Nearly every business in the world has considered using social media for their brand (or at least been told by someone to do so). It's an important concept because social media has all of the characteristics of an excellent set of venues for getting out a brand message - popularity, ease, reach, and interactivity. The challenge is that with so many businesses doing it, many messages start with great intentions and end up falling on deaf (aka nonexistent) ears.

There are ways to use social media properly to get out the message whether it's a general PR item or a major announcement. While press releases are still a strong method of doing it, there are certain restrictions that make social media and blogs in particular a superior message delivery system. Those reasons are easy to list:

• * Press releases are good for an initial burst, but once published can fade quickly, get de-indexed, or get deleted altogether
• * Social media can take a message and spread it out over time
• * Blogs can diversify the message and "chop it up" into individual components (as we'll demonstrate below)
• * Creativity plays much better through blogs and social media channels; some press releases will be filtered if they get too creative
• * Most businesses are doing press releases right while doing social media wrong, giving those doing social media the right way an upper hand on the competition

Now that the "why" is out of the way, here's the "how"...

Choose the right topic

Something's happening at the company. It could be a new product or service. It could be a partnership or change in leadership. It could be a charitable contribution or simply taking a stand against an injustice. Regardless of what "it" is, there needs to be a campaign built around it.

The most common mistake that companies make when trying to send out a brand message is that they simply pick the wrong topic. It may seem impossible; how can the topic be anything other than obvious? The reality is that time and time again businesses focus on the wrong portion of the news because they go after what is most important to them rather than selecting something that will resonate properly through social media.

Here's an example to illustrate the importance of topic selection.
 

Pick the right channels

To really get a brand message out, one must select the right channels. A blog post is only the beginning. There are other venues through which to get the word out to the masses. The obvious ones are Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, but those only help to amplify the message once it's created. Social content sites like YouTube and Pinterest can enhance the message, giving it more bulk and enabling more opportunities to cross-pollinate the message.

It can be broken down into five channel types:

1. Social Networks
2. Blogs
3. Visual Content
4. Social News
5. Emerging Sites

Here's a breakdown of the different channels and how they work.
 

Use a blog as the hub

The hub and spoke model has been used in marketing for decades, well before the internet was even conceived. Modern variations include uses for search engine optimization and content marketing. These are not what we mean by using a blog as the hub.

In brand messaging, the goal is to get the masses back to a single point of consolidated information. This post in itself is a loose example; we're posting this article on TECHi with each point expanded through other blog posts. TECHi is the hub for this particular topic while the other posts, including the one on Business Insider about Why Blogs Should Be The Hub Of Social Media Strategies, each go into further detail on their particular component of the overall story.

The goal is to have multiple avenues through which to promote and draw people back to the original. Even if they don't visit the hub, they'll still get some form of important information that may have them explore further through search. They may read the spoke story and never come back. It doesn't matter. Having a single blog as the hub is a key to this strategy as well as others. Blogs make the only length restriction the attention span of the reader. No other limits are present.
 

Slice it up

Now that we know about the hub, it's time to plan it out for the slicing. In the example above that refers to the Sally's Shoe Company story, the hub story would be about everything without going into much detail about any of the components. Visitors to the hub story could explore the other topics more deeply. Here are some examples of spoke topics from the example above:

• * The Shinking Habitats of Endangered Animals in South America
• * How Sally's Shoes Protects the Brazilian Tree Frog
• * Sally's Shoes and Bueno Shoes: A Match Made in the Amazon
• * Animals, Partnerships, and Clevergirl Crosstrainers

There are other possibilities depending on the real situation, but these would each be linked from the longer hub story to go into more detail about the different components of the overall message. It becomes a two-way street of traffic and exposure and allows for more opportunities for people to latch onto and share on their own social networks.

From here, you could learn more about The Art of Multi-Posting.
 

"A hippo walks into a bar"

The real difference between social media and press releases is in the creative license. This doesn't have to be bland and boring. It can't be if it has any hopes of being shared socially.

Nearly every situation can have some color added to it. The "hippo in the bar" is an allusion to something funny, entertaining, or extremely interesting about the message. For Sally's Shoes, it could be something that's literally about a hippo that goes into a bar, leading up to a comedic result while still focusing on the idea that these endangered animals need a refuge of their own so they don't risk human contact that could turn deadly.
 

