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Your Social Media and SEO Game Plan for 2012

This guest post is by Herman Dias of SEOsoeasy.com.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will have heard about the Google Panda update and what it did to many low-quality websites last year. It was more like a Google sniper attack on all the spam and rubbish sites. Honestly, this does not seem to be the end of the Panda: there is more to come, and we need to watch out.

The whole reason Google made these changes was to give Google users a good experience when they use Google search, and why not? When I look for something on Google the last thing I would want to see is rubbish information.

That is why, as SEO marketers, we need to take a different approach to ranking on Google and driving free organic traffic to our sites. If you have done any kind of SEO, you know what the key principles of ranking on Google are.

  • choosing the right keywords
  • building a well optimized site with good content
  • building quality backlinks.

These are the core principles of SEO, and they may get you on page one of Google, but you won’t stay there for very long. You have to do more and more of what the big G wants.

Google has started giving social media a lot of importance. It rewards sites that incorporate the core SEO principles and social media strategies by ranking them on page one and keeping them there. In fact, I think last year was the start of the cleanup process by Google. So if you think you got away without incorporating social media to rank on Google, you’d better make the change now or you may be surprised.

Incorporating social media into SEO

In the near future, you won’t be able to just pick keywords, optimize your site, and build links, and expect to rank on page one and stay there. Your site probably will rank on page one, but it won’t be there very long.

You really have to incorporate social media into your SEO efforts to rank and stay on page one. Here’s how you need do it.

  1. Select keywords with good commercial intent and good search volume, and build your main site and sub-pages around these keywords.
  2. Have the best content on your site, and optimize your site as per Google’s requirements.
  3. Make sure your subpages are interlinked with one another to create a strong internal linking structure.
  4. Create a Google Plus page and give your visitors something free to subscribe to your page. Make sure this page has a link to your main site.
  5. Create a Facebook page and give your visitors something free to become a fan of your page. Make sure this page has a link to your site.
  6. Create a Twitter page and link it to your site as well.
  7. Create Youtube channel with a link to your site.
  8. Bookmark your main site, and sub-pages at social bookmarking sites.
  9. Choose between three and five blogs in your niche to write good articles and submit a guest post to them, these posts will have a link to your blog and sub page.
  10. Get links from authority sites like .edu and .gov sites, news sites, or high-PR sites.
  11. Submit press releases to top press release distribution sites. Make sure your releases include links to your main site and relevant sub-pages.
  12. Submit articles to at least five article directories. Make sure these articles include links to your main site and relevant sub-pages.
  13. Share your content through sites like Tumblr, Livejournal, Weebly, Squidoo, and so on. Make sure the content contains links to your main site and relevant sub-pages.
  14. Tweet interesting, relevant links your main home page and sub-pages on Twitter.
  15. Share your blog entries on your Facebook wall and Google Plus page.
  16. Prepare videos and post them to your YouTube channel.

These steps will not only help your rank on the search engines fast—and get traffic from them—but they’ll also help you attract traffic from social media sites. These visitors will then have the option of liking your page on Facebook, tweeting your post, giving your page a +1 on Google, subscribing to your YouTube channel, and commenting on your blog post.

This process plays a very important role in ranking on the first page of Google, fast. It will not only create extra traffic and user-generated content, but it will also create backlinks naturally, as well as a community of people who will visit your site often.

This is exactly what Google is looking for. It wants to see activity on your sites; it wants interaction between people; it wants to see fresh, good-quality content; it wants to see quality sites backlinking to your site; it wants to see how long people spend on your site.

Your three-month plan

For this entire process to work successfully you need to create a three-month plan and execute it carefully.

  1. You need to have a three-month (90-day) content strategy. For example, you need to have about 45 good quality blog post ready and set up in WordPress to be posted every other day.
  2. You need to have content ready to submit to article directories, press release sites, those social sharing sites, and as guest posts. You should do these tasks at least twice a month if not more often.
  3. You need to prepare at least one video every week for 90 days and post it on your YouTube channel. If you haven’t tried this tactic before, you’ll be surprised to see the traffic you get from YouTube.
  4. You need to publish each blog post to your Google Plus page, Facebook page, and Twitter page, over a period of time. Slowly will start to get links and visitors from each of these sources.
  5. You need to bookmark all the pages on your site at a steady pace over a period of time using social bookmarking sites.
  6. You need to follow steps 8 to 16 consistently for at least three months. Then you can lower the pace—or increase it—depending on the results you see.

Please note there are many more backlinking sources you can use to build backlinks—consider directory links, blog contextual links, blog comments, and video directory links, for example. You don’t need to stick to the ones I’ve mentioned above.

But make sure whatever method of backlinking you choose, you use it consistently. That’s why I prefer picking a few sources that have worked for me and using them for about three months. Then I introduce the other back-link sources.

Now’s the time to integrate social media into your SEO plans. If you follow this process, you will see some good ranking in Google and other search engines—as well as decent traffic from Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, and YouTube.

Here is a live free case study were Herman Dias shares the exact same method of How to Rank on Page One of Google in 15 days . He also likes writing on topics related to SEO Tips, blogging, list building, traffic strategies and other Internet Marketing Topics.

