SEO BLOG

Image: Trust by notsogoodphotography

The new by default personalized search by Google is a big paradigm shift in SEO. Yesterday I wrote about the changes personal search will bring for blogging, social media, SEO etc. I prefer to call it personal search as “personalized” is such a cumbersome word.

Of course personal search is nothing new. It has been added step by step over the years. David Harry has made an excellent overview of these types of personalization. So often we don’t have to change everything but just to focus on things we’ve already done in the past. These blogging, social media and SEO tactics must become standard for everybody dealing with the new challenge of personal search SEO.

So most of the tactics listed below aren’t revolutionary. You just have to step up efforts in these directions.

Overall personal search means sites being subjectively regarded as authority sites, whether they are or not (for instance Wikipedia is awful if you ask me), will win.

So at the end of the day you mostly need to make sure your site is viewed by as many peope as possible as an authority site. These people will then click on your search results because they know and trust you already. This way they will basically implicitly subscribe to your SERPS as it was the case with SearchWiki or the Google Web History already.

1. Link to search results, actually link to those SERPS you rank at 1 with a page that makes sense. Don’t make it useless though. Blog about Google search rankings for a particular query for instance.
2. Ask people to push you up on SearchWiki (you know, the green buttons on the search results). There is nothing wrong to ask your supports to support you on  new platform or in a new environment. You ask them to follow you on Twitter, ask them to move you in their search results as well. Please click the upwards arrow on this blog when searching for SEO blog or SEO 2.0 in case you are logged in to your Google account.
3. Optimize for subscribers and returning visitors to gain trust and thus for people to click your search results because they trust you. How to optimize for regular visitors not the causal search and social media visitor? More substance less screaming headlines, more follow ups and in depth articles.
4. Bundle your online activities. Instead of setting ob a network of blogs invest time and money into one single flagship blog with one URL and brand.
5. Establish a presence on highly authoritative UGC sites, where people usually click but make sure for them not to outrank you. Be wary of Wikipedia e.g. They ma outrank you and then some autistic Wikipedia geek might rewrite the item to fit the 90% male, white, nerd American agenda.
6. Work together with peers to create Wikis, group blogs, Ning communities and other online social circles that can compete with renown brands, professional blogs and media outlets for attention through it’s sheer people power.
7. Cut down on provocations. Sadly people love the lowest common denominator. In case you disagree with the status quo they will cease to trust you and won’t click on your weirdo website again while searching. A dose of healthy opportunism secures your success n personal search.
8. Write for mass appeal not solely a niche. Advanced SEO is great but most people don’t even get basic SEO let alone know the meaning of the acronym. Attract larger audiences by content and postings with mass appeal. That is don’t sell out b posting cat images but rely on niche relevant mainstream topics. Don’t write solely about SEO
9. Join larger business platforms like Linkedin, Ebay or Etsy. It’s a good idea but never forget that you can’t rela on those. Build your brand and reroute your customers to your own online real estate.
10. Don’t use generic names or keywords like another-no-name-seo-blog.blogspot.com to get some cheap long tail SEO traffic but rely on personal and other name branding. My name for instance is difficult to read and remember, thus I came up with onreact, SEO 2.0, Tad Chef as terms you can find me at.

Btw. at the same time Google gets personal it also rolls out realtime search results. So in future you’ll have to be

• blogging timely
• get mentioned on Twitter
• added to a Google Wave

etc. to circumvent the need to rank as an authority site in personal search.

Either you get through as an authority or as widely referred to site.

The second way may be easier as people refer to crap as well just to point out how bad it is or how much they disagree.

Still in case you’re into long term sustainble SEO 2.0 you probably will prefer the tactics above.

Related posts:

1. 12 Effects Google Personal Search Will Have on SEO, Blogging, Social Media and the Web as Whole
2. 30 Hands On Google Search Plus SEO Techniques for Getting Personal
3. What Easter Can Teach Us About Web 2.0, Social Media and Blogging
4. Interview with SEO Rockstar & Personal Development Guru Glen Allsopp
5. hkcMjRm: How to Use Google as URL Shortener

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