Spread out the layers

Now that the pieces are ready to be written, it's time to plan out the exposure. You can't simply post the stories and start Tweeting and Facebooking everything at once. Depending on the timing of the news, social media exposure can be spread out over time to allow for the maximum possible exposure of the overall news.

People latch onto different things when sharing on social media. Something that rings well for one person will be ignored by another. The goal is to get as much exposure for each individual component as possible, even covering one on top of another in a way that will lead people down a path to eventually land on the hub.
 

Bring it home

This process isn't nearly as easy as putting together a press release and pressing it through the proper channels. It's not designed to be easy, and that's a good thing. Your efforts will be greater than your competitors'. You results will be greater as well. Put in the effort. Take a swing.

Bring it home.

(Post originally published on TECHi)

+JD Rucker is Editor at Soshable, a Social Media Marketing Blog. Find him on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.

No, it's not spam, but it is associated with a pork product.

Search engine optimization has a bad name in many circles. It is synonymous with spamming much in the same way that racial, lifestyle, and religious stereotypes work; the few bad apples make the normal, honorable "SEOs" look bad. With that said, this isn't about them.

People are getting more involved with their websites and they often ask what they should be focused upon to get their search rankings higher. I always tell them the same thing, and it's held true since 2007. In fact, it's become even more important.

Bacon.

Bacon is the key to SEO when it comes to business owners or non-SEO tech people. It's part of every good SEOs arsenal but it's the one thing that truly requires no SEO or web development knowledge. Everyone can work with bacon.

It's not literally bacon, of course. It's the concept of having something extra that normally enhances but rarely stands alone as a singular factor. It adds flavor to the website, makes it more appealing, gives it the savory goodness that search engines crave, draws us in with its smell when cooking, enhances the quality of everything it touches, and engages directly with our taste buds.

How does this translate to SEO that business owners can do themselves? It's simple.

Bacon represents additional content, the type that may or may not be linked in the navigation menu but that exists solely to bring value to people who see it. It's not the standard type of value that people associate with their websites. Most look at value as offering resources or advice that pertains to their industry.

"Bacon content" is different. Its value is brought about from a different angle. It's not necessarily a part of the website that people can normally get to without knowing the URL, seeing it on social, or emerging in search. In essence, it's simply extra content.

Good bacon adds flavor to the site. The content can be a cool collection, an amazing video, a strong infographic, or unique written content. It can never be insincere, unnatural, or copied. Collections are not copies. For example, Chicago Toyota put out a page with high-quality images of the city that they compiled. That works. That's bacon.

Thick bacon gives substance. In the example above, there's a lot of content but not necessarily a lot of substance. It's not "thick" bacon. Infographics and articles can offer the thick cuts that search engines love. Don't forget, bacon doesn't have to be thick to be good but it's nice to have a thick slice or two every now and then.

The smell of bacon can bring people to the table. Similarly, the enchantment of quality bacon content can bring people to the website. These aren't necessarily customers, but they might just share the page which is the end goal.

The enhancement factor is similar to the flavor factor but works in reverse. By enhancing the website, bacon content is able to give the search engines something juicy to sink their teeth into, not just from what's on the site but the reactions through social media.

Engaging bacon (sounds scary, actually) is the concept that some bacon is able to take on a life of its own and start working with and through people. This is the most rare component of bacon content and is normally unplanned, but when it happens search magic can take place. This is one with obscure examples that few would recognize but the best real-life example of how it worked was the Old Spice Guy. It went viral online and off. People started watching it, waiting for it, talking about it - in essence the Old Spice Guy "optimized" a faltering deodorant brand and revitalized sales as a result.

Anyone can find and post bacon content, which is why it's the most important thing non-technical and untrained SEOs can do.

* * *

Originally posted on TECHi in conjunction with our webinar that featured Driving Sales' Eric Miltsch and Gary May.

No, it's not spam, but it is associated with a pork product.

Search engine optimization has a bad name in many circles. It is synonymous with spamming much in the same way that racial, lifestyle, and religious stereotypes work; the few bad apples make the normal, honorable "SEOs" look bad. With that said, this isn't about them.

People are getting more involved with their websites and they often ask what they should be focused upon to get their search rankings higher. I always tell them the same thing, and it's held true since 2007. In fact, it's become even more important.

Bacon.

Bacon is the key to SEO when it comes to business owners or non-SEO tech people. It's part of every good SEOs arsenal but it's the one thing that truly requires no SEO or web development knowledge. Everyone can work with bacon.

