Gears have shifted within the last year, and the name of the SEO game is content. What are all of the ways we can generate useful or interesting content for potential customers, followers, friends, etc. Today in our Effective SEO update, we talk about Pinterest. Specifically, we talk about the value of adding video to your Pinterest board and how creating a diverse and engaging board can lead to more interactions with the people following you.

Many people that use Pinterest don’t even know that they can pin videos to their boards and believe it or not videos can be one of the most effective way to get other Pinterest users to see and share your content. Most of the people that browse on Pinterest do so while doing other things. Social media users are generally considered passive users for that reason, and it takes a lot to keep their attention. Videos are an excellent way to do this. By creating video pinboards, you’re more likely to hold a user’s attention for more than just a minute or two. Once a user likes your content and spends more than a few minutes with it, they’ll be more likely to click through to your site or share your content with other like-minded individuals.

Pinning Videos to Existing Boards

If you’re already using Pinterest and have created boards that you add to on a regular basis, consider adding a video the next time you want to add content to a board. Videos can attract people that already have an interest in your content or a specific board to come back and look at your content again. In some cases, you may find that people who have already commented on your boards or shared them will do so again if you add video content.

Picking Video Content to Pin to Existing Boards

While the video content you add doesn’t have to be yours, it should of course be related to the board that you’re pinning it on however, the video content you add to an existing pinboard really doesn’t have to have a ton of value. That means that if you have a pinboard about “How to take care of Dachshund’s”, for example, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with adding a short YouTube video of dachshund puppies playing in the park or running after a ball. That video doesn’t really contribute anything to the quality of your content, but it doesn’t take away from your real quality information, either. In fact, pinning a video could get more people to check out the quality content on the rest of the board. After all, who doesn’t want to watch cute puppies playing in the park or chasing after a ball on a summer day? People that do watch your video may share your other content and check out your other boards as well.

Creating Pinboards Exclusively for Videos

Adding video to your existing pin boards isn’t the only option when it comes to putting video content on Pinterest. While that may be helpful for some Pinterest users, others may find that making a new pin board or two exclusively for certain types of videos will be best for them. For example, a pin board dedicated exclusively to funny viral videos may be a big hit, and on that particular board, there’s really no room for anything except video content. Pinboards created exclusively for video can hold a Pinterest user’s attention for a much longer period of time than a simple photo pin board – no matter how elaborate that photo pin board is. Users that are looking at videos are also much more engaged because they require them to look and listen.

When a user is watching one of your videos, they’re actively engaging with your content. When a user is just looking at a photo, they could be doing a hundred other things at the same time. In fact, many passive users of Pinterest probably watch television, listen to music or talk with friends or family members at the same time. Even if you create memorable content, a user that isn’t fully engaged is likely to forget about it as soon as they open up a new tab in the browser or turn their computer off.

Make Sure Your Video Content is Enticing

The video content you pin to your boards should have something about it, at least to your target audience, which makes it nearly irresistible. Cute puppies for pet lovers, beautifully decorated cakes for foodies – the content doesn’t matter as long as you know there are people out there that simply can’t resist clicking it. By creating content that’s immediately enticing to people you’ll get a lot more likes and repins.

Today’s guest post in Effective SEO comes to us from frequent contributor Marcela De Vivo. Marcela De Vivo is a freelance writer in the L.A. area. She’s written hundreds of articles ranging on topics from optimizing SEO to designing safe spaces for children.

Interested in writing for the Evolving Interactive Guest Blog? Check out the details and contact us at the Guest Blog page.

Social media has become an important part of pretty much all businesses, including traditional brick and mortar businesses and online businesses. However, social media has become increasingly important for people that work in SEO, since social media is being used differently by many companies to find their target audience.

Individuals that work in SEO have also seen major changes that have likely affected the way that they work, giving them even more incentive to utilize social media as an outlet for creating and getting work.

Google Algorithm Updates

Google Panda and subsequent updates have had a major impact on people that work in SEO. Recent changes to Google Penguin and Panda have been put in place to penalize companies and individuals that produce fast, low-quality content just to fit in keywords that are popular in searches and on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Many major sites labeled as content mills – sites that employed writers to write on a variety of topics based on a particular keyword – were penalized the most. However, these algorithm updates also affected bloggers and people that make their living doing SEO work for private companies.

Local SEO

Local SEO has become more and more important since Google changed its algorithm, and it has become very popular with many businesses because it allows them to find only clients or customers in their area that fit their criteria. That means more focused marketing, which can result in more business at a reduced cost for many businesses. Many businesses use SEO writers to create local content for their Facebook, Twitter or Google+ pages to help them attract clients.

