Five Fingers of Death Part 4: SEO

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The Five Fingers of Death series continues as as John Lawson explains why SEO and social media go hand-in-hand.

When it comes to search engine optimisation (SEO), what are some basic SEO best practices?  What are common SEO mistakes that e-commerce businesses make?

The number one benefit and the hottest asset to your business with social media is the improvement of SEO. Social media ranks well and it places you in great position for SEO. Under the category of social media are blogs and micro blogs like Twitter, social bookmaking sites like Digg and Delicious, and even press releases. All of these options generate highly qualified links that come out of them. You’ve got those sites which are naturally highly ranking sites and pretty much all of the content that falls under your topic or your brand listed on these platforms is going to be considered relevant content by search engines like Google.

So let’s just take a closer look at the biggest and best tool in my opinion, which is blogging. Why? Because blogging equals SEO, and SEO equals blogging.  Google absolutely loves blogs.  It ranks blogs very, very highly, and blogs are always inside the rankings of Google search. Google stores an index for blogs and shows new content added to blogs very, very quickly. It gives you an edge over competitors that are not using blogs, to place well in SEO.

When you are writing content for your blog that is relevant to your topic, Google takes that content and positions you in the top, for that topical category, predicated on the fact that you are giving good, relevant information for those searching for that information.

Another great tool is YouTube. YouTube is a very powerful SEO tool. People don’t think about videos as a social tool, but they certainly are. Once you make a video, people can share it, comment on it, and can embedded it on their own pages. Video and YouTube especially are very social, and it is highly ranked. As a matter of fact, YouTube is the number two search engine in the world, recently surpassing Yahoo! After Google, which isnumber one, YouTube becomes number two for people searching for information on products and brands.

A large amount of that traffic goes to “how-to” topics. People will search on how to use a product –  you can actually make a video explaining the ‘how to’ and people will watch it. Since we sell bandanas, I made a video on how to fold a bandana. That video now has over 140,000 views and from this single YouTube video, we have tracked over 10,000 transactions – and that video cost me absolutely nothing to make and produce. This is powerful, powerful brand awareness, powerful SEO and infinite ROI. If a consumer is searching for “How to fold a bandana”, they see this video which is branded with our business and our website.  It tells them, “Hey here is how to fold a bandana and here is where you can buy some too.” The video is giving out the required information, and giving me the opportunity to let them know where to buy more bandanas.

Another highly overlooked SEO is SlideShare. Maybe you’re not comfortable making a video but you can sure make a PowerPoint slide show. Once completed, you can then the slide show to SlideShare, along with good information and some helpful points. Need an idea on what to make your slide show about? Try answering the top ten questions people might have about a specific product, make it into a slide show, and share it on SlideShare.

When creating SEO-friendly content, make sure you give people tips and they will love you for it. When possible  include a few links, but DO NOT overdo it. Keep in mind that people want the information and respect that.

Tips on creating good content:

1. You want to research keywords and keyword phrases
2. You want to talk about the benefit of the product to the customer. Don’t try to sell it, just talk about the benefits.
3. Help them out, make them aware of all of the uses and features associated with a product
4. If you are making a video, link to your site on the front and back of the video.
5. If you are making a slideshow, make sure you have a splash page with your URL, so that people know that it came from you.
6. When including your business details in content, it should not be a commercial, just a quick, “this is who we are and this is what we sell”.
7. Post as many blog atricles as you can over time. If Google sees it constant and ongoing (even once a month) they will “love” you for it.

Article by John Lawson

Named Small Business Influencer Champion by Small Biz Trends and Saviest in Social Media by Startup Nation, John Lawson, formally of Accenture consulting, today is an E-commerce Business CEO, International Keynote Speaker, Award-winning Social Media Strategist, American Express Featured Business and Commercial TV Personality. John is also the CEO of 3rd Power Outlet and the founder of the award-winning e-commerce industry blog at ColderICE.com. John is a Platinum eBay Power Seller, Top-Rated Amazon Seller, Social Media Personality and e-commerce analyst for Wall-Street firms. John specializes in multi-channel e-commerce, social rich-media marketing and mobile commerce.