GOOGLE REVIEWS
PLEASE BE AWARE: This is an old article, and while we think there are still nuggets of good advice included here, it may be out of date. Things move very quickly in the world of Digital Marketing, Lead Generation and Conversion Rate Optimisation - so please see our latest news for the most recent advice on how to get more out of your website and online marketing.
Google’s updated search algorithm, Penguin 3.0, has landed – or at least slid forcefully in on its belly – and many companies are already seeing dramatic changes to their search rankings. Whether your business can expect a sharp rise or fall depends on several factors.
Facebook are planning to cut down on the amount of promotional content its users see on their dashboard. This refers to content from pages they have liked, rather than paid for ads, so all your hard work building an online following will be diminished if you ignore the changes.
According to a post on Facebook’s news page, their users are unhappy with the amount of overtly promotional content on their newsfeed. This is understandable because people generally don’t like being told what to buy, which comes as no surprise to those in the marketing trade. Yet, there are going to be adjustments that we all have to take note of.
As well as those direct sales, or “Posts that solely push people to buy a product or install an app,” Facebook are also updating their algorithms to look for “posts that push people to enter promotions and sweepstakes”. Competitions and special offers for page followers have been successful tools for promoting businesses on social media, so this news comes as something of a loss to web marketers.
The final point, specified as feeling ‘too promotional’ by Facebook’s research is “Posts that reuse the exact same content from ads”. However, it is unclear which components of an advert the word ‘content’ refers to – the images, text, links – if not all of it.
Although these aren’t groundbreaking changes, they may still have a detrimental effect on your social visibility, so how can your business adapt?
When Google made changes to their search algorithms to cut out spamming and underhanded tactics, they suggested to businesses that a content-based approach would lead to better results and perhaps this is the way forward with social media as well.
The most successful brands are those sharing entertaining and informative content that engages their audience, and those interacting with customers as much as possible. With these changes, this will increasingly be the case, so it may be wise to focus on a blog rather than running contests.
It may go without saying but don’t be lazy. Google already penalise those who duplicate content and Facebook will soon be hiding posts which closely resemble existing adverts. All this means is do what you should already be doing – produce original content and run original social media posts/strap-lines to promote it, don’t just copy the text from your Facebook ad campaign!
It all boils down to the usual message: a successful web marketing campaign depends on using a range of approaches, just like those mentioned above, with quality and consistency.
