White Hat SEO. 2014. What Now?

White hat SEO is embedded deep into your online marketing strategy. Research keyword(s) and then implement keyword(s) in web pages and links to attract search engine users to your website.

Why is everyone saying that SEO is dead… how else are you going to reach a targeted audience online?

Google could care less about driving traffic to your website.

Google cares about giving users the results they want. (You should care about the same.)

That doesn’t mean you can’t—or shouldn’t—still use the keyword research and implementation as part of your online marketing strategy. On the contrary, SEO in 2014 is a transitional stage of adjusting perspectives and priorities.

Be Everywhere

Scratch that. Be everywhere that you can handle.

Yes. Social media is the most visited part of the internet. Yes, your audience practically lives on social media. (Probably.) So yes, you want to have a Facebook page. A Twitter account. A Youtube account. A G+ page. A Pinterest account. An Instagram account. A Tumblr account. Etc.

But then again, you don’t want to wear yourself out too thin. It’s supposed to be about listening and engaging, not marketing and selling. Social media should not take up more of your time, energy, or money than it’s worth and that’s why you should only be everywhere that you can handle maintaining.

Because nothing is worse than a stale web presence.

Focus on Branding

If you haven’t been using your brand name as a keyword, you’re doing it wrong. You aren’t the only brand offering your {product} or {service} so it’s pretty important to give customers a reason to find you by name. A reason to remember you, to choose you.

Advertising

Google, and other search engines, have a pretty decent advertising program. If you haven’t tried PPC yet, check it out! It might not have the same low cost value as organic placement, but repeat brand exposure does a pretty good job of building trust and the targeting options are great for filtering exposure to a qualified audience.

Don’t limit yourself to AdWords… try launching an advertising campaign on social media.

Valuable Content

Your web page content and blog articles aren’t about SEO. Duh.

It’s about giving visitors a reason to stick around, and hopefully a reason to come back. Even better, a reason to share your website/blog (AKA brand) with friends. A reason to subscribe. A reason to fall in love and never forget about you.

You can’t fake valuable content… you either put the effort into value or you don’t.