It's not literally bacon, of course. It's the concept of having something extra that normally enhances but rarely stands alone as a singular factor. It adds flavor to the website, makes it more appealing, gives it the savory goodness that search engines crave, draws us in with its smell when cooking, enhances the quality of everything it touches, and engages directly with our taste buds.

How does this translate to SEO that business owners can do themselves? It's simple.

Bacon represents additional content, the type that may or may not be linked in the navigation menu but that exists solely to bring value to people who see it. It's not the standard type of value that people associate with their websites. Most look at value as offering resources or advice that pertains to their industry.

"Bacon content" is different. Its value is brought about from a different angle. It's not necessarily a part of the website that people can normally get to without knowing the URL, seeing it on social, or emerging in search. In essence, it's simply extra content.

Good bacon adds flavor to the site. The content can be a cool collection, an amazing video, a strong infographic, or unique written content. It can never be insincere, unnatural, or copied. Collections are not copies. For example, Chicago Toyota put out a page with high-quality images of the city that they compiled. That works. That's bacon.

Thick bacon gives substance. In the example above, there's a lot of content but not necessarily a lot of substance. It's not "thick" bacon. Infographics and articles can offer the thick cuts that search engines love. Don't forget, bacon doesn't have to be thick to be good but it's nice to have a thick slice or two every now and then.

The smell of bacon can bring people to the table. Similarly, the enchantment of quality bacon content can bring people to the website. These aren't necessarily customers, but they might just share the page which is the end goal.

The enhancement factor is similar to the flavor factor but works in reverse. By enhancing the website, bacon content is able to give the search engines something juicy to sink their teeth into, not just from what's on the site but the reactions through social media.

Engaging bacon (sounds scary, actually) is the concept that some bacon is able to take on a life of its own and start working with and through people. This is the most rare component of bacon content and is normally unplanned, but when it happens search magic can take place. This is one with obscure examples that few would recognize but the best real-life example of how it worked was the Old Spice Guy. It went viral online and off. People started watching it, waiting for it, talking about it - in essence the Old Spice Guy "optimized" a faltering deodorant brand and revitalized sales as a result.

Anyone can find and post bacon content, which is why it's the most important thing non-technical and untrained SEOs can do.

* * *

Originally posted on TECHi in conjunction with our webinar that featured Driving Sales' Eric Miltsch and Gary May.

Every few months, we hear about how Google or Bing have a new program or change in their search algorithm that will kill search spammers. These rumors and announcements have often had an effect but it has never been enough to really make an impact. The last two weeks, there have been signs that the latest changes may actually be working. Can they eliminate search spam altogether by the end of the year?

When Google rolled out their Panda update last year, many of the larger content sites were affected. Low-quality content was the target last year and after nearly a dozen known updates, search results have been better as a result. What wasn't addressed was the plague of "blackhat SEO" that utilizes different tactics to help websites rank better for keywords that can send massive traffic to their clients.

An unofficial announcement at SXSW by Matt Cutts, Google search spam czar, points to changes that Google has planned that addresses the blackhat issue.

"We don’t normally pre-announce changes but there is something we are working in the last few months and hope to release it in the next months or few weeks," Cutts said. "We are trying to level the playing field a bit. All those people doing, for lack of a better word, over optimization or overly SEO – versus those making great content and great site."

The changes appear to be rolling out already as there have been reports of large SEO networks being de-indexed and forced to shut down as a result. Is beginning of a true crackdown on search spam?

"We should see this expand tremendously over the next few months," said Rocco Penn, an automotive SEO. "Google and Bing both want real content that people want to read, not automated spam that has worked so well in the past. If they can make this work, I'm pumped."

Finding blackhat SEO networks is relatively easy for a team the size of Google's Web Spam Division. They have been aware of many of the networks that influence search rankings by creating thousands of pages with a paragraph or two of content that includes anchor text to specific search targets. The challenge has been in how to address them.

It appears that the challenge has been accepted and the solution is de-indexing. By removing them from the search index, they completely eliminate the value that they are giving to their targets.

"We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect," Cutts said. "We have several engineers on my team working on this right now."

Eliminating Search Spam Altogether

It's a lofty goal but if they can apply this process on a wider scale they'll make a huge impact. It isn't that they'll be able to track down and de-index everybody, but the sheer threat of losing everything will be enough to make search engine optimization companies switch gears towards more honorable methods.

