

The Top 10 SEO Company award initiative is aimed to list the best companies in the industry.

Congratulations again on being one of the companies to receive this prestigious award. If you have any questions regarding this award, feel free to contact us.

Sincerely,

DevStart Editorial Team

SEO Inc. would like to thank PromotionWorld for ranking us so highly in the Best SEO Company listing. Being listed as the second best SEO company in the world is quite an accomplishment and we couldn’t be more excited to see our dedication to taking clients to the top of the rankings noted.

Thanks again for ranking us number 2, although most anyone in the industry knows we’re number 1 

Read the post here.

And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, @seoinc. We have some big news coming up that we’ll be announcing first on social media.

SEO Inc., a premier Internet marketing agency, is looking for two summer interns. But we’re not just looking for anyone; we’re looking for go-getters who want to learn marketing.

This position will be an amazing opportunity to see how a high-end, busy agency operates on a daily basis. Interns will see how large client accounts are managed, all while working closely with the SEO Inc. management team. Interns will have the opportunity to significantly increase their skill set, learn, and get a unique and highly valuable inside look at online marketing, all while playing a vital role in building big brands online.

To Apple You Must:

• Be a strong writer
• An excellent communicator
• Be highly organized
• Have a positive attitude
• Work well with others
• Be Internet savvy
• Be ready to learn and grow
• Be able to face challenges head on

Interested in the SEO Inc. SEO and Social Media Internship? Send a resume to me and I’ll make sure it ends up in the right hands. Time is running out so send in a resume today. If you are not right for this position, please feel free to pass this post along to someone who is.

All the best,

John E Lincoln
Director of SEO Consulting & Social
Search Engine Optimization Inc.
johnl@seoinc.com
www.linkedin.com/in/johnelincoln

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