Brett Tabke says local has been a huge trend, as has the tablet market
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) –Carolyn Shelby of CSHEL Search Strategies says when it comes to ranking on Google, it all comes down to communication, in her presentation on Monday morning at HostingCon 2011.
SEO is not tactics, she says, its a way of thinking.
“If you don’t have a message to communicate, all the SEO in the world will fail,” Shelby says.
Shelby says she has seen a lot of bad hosting websites.
“Pretty websites matter now because Google has people who look at that,” she says.
Does your website look professional so customers would feel confident providing their credit card information? If your website doesn’t look professional, probably not, Shelby says.
Spend money on your website, Shelby says. Hire a good writer and provide them with a good message. When you have a lot of content, it doesn’t mean it will rank unless it is unique and says something.
When it comes to social media, Shelby argues its not about engagement. It’s about improving bottom line and linking to your website. If you don’t link back to the “mother ship” all social media resources are irrelevant.
“Don’t spit content over multiple domains,” she says.
Have one domain with your content, and be sure to link to content within your own site, as its a “natural opportunity” and it helps, Shelby says.
Most importantly, she says, differentiate your content from your competitors. Don’t leave it to your customers to decide that you are better, show them you are. You don’t want to be a commodity, because customers aren’t loyal to price tags, they’re loyal to friends, Shelby says.
Brett Tabke, CEO WebmasterWorld and chair of PubCon took the stage on the second half of the presentation. He talked about what’s hot in SEO, with the biggest trend being local.
Google places and local search is an example of this. Reviews are also important, he says.
Another trend is the need for speed. Google has hopped on this trend recently with its Page Speed Service solution.
Other players in this market include CloudFlare and Yottaa. This is a hot trend, Tabke says, and he’s surprised that more hosting companies aren’t using this in their marketing. For example, tell customers how speed will help their SEO.
Tablets have become a huge trend, and 43 percent spend more time with their tablet than with their desktop, Tabke says. Almost 30 percent said that the tablet is their primary computer, he says.
What are people doing with their tablets? Tabke says their is not a lot of research about this, but that apps are dwarfing web usage.
“People are all over the map with social media policies,” Tabke says. He says every team member should have a Twitter account related to the website, and every team member needs to be educated on the company social media policies.
Social media is easy to mess up, he says, and hard to correct.
In the future, Tabke says Google usage will slowly decline, tablets will be the number one computer by 2016, and by 2014 will outsell laptops.
Those changes will be dramatic and transformative to the industry and we need to adapt accordingly, he says.
About Nicole Henderson
Nicole Henderson writes full-time for the Web Host Industry Review where she covers daily news and features online, as well as in print. She has a bachelor of journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto, and has been writing for the WHIR since September 2010. You can find her on Twitter @NicoleHenderson.
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