Google and Cutts have long-maintained that they "do not hate SEOs" and have gone so far as to declare that proper SEO techniques make their jobs easier. Websites and SEO companies that put out relevant content that is valuable to their "customers", the people searching, helps them identify the right websites to rank for relevant terms.

Blackhat SEO is a shortcut. It's a method by which the system can be gamed and the results can be altered. By taking on the spam networks, Google will be able to herd a good majority of the blackhats towards using acceptable SEO techniques.

There will be those who fight the change and try to find new ways to spam the search engines, but this is the first major development in search governing that has the entire SEO community buzzing since the Panda update. Panda only affected the sources of content, not the SEO firms that sculpted the rankings. This algorithm and procedural change affects the SEOs themselves.

Given that they have the power over their own search rankings, it is very likely that this effort will bring and end to the vast majority of search spam within the next several months.

Image: Annette Shaff / Shutterstock.com

(Article originally published on Fast Company)

Every few months, we hear about how Google or Bing have a new program or change in their search algorithm that will kill search spammers. These rumors and announcements have often had an effect but it has never been enough to really make an impact. The last two weeks, there have been signs that the latest changes may actually be working. Can they eliminate search spam altogether by the end of the year?

When Google rolled out their Panda update last year, many of the larger content sites were affected. Low-quality content was the target last year and after nearly a dozen known updates, search results have been better as a result. What wasn't addressed was the plague of "blackhat SEO" that utilizes different tactics to help websites rank better for keywords that can send massive traffic to their clients.

An unofficial announcement at SXSW by Matt Cutts, Google search spam czar, points to changes that Google has planned that addresses the blackhat issue.

"We don’t normally pre-announce changes but there is something we are working in the last few months and hope to release it in the next months or few weeks," Cutts said. "We are trying to level the playing field a bit. All those people doing, for lack of a better word, over optimization or overly SEO – versus those making great content and great site."

The changes appear to be rolling out already as there have been reports of large SEO networks being de-indexed and forced to shut down as a result. Is beginning of a true crackdown on search spam?

"We should see this expand tremendously over the next few months," said Rocco Penn, an automotive SEO. "Google and Bing both want real content that people want to read, not automated spam that has worked so well in the past. If they can make this work, I'm pumped."

Finding blackhat SEO networks is relatively easy for a team the size of Google's Web Spam Division. They have been aware of many of the networks that influence search rankings by creating thousands of pages with a paragraph or two of content that includes anchor text to specific search targets. The challenge has been in how to address them.

It appears that the challenge has been accepted and the solution is de-indexing. By removing them from the search index, they completely eliminate the value that they are giving to their targets.

"We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect," Cutts said. "We have several engineers on my team working on this right now."

Eliminating Search Spam Altogether

It's a lofty goal but if they can apply this process on a wider scale they'll make a huge impact. It isn't that they'll be able to track down and de-index everybody, but the sheer threat of losing everything will be enough to make search engine optimization companies switch gears towards more honorable methods.

Google and Cutts have long-maintained that they "do not hate SEOs" and have gone so far as to declare that proper SEO techniques make their jobs easier. Websites and SEO companies that put out relevant content that is valuable to their "customers", the people searching, helps them identify the right websites to rank for relevant terms.

Blackhat SEO is a shortcut. It's a method by which the system can be gamed and the results can be altered. By taking on the spam networks, Google will be able to herd a good majority of the blackhats towards using acceptable SEO techniques.

There will be those who fight the change and try to find new ways to spam the search engines, but this is the first major development in search governing that has the entire SEO community buzzing since the Panda update. Panda only affected the sources of content, not the SEO firms that sculpted the rankings. This algorithm and procedural change affects the SEOs themselves.

Given that they have the power over their own search rankings, it is very likely that this effort will bring and end to the vast majority of search spam within the next several months.

Image: Annette Shaff / Shutterstock.com

(Article originally published on Fast Company)

A few days ago I posted about promotion versus attraction in content marketing and I used the example of a story we posted about the Willys Jeep. The concept is one that is unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) very challenging for dealers and even vendors to understand.

Why would we post something on a dealer's website that didn't directly help sell more cars?

It comes down to social signals and the trust factor associated with a website and its search engine opimization practices. Here's how:

The Valuable Resource

Those of us in the automotive industry are experts about cars and the different aspects of vehicles in ways that others simply are not. Our websites are normally all about cars and both Google and Bing know it. The challenge is that there are dozens, even hundreds of other websites associated with our local area that are also all about cars.

