Increasing Search Hits from Your Social Circle
At least once a week, I do this exercise which involves utilizing all the neat tools I’ve picked up over the years to check where my site stands in search engine rankings. I do all the recommended submissions to article directories and social bookmarking sites to build links and I try to be vigilant about posting at least once a week on my blog. It seems to be working, because I rank pretty high with Google and Bing for my preferred keywords.
This morning, something occurred that caused me to re-evaluate my efforts in another area – social media. I received an email from a prospective service provider who had found me on Facebook. This was particularly interesting because I don’t really use my Facebook account for business. I’m a “Mafia Wars” junkie and have eight hundred friends who mainly help me collect the items I need to Level Up in New York, Bangkok, Cuba and Moscow. This woman who contacted me didn’t seem to be connected to me, so I pulled out my toolbox and started tinkering.
As it turned out, I could have found the answer without using my SEO rank-checkers and real-time analytics gadgets. It was right in front of me on Google the whole time. Scrolling down a search page for the keyword “content writing“, where I have sat comfortably in the two position for almost a year now, I noticed a listing that read “Related Links in Your Social Circle”. There, staring me in the face, was my picture and business URL, which I have listed in my profile. I found out later on that the woman who contacted me had found me in a similar manner. One of her friends was a Mafia Wars buddy of mine.
Two years ago I was asked to ghostwrite a book for a colleague of mine on the impact of social media marketing. I used the Obama Presidential campaign as a model for how you can direct market with social media, but I also emphasized a point about indirect marketing. Your “friends” on Facebook don’t want to be solicited. They want to socialize. If they’re looking for the services you provide they’ll search for them in the traditional fashion, not through the network.
Facebook has been under fire recently for being the “Big Brother” of our generation, not only watching everything we do, but allowing others access to that data. Personally, I don’t put a whole lot of information on my Facebook account. My profile has my name, where I’m from, some pictures I share with friends, and my business URL along with a description of what I do for a work. It was that piece that secured me a new content provider this morning. Others can bail on Facebook is they like, but I think I’ll work on increasing the size of my Mafia this weekend.
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