Brands should be aware that standalone SEO campaigns may not fully optimise a website’s ranking potential, as search engine algorithms increasingly incorporate social signals and there continues to be a renewed emphasis on onsite factors following Google’s Penguin 2.0 update, says integrated PR, social media and search agency Punch Communications. Brands should therefore not only focus on building natural back link profiles, but also on increasing social signals and enhanced media content to ensure positive SERP visibility and stability.
Industry analysis continues to reinforce the relationship between social interactions, onsite meida content and ranking positions in Google. However, the quality and quantity of brands’ backlinks and on-site content still remain amongst the most impactful signals that can affect the stability and placement of a website in organic search rankings.
Brands should strive for a natural link profile from a broad range of domains through an appropriate variety of generic and branded anchor text, as well as URL links, pointing to the relevant pages within a site’s structure.
Webmasters should ensure social icons are integrated into relevant pages to enable visitors to share the content they enjoy and for social networks to be maintained as a part of a wider social and SEO strategy. In particular, activity on Google+, +1s and authors linked to a G+ profile play a key role in determining the search determine the position of content in the SERPs.
Both factors appear to have surpassed the importance of other tactics, such as incorporating keywords within domain names and URLs. Also studies, such as Search Metrics’ 2013 Ranking Factors Report, suggest a strong relationship between search visibility and a healthy amount of media-rich content and uploaded image files, meaning brands would be wise to consider reviewing the functionality of content management systems for image capacity.
Pete Goold, managing director of integrated PR agency Punch Communications, says: “There are clear benefits for brands that clean up their backlink profiles as well as link build naturally. Brands should aim to create a variety of exact, broad, generic and branded anchor text links from a range of sites for effective organic search engine visibility. I would advise any brand to ensure their communications and social media teams understand how their activity affects where their business sits in Google’s results.”
To find out what Punch Communications’ integrated approach to social media, SEO and PR can do for your brand, visit www.punchcomms.com