The Evolution & Impact of Google Panda 2.2 for Internet Marketing
The numerous changes that have taken place within the search engines have been fast and furious over the past few months. Google Panda 2.2 has already received massive attention by SEO and internet marketing professionals around the world. The focus of our work regardless of scope, SEO, or web design should be directed toward the customer and user. In an ideal world, the more customer-focused that you are with your campaigns, then the greater the possibility that customers will like your products/services and convert. Within the evolution of Google Panda, we will be forced as SEO, web design, and internet marketing professionals to look at the entire online environment. That means, stop working in silos and collaborate to deliver greater customer value!
Social Media Impact
Social Media Marketing has been the latest craze for the past year or so, and it is not going away. In many cases, engaging with social media almost seems to just add fuel to the fire as more and more social media platforms arise. For that reason, it has been a challenge for businesses to keep up, listen to the conversation, and engage (specifically highly regulated industries). The fact is that social media engagement is connected to search engine rankings. SEOmoz as well as others have identified a correlation between social media attributes and organic search engine rankings several months ago. With that said,it would not be surprising if Google makes changes to its algorithm, which is how it decides to rank websites, in order to reflect activity on the Google+ Project, which its social media challenger to Facebook, once the project is open to everyone, including businesses. Therefore, the importance of providing sharable content and the ability to distribute content via share buttons, emails, hyperlinks, Tweets, and others has been increasingly more important. Having content that is sharable should position your business for the future evolution of social media, technology, and save you money in the long-run.
Web Design Impact
Just about everyone and their grandmother is a web designer now, but I think that is about to change soon. A good user interface and user experience has become more important to the search engines. It is not just about the eye-pleasing WOW factor! At the same time, we must consider the brand and trustworthiness. It does not mean that we excluded what were the fundamental search engine optimization and web design principles. The web design should go beyond just a new website but be a part of the internet marketing strategy. It is one thing to design or program a cute website, but being able to integrate the website into an overall strategy, which will be a challenge for the “marketing pups.” They will have the chance to see if they can jump off the porch and run with the “big dogs”.
Content Impact
The “Wow factor” will not only impact the user interface but content as well. Google and Social media outlets want users to share and provide feedback on content. They have even gone as far as to implement a new feature over the past few months such as Google +1. The fundamentals of content development have not changed, but the content should encourage a dialogue with and among the readers. Keep in mind that content is still king, but it now includes the comments of others from blogs, forums, etc. These sources can be used to leverage new content as well. Noteworthy and relevant content will find its way to your target audience which should reduce your overall acquisition cost.
Measurement of Internet Marketing Experience
The integration of social media marketing should be seen as a part of the overall internet marketing strategy for sharing content and engaging with prospects and customers. It is also very important to identify the metrics of engagement that are a part of your strategy, so that you can determine the value of the social media marketing channel.
With the evolution of Google Panda 2.2, the implementation and measurement of internal site search should help you to optimize the user experience and identify opportunities for improvement. If a user cannot find the information that they want while they are on your website, chances are the search engine will not be able to either; therefore, you will not be ranked within the organic search results.
Testing and optimizing your home page design will become increasingly important as gaining insight into what users like and will interact with becomes more vital in order to compete. The ability to capture your target audience’s attention and the ease of usage will increase the possibility that your target audience will identify useful content, engage, and convert. The metrics to measure the landing pages should align to the navigation, customer metrics, and conversions.
The optimization of content for sharing, engaging, and most importantly attention getting will be crucial to your success. The implementation of social media feeds should help to increase the dynamic content on your site. The need to measure these factors should help your business identify opportunities to improve the content. In general, the standard content related metrics such as time on page, bounce rate, unique page views, and pages per visit will provide guidance on what information needs to be changed or updated. The additional metrics such as comments, forward to a friend, tweets, shares, etc. will also help determine what kind of information is important to your audience and what will they engage with.
Conclusion
The connection among SEO, web design, social media, content, and actionable metrics will need to be a part of an overall internet marketing strategy. This has and should have always been the case; however, not all businesses take the time to develop an all-encompassing strategy. Furthermore, the communication between the internal business operations and IT Department is not always as seamless as it needs to be for optimum effectiveness. The “fear factor” of social media needs to be addressed in order to continue to be effective in the internet marketing space. It is in the best interest of the SEO and web designer to collaborate with the business to identify what social media channels and content strategies have been effective within the industry. Now, the metrics are where it gets tricky. In most case, IT will need to implement the tracking methods not just for social media, but also for specific events that are critical in measuring the overall success of the business.
The reality is that SEO without any visibility into the web design, social media without an understanding of the content strategy, or web design without metrics will not cut it. Businesses will have two options: hire internal resources and hope that they can work as a team or hire an outside resource. If the business does not connect internal from the start, it is going to require a much longer term investment to clean-up and connect SEO, web design, social media, etc. for the success of the business. In my opinion, the best way to reduce the risk of a failed campaign and to stay up-to-date on the numerous changes to search algorithms, new social media outlets, and industry trends is for these groups of talented people to work together. It is time that we get over ourselves and work as a team to save businesses time, money, and improve marketing efficiency!