Pieces of content such as the one above put our websites in a different light. By becoming the authority in the area, we have the opportunity to have our sites rank higher for terms that are relevant to us.

Authority in the search engines are judged by two things. Inbound links from other authority websites act like "votes" in the eyes of the search engines. The more votes you get in relation to Dodge, for example, the better you'll rank for local terms that can make an impact such as the term "Hartford Dodge Dealers".

The other way search engines judge authority is based upon social signals. They recognize that people will share what they value on websites through their social media channels. The more they share, the better that Google and Bing like a page and the domain that it's on.

People won't share inventory. They won't share specials pages. They won't share service appointment pages. They will share pieces of content that interest them or bring value to others. For example, a good number of dealers are starting to post how-to videos on their websites. This is great! When people learn how to get their bluetooth hooked into their car properly as a result of a dealership tutorial rather than an instruction manual or OEM resource, they'll be more willing to share their find with their friends and family who may run into the same challenge.

The Willys Jeep story was one that didn't add a resource but rather discussed an interesting historical topic about the brand associated with the website. It made for good reading, offered a nice infographic that had some interesting data points, and had high-res images that are easily sharable through social media.

The Sharing Frenzy

This particular piece of content played very well on Reddit and Digg, two social news sites that value quality content. It was interesting to them, particularly the single fact that of the 135 automakers the US Government tapped for proposals, only two were sent in because the criteria were so strict. On Reddit, it ended up with over 400 points and on Digg it broke the 60 point mark.

As a result, that individual page had 32,493 in a day in a half. Those visitors likely yielded very few leads, but that wasn't the purpose. The goal was to create a page that could get massive social signal action and that's exactly what happened.

Now the question is, "How does this help sell more cars?"

The Results

The reason that we targeted this piece of content where we did was to help in our SEO efforts for a couple of keywords. Executive Dodge had dropped a couple of spots for the terms "Hartford Dodge Dealers" and "Hartford Dodge", so we created the content piece with the link to the homepage at the bottom with the anchor "Hartford Dodge". Within 72 hours after posting the piece, we'd moved back up to #2 for "Hartford Dodge" and to #1 for "Hartford Dodge Dealers."

Our system will check all of their keywords later in the week, but a spot check of several other keywords showed a bump in some of them with no other actions to attribute to the change other than the content marketing piece.

The social signals garnered by this piece helped to move search terms across the board up. It added credibility and authority in the eyes of the search engines and translated into improved results. Does that mean every dealer should post cool pictures or historical pieces and submit them to Reddit or Digg every day? Absolutely not. Those sites are extremely conscious of people trying to "game" them and only truly spectacular content has a chance of doing well from a car dealers' website. "Spamming" those sites with low quality content can actually do more harm than good.

This is a controversial strategy mostly because it's so easy to botch. This doesn't fall into the realm of "give it a shot" or "experiment with it" because once a site is deemed inappropriate on these sites, they can get banned forever. PLEASE feel free to email me if you have questions or want to bounce your strategies off of me. I'd rather answer a dozen questions today than receiving an email in a month saying, "I tried what you said and now I'm banned on Digg!"

Do it right or don't do it all. Either way, we're here to help.

jd.rucker@tkcarsites.com if you have any questions.

A few days ago I posted about promotion versus attraction in content marketing and I used the example of a story we posted about the Willys Jeep. The concept is one that is unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) very challenging for dealers and even vendors to understand.

Why would we post something on a dealer's website that didn't directly help sell more cars?

It comes down to social signals and the trust factor associated with a website and its search engine opimization practices. Here's how:

The Valuable Resource

Those of us in the automotive industry are experts about cars and the different aspects of vehicles in ways that others simply are not. Our websites are normally all about cars and both Google and Bing know it. The challenge is that there are dozens, even hundreds of other websites associated with our local area that are also all about cars.

Pieces of content such as the one above put our websites in a different light. By becoming the authority in the area, we have the opportunity to have our sites rank higher for terms that are relevant to us.

Authority in the search engines are judged by two things. Inbound links from other authority websites act like "votes" in the eyes of the search engines. The more votes you get in relation to Dodge, for example, the better you'll rank for local terms that can make an impact such as the term "Hartford Dodge Dealers".

