[Insights:] Transform Your SEO Strategy Into a Web Presence Optimization Strategy
There’s no doubt that SEO is becoming more and more influenced by social media. The mission for both Google and Bing is to deliver the best search results possible to their users. With Google+ and Facebook (Bing,) a social mechanism has now been employed to search. 
The fact of the matter is:
Humans trust content that’s been produced or socially endorsed by other humans.
Various SEO game changers have risen. Elements like Google Authorship and socail signals (such as +1’s, Likes, Tweets, shares, etc.) help to distinguish valuable content that’s been created by trusted people (as opposed auto-generated garbage used to generate links.)
Search engines like content that’s socially favored and marked-up with Authorship. And they tend to rank such content very highly in their search results. These SEO game changers are influencing the strategic approach employed by most Internet marketers.
Enter: Web Presence Optimization
In short, web presence optimization is a more unified approach to SEO.
Unlike tradition SEO practices that involve relentless keyword optimization and link building, web presence optimization is more like real marketing. That is, it centers on creating real social connections and quality content.
There are two keywords in that last sentence that set the foundation for web presence optimization:
- “Quality Content” – The content that you create (and share) is the image and voice of your brand. It’s the glue that holds your social community together and the tool to establish trust and authority.
- “Social Connections” – Your brand’s social connections is perhaps the most powerful asset to your online marketing efforts. The more people that endorse your brand and its content, the more trust and authority it will have.
Oh hey. I repeated two other keywords worth mentioning:
- “Trust”
- “Authority”
There’s multiple forms of authority (e.g. on-site authority, off-site authority, social authority,) and they are influenced by Trust. A trusted website that offers awesome content is likely to have a high degree of search engine authority.
When a website’s content is well liked by people (has a lot of social signals,) the site’s search engine authority is magnified. As a result, it’s potential to rank is significantly higher.
In Summary…
To bring this all full circle, remember, web presence optimization is like real marketing. Success stems from a trusted brand that people like.
SEO has evolved from creating content to creating content that people will like. Or in other words, content is not king. Traffic is king.
Even experts are saying that SEO is dying. Although to some extent it might seem like SEO is dying, I believe SEO is being redefined. Only strong SEO companies evolve and redefine their practice.
Some people call it “People Traffic Optimization” (or PTO) and others “Social Media Optimization” (or SMO.) At the Web Presence Group, we like to call it “Web Presence Optimization” and it’s a new buzzword that starting get popular.
About the Author
Tyler Tafelsky is highly engaged in many facet’s of Internet marketing and web presence optimization strategy. He currently heads the SEO team here at Web Presence Optimization. You can email him directly at Tyler(at)webpresencegroup.net or follow him on Twitter.
