Search Engine Optimization (SEO)with Google+:  Are you losing SEO by making these 3 mistakes? Capture all the SEO you can!

Search Engine Optimization, commonly called SEO, is not rocket science.  It can, however, seem like a foreign language!  Together with social it affords you much more visibility. I can help translate it for you and offer some tips for how to capture your full share.

Let’s use the analogy of the ‘Juice jug & cups’.
Think of SEO as the jug and your optimization as the  ‘juice’ that gets poured into your cup, where each cup represents a website/blog/splashpage. When the search engines crawl your site, or your profile(s) it’s like putting juice in that specific cup…ONLY if all the information matches completely.

Let me explain.

Mistake #1 : No consistency in your NAP

When you use different forms of your information, i.e. your Name-Address-Phone, on your social profiles, the search engines allocate the ‘juice’ to different cups.  This is because the search bots do not understand nuance.  They see the changes or differences as another site/blog/page and allocate juice to a new cup. This juice is now wasted, and you aren’t getting the SEO benefits.

What to do instead?

Ensure your name, address and phone are all consistently formatted, across all platforms. When all information matches completely, the juice will be poured into one cup…yours, and you will have captured all the SEO of a properly formatted NAP.

Mistake #2: A Non-Existent/Non-Relevant Profile Photo

These are the common mistakes made with profile photos:

1. Forgetting to include a photo for your profile and using the default graphic (In Google+ we call them ‘blueheads’).
2. Using a photo of your dog, cat, cartoon, or anything other than yourself.
3. Using the number or date tag the photo was shot with to name it.
4. Not adding an alt tag that uses your keywords to the photo.

All of these lose you another opportunity for optimization.

What to do instead?

People do business with people they know, like & trust. Give them a face to identify with; recognition helps when they go to your site/blog/page.

1. A profile photo needs to be a headshot, preferably one of you actually looking into the camera.
2. Save the photo using your name and a relevant keyword.

e.g. Elaine-Lindsay-social-media-consultant.jpg

Mistake #3: Lack of Google Authorship

If you have a personal profile on Google+ and you don’t take the extra step to add the authorship tag to your site/blog/page, you miss out on up to 2 extra lines in search.  You also miss out on your gravatar being included in the search results, along with your byline.

What to do instead?

Link your Google+ profile to the content you create on your site/blog/page, as well as content you publish as a guest on other domains.

Please note: Google doesn’t guarantee to show author information in Google Web, however, with authorship tags in place you still get SEO benefit.

1. be sure to add all the  appropriate links in the Contributor to section on your about tab.
2. Make sure a byline containing your name appears on each page of your content (for example, “By Elaine Lindsay”).  Make sure your byline name matches the name on your Google+ profile.

A example with authorship:

A example without authorship:

Take action today! Correct these mistakes to optimize your site/blog/page and reap the benefits of well implemented SEO using social.

Still have questions? Want more information? Contact TROOL Social Media for all your social & search optimization needs.