About Guest Blogger
This post was written by a guest contributor. Please see their details in the post above.
Comments
  1. Great detailed post..Yeah my most of traffic comes from the Social sites where i shared my latest post even more than search engine.Am gonna try all your given tips too to improve my blog SEO and get more from them.Thanks for share :)

  2. Really interesting post, especially when you mentioned about submitting the blog post into the G+ pages as well as facebook and twitter accounts – Have you done any previous research on how these may impact one’s traffic, rankings etc, that would be interesting to see?

    Waiss

  3. Thanks for the great article! I’ve been meaning to do more videos and this was the push I needed.

    • Yeah videos are a must in any online business today it just gives you that option of getting more traffic

  4. Sounds like a good game plan, I already had some of these in play, I’ll add a few more into my daily habits. Thanks for sharing.

    BTW, both the links in your byline aren’t linked properly.

  5. Thanks for the 3 month plan, Herman. Just starting out I’ve been told to make a plan but it was a little more difficult than I thought and it took me a while to set it up. Now that you just laid this one out for us it makes arranging mine much easier. Thanks, again.

  6. These strategies, while admirable and important, are challenging. What would you recommend to a small business who doesn’t have the ability to create all the necessary content and (possibly more importantly) monitor all of these platforms and make sure that nothing stagnates?

    • Hi amy

      I understand what you are saying because I had the same problem but it has to be done or it will be very difficult to compete online. I would suggest you outsource the content creation and submission jobs like articles and videos, you just look and see if these jobs are being done as per your instructions look at it as an investment in your business it will pay rich dividends later.

      Thanks

      Herman

  7. I’m bookmarking this post…..such great tips!! I probably do about 40 – 50% of them, but definitely need to start guest posting, submitting my work, start up with You Tube, and create a back log of posts to always have something on hand. It’s hard because as a food blogger I need quality pictures of each recipe with each post, and then there’s typing up the recipe as well. Definitely a lot of work that goes into each post.

    Thanks again!!

  8. Thanks so much for this practical, *actionable* plan. I’m definitely going to incorporate your points into my next 3-month plan. I especially appreciate the linking to your blog from your Twitter, Facebook, etc. accounts – I come across so many accounts where this in not done. I want to read more from the person but can’t figure out how to get to their blog because the link is missing!

    Sometimes it’s the most simple and obvious things that make the biggest difference.

  9. Wow… as a part time blogger and a newbie at that, I’m overwhelmed. BUT, I’m also so appreciative of all the great ideas. I’ll be revisiting this article and making a plan going forward to see how I can improve. I hope to check back in and let you know!

  10. I am definitely new to marketing and social media. This is an excellent summary and starting point for learning social media marketing strategies. I’ve done a few things on this list, but I can see there’s a lot I still need to learn. Thank you.

  11. Wow! Very informative. I’m definitely doing this for my blog. :)

  12. This is all so overwhelming, but I know I need to take the plunge. I’m going to print this post and use it as a guide for moving forward. Just trying to figure stuff out, and this does help. Still overwhelming though.

  13. It’s always nice to see a tailored, easy-to-follow set of instructions on SEO (and social media). Google Panda is a big deal and the sooner we embrace it the better off we’ll be. I appreciate the insight about producing a video a week, its easy to underestimate the 2nd largest search engine. Thanks for the tips!

  14. Hi There,
    Great Post, It shows what kind of work is required to be a successful blog, goes to show it’s not as easy as writing a few paragraphs and click publish.

    Thanks :)

  15. for some reason this post pumped me up. great detail and plan… getting on it now! yeah!! :)

  16. Wow awesome article. Thanks for sharing with us. And my next plan is follow this article :). Thanks.

  17. Great article! I detest the thought of having yet another social media obligation – anything that takes time and attention away from writing content isn’t attractive to me. However, it looks like there’s no getting around it, I’m going to have to jump on the Google Plus bandwagon.

    Thanks for the time and effort you put into this wonderful article.

  18. Very interesting and useful post, in fact the first I have seen talking about SEO and SMO same time. I have been seeing a lot of content scraping these days, so I must say well done for something fresh. Gained some insights.

  19. Great Post, Three months plan is Awesome. I will try all this steps for my new blog.
    Thanks for this article

  20. Make a video? I can barely stand to be in front of a camera, lol. I suppose a different approach can be used like – a audio presentation? I was not aware of bookmarking. Great tips! thank you :)

  21. just amazing. I learned many thing and it helps us a lot to set our strategy in 2012.

  22. Awesome article to read the SEO principles!

    Tks for the sharing and useful tips :)

  23. Very interesting and nice post, Plan are good will try to follow what u said ! Thanks for sharing this wonderful article with us

  24. I printed this out and posted next to by laptop. It’s a great checklist to make sure you’re doing everything you can for your blog. Thank you so much for sharing it with us!

  25. Thanks for this wonderfully candid post!

  26. Instead of being satisfied in your rank this blog is really a great plan for 2012 social media and seo.what i nice blog and plan.

  27. Nice explained!
    Social media or social bookmarking, especially where the people are gathered looking for something new of fresh, that’s the opportunity,to take most of advantages, and as we all know, there are lot considerations of Google to rank any web pages, and include of that is social media aspects.

    Was very useful BTW ;-)

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