The other way search engines judge authority is based upon social signals. They recognize that people will share what they value on websites through their social media channels. The more they share, the better that Google and Bing like a page and the domain that it's on.

People won't share inventory. They won't share specials pages. They won't share service appointment pages. They will share pieces of content that interest them or bring value to others. For example, a good number of dealers are starting to post how-to videos on their websites. This is great! When people learn how to get their bluetooth hooked into their car properly as a result of a dealership tutorial rather than an instruction manual or OEM resource, they'll be more willing to share their find with their friends and family who may run into the same challenge.

The Willys Jeep story was one that didn't add a resource but rather discussed an interesting historical topic about the brand associated with the website. It made for good reading, offered a nice infographic that had some interesting data points, and had high-res images that are easily sharable through social media.

The Sharing Frenzy

This particular piece of content played very well on Reddit and Digg, two social news sites that value quality content. It was interesting to them, particularly the single fact that of the 135 automakers the US Government tapped for proposals, only two were sent in because the criteria were so strict. On Reddit, it ended up with over 400 points and on Digg it broke the 60 point mark.

As a result, that individual page had 32,493 in a day in a half. Those visitors likely yielded very few leads, but that wasn't the purpose. The goal was to create a page that could get massive social signal action and that's exactly what happened.

Now the question is, "How does this help sell more cars?"

The Results

The reason that we targeted this piece of content where we did was to help in our SEO efforts for a couple of keywords. Executive Dodge had dropped a couple of spots for the terms "Hartford Dodge Dealers" and "Hartford Dodge", so we created the content piece with the link to the homepage at the bottom with the anchor "Hartford Dodge". Within 72 hours after posting the piece, we'd moved back up to #2 for "Hartford Dodge" and to #1 for "Hartford Dodge Dealers."

Our system will check all of their keywords later in the week, but a spot check of several other keywords showed a bump in some of them with no other actions to attribute to the change other than the content marketing piece.

The social signals garnered by this piece helped to move search terms across the board up. It added credibility and authority in the eyes of the search engines and translated into improved results. Does that mean every dealer should post cool pictures or historical pieces and submit them to Reddit or Digg every day? Absolutely not. Those sites are extremely conscious of people trying to "game" them and only truly spectacular content has a chance of doing well from a car dealers' website. "Spamming" those sites with low quality content can actually do more harm than good.

This is a controversial strategy mostly because it's so easy to botch. This doesn't fall into the realm of "give it a shot" or "experiment with it" because once a site is deemed inappropriate on these sites, they can get banned forever. PLEASE feel free to email me if you have questions or want to bounce your strategies off of me. I'd rather answer a dozen questions today than receiving an email in a month saying, "I tried what you said and now I'm banned on Digg!"

Do it right or don't do it all. Either way, we're here to help.

jd.rucker@tkcarsites.com if you have any questions.

One of our KPA SEO clients asked about a particular piece of content we posted. It was a combination of an infographic, a story, and images that were only loosely-related to the purpose of the website as a Dodge/Jeep dealer. The article itself was about the Willys Jeep and offered some historical data and cool facts.

We explained that this particular piece wasn't designed necessarily to help them sell more cars but to help expose a sharable piece of content that could go viral through social media. We link to the homepage with an appropriate anchor text for clear SEO reason, but otherwise the entire piece is meant specifically to add value to the overall community by giving them some cool facts and figures that can be of interest.

The results are relatively predictable. On Reddit, it will do very well because it has a very nice TIL (Today I Learned) in the form of this quote: "TIL the US Army asked 135 automakers for bids to build a WWII recon vehicle. The criteria were so strict that only 2 replied. The result: the Willys Jeep." As a result, it should get 2,000-10,000 unique visitors in the next 24 hours. These visitors will be coming for the content, so there won't be any leads that come from them, but there will be plenty of sharing and linking associated with the post.

This is where the value is. It's also the hardest concept to show to both clients and other vendors I talk to about the subject.

Google and Bing both look very closely at social signals when determining the importance of a website. Those that are able to create content that is shared virally have a much better chance of ranking for their target keywords than those who do not (which in the automotive industry is nearly everyone).

There's a reason that many KPA SEO clients are able to rank outside of their own backyards for high-value terms. It has been hammered into our brains here at Driving Sales that SEO is really about content marketing and that has helped the community tremendously when it comes to knowing the proper ways to build and maintain their websites. However, content alone is often not enough. It's a competitive industry. Super competitive. Thankfully, social media allows the truly-savvy to take their SEO to the next level.

My SEO team could never produce the quantity nor quality of links that are necessary to maintain a high level of search dominance without understanding this simple principle, that having content that can attract people is as important (maybe more important) than content that we promote. I would be shocked if this particular piece received fewer than 100 retweets, 50 Facebook shares, and 30 Google Plus shares. We'll Tweet it out there, put it up on Pinterest, but it's through attracting the masses that the real magic will happen.

I'll post the results here once they're in. Stay tuned.

One of our KPA SEO clients asked about a particular piece of content we posted. It was a combination of an infographic, a story, and images that were only loosely-related to the purpose of the website as a Dodge/Jeep dealer. The article itself was about the Willys Jeep and offered some historical data and cool facts.

We explained that this particular piece wasn't designed necessarily to help them sell more cars but to help expose a sharable piece of content that could go viral through social media. We link to the homepage with an appropriate anchor text for clear SEO reason, but otherwise the entire piece is meant specifically to add value to the overall community by giving them some cool facts and figures that can be of interest.

The results are relatively predictable. On Reddit, it will do very well because it has a very nice TIL (Today I Learned) in the form of this quote: "TIL the US Army asked 135 automakers for bids to build a WWII recon vehicle. The criteria were so strict that only 2 replied. The result: the Willys Jeep." As a result, it should get 2,000-10,000 unique visitors in the next 24 hours. These visitors will be coming for the content, so there won't be any leads that come from them, but there will be plenty of sharing and linking associated with the post.

This is where the value is. It's also the hardest concept to show to both clients and other vendors I talk to about the subject.

Google and Bing both look very closely at social signals when determining the importance of a website. Those that are able to create content that is shared virally have a much better chance of ranking for their target keywords than those who do not (which in the automotive industry is nearly everyone).

There's a reason that many KPA SEO clients are able to rank outside of their own backyards for high-value terms. It has been hammered into our brains here at Driving Sales that SEO is really about content marketing and that has helped the community tremendously when it comes to knowing the proper ways to build and maintain their websites. However, content alone is often not enough. It's a competitive industry. Super competitive. Thankfully, social media allows the truly-savvy to take their SEO to the next level.

My SEO team could never produce the quantity nor quality of links that are necessary to maintain a high level of search dominance without understanding this simple principle, that having content that can attract people is as important (maybe more important) than content that we promote. I would be shocked if this particular piece received fewer than 100 retweets, 50 Facebook shares, and 30 Google Plus shares. We'll Tweet it out there, put it up on Pinterest, but it's through attracting the masses that the real magic will happen.

I'll post the results here once they're in. Stay tuned.

Every few months, I read articles or hear at a conference about how search engine optimization is dead. I've heard these statements for the last 5 years and they often attribute the same reasons for the demise of SEO (even years later).

Search engine optimization is still the single most important component for driving additional buyer traffic to a car dealer's website. Period. I would absolutely love to debate that point with anyone. There are shiny, bouncing balls that are valid such as social media and retargeting. They're important. They're just not as important as organic rankings on search.

Many look at PPC as a tangible, high-value method of driving traffic. It is. However, with less than 1/4th of searchers ever clicking on ads, it's simply not as powerful as strong search engine optimization that reaches nearly 100% of searchers.

The latest argument is about how Google and Bing have declared recently that they are making changes soon to attack over-optimized websites. This is true. We had 4 KPA people at SXSW this year and that was one of the things discussed by Google, Bing, and SEO Pro Danny Sullivan during one of the presentations. However, this is not a death knell for SEO despite a lot of people focusing on this small portion of the larger presentation.

What wasn't mentioned as often was when both Google and Bing declared that they appreciate quality SEO, even saying at one point that "we love SEOs because they make it easier for us to index pages properly."

Google and Bing are not coming after car dealers. They are attacking the viagra spammers. They are going after the websites that are automatically generating hundreds of thousands of new pages a day. They are going after the websites that are purchasing links.

A dealer website that is properly optimized and proactively working towards doing the things that Google and Bing want have nothing to fear. SEO is not dead. It's definitely getting harder - that much is certain. The search engines are getting smarter every day. Keeping up with the changes and adjustments is the reason that I still have a job.

If it was easy, everyone would do it well. Instead, it's hard, and at this point it's easier for people to say that "SEO is dead" rather than learning how to do proper SEO for their clients.