While writing for social media isn’t that much different than writing for a blog, understanding what works best on sites like Facebook and Twitter – which has a letter counter restriction – can help you do your best work.

Social Media Affects Ranking

After Google algorithm changes, social media rankings have become more and more important to businesses and writers that use SEO to drive traffic to their blog or website. This is because Google put more importance on organic links and mentions of a certain keyword or brand than on many other websites. The more people are talking about your product or business on social media sites like Google+ and Facebook, the higher your ranking will be. That’s why writing for social media sites has become so popular among SEO content producers.

Social media numbers should also be viewed in conjunction with more traditional page rankings and backlinks.

Apps Are Your Friend

Apps designed to help you create quality posts for social media sites like HootSuite also allow you to monitor how your post is doing and how many people are looking at and sharing your information.

HootSuite also allows you to publish your content across various networks in a safe, secure manner that is very user friendly for most SEO content creators.

Another app that’s popular among SEO content producers is BufferApp, which allows you to create posts in advance and share them on social media sites throughout the day. BufferApp also works with your email provider so that you can share updates through your e-mail system if you’re on the go. While there are certain restrictions with BufferApp about how many posts you can create in advance, most people won’t ever reach the limit, making it a very efficient tool.

Pingraphy works sort of like BufferApp, but it’s designed for both business and personal users of Pinterest. Pingraphy allows you to disperse your pins throughout the day so that you don’t bombard your followers all at once. Using Pingraphy also allows you to post during peak hours when you know your followers will be ready to look at the items that you’re posting.

If you’re doing SEO content work on social media sites, these useful apps can make it much easier to share what you want to share, when you want to share it. They can also help you to reach more of your target audience by allowing you to create more content. Using apps also means that you don’t have to sit at your desk all day updating Twitter and Facebook.

Today’s Guest Blog Post courtesy of Marcela De Vivo:

Marcela De Vivo is a freelance writer in the Los Angeles area, specializing in articles about the best blog content, SEO, and moving blogs to WordPress.

If you’re a business owner even slightly aware of your online local business presence, you have noticed some changes in the local world over these last few months. Not all of these changes are for the better (I’m squarely looking at you Google).  I want to talk briefly about what these changes could mean in the next few months.

Google – Let’s get the big one out of the way first. A few months ago Google made the change from its Google Places platform, a platform we all knew and …well we knew it. They started migrating thousands and thousands of businesses to the new Google Plus Local platform. To Google’s credit, most made the transition smoothly, with the accurate description, NAP (name, address, and phone number), and photos making the switch. Getting to the profile isn’t as easy as it used to be, however. It isn’t a matter of clicking on the teardrop and seeing all of the business info. Now, once you click on the teardrop, you are taken to the maps page. When you click on the listing on the map, and ask for more info, then you are taken to the new Google Plus Local page for the business.

That’s if your business made the cut. Since the transition, hundreds of business owners have flooded the forums and help blogs looking for a solution. The switch has left these businesses in the cold, with the dreaded message “We Currently Do Not Support This Location.” If you see this message, your options are limited, and response from Google’s “Help Team” has been vague at best. We have run into this issue a few times already, and after two months of trying different strategies, attempting to contact sources that could help, and just plain waiting; it seems that waiting is going to be the way to go.

The problem is that Google bit off a bit more than it could chew, trying to migrate every business with an established local listing to the new platform. We are hoping that the issue will be resolved soon, and we hope to be posting about how to claim and update your Google Plus local listing in no time.

Every cloud has a silver lining, and this lining comes courtesy of Yahoo and Bing. While combined, neither has the traffic that Google boasts. But both have revamped their local listing platforms to be more user friendly. It’s easier than ever for business owners to find and claim their listings, especially with Yahoo. While these offer little consolation to a company that has disappeared from Google’s local results, I encourage business owners to continue finding directories and submitting their business to them. There are plenty of sites like Yelp, Insider Pages, and Merchant Circle that will accept your business and send local signals to search engines when an inquiry is entered. In the meantime, while Google is figuring out a way to sort out all of its local issues, continue to find new ways to get your business out there.

Evolving Interactive offers local optimization services for small and medium businesses. Our analysts work closely with businesses to develop their online business across a range of local business directories and aggregaters. If you’re interested in learning more about local optimization for your business, call Evolving Interactive today.

Yesterday, Google made a pretty big change to their local business pages. That is to say, they removed them. As of this morning, all of the local pages are in transition to a new page hosted by the Google + platform. Google has several reasons for making the change, which they explain will create a simpler experience for customers. This simpler experience includes a more proficient rating system, using ratings from Zagat when applicable. Google says it will also make it easier for searchers to leave reviews and recommend businesses to the friends in their circles while logged in to their Google Plus account.

The transition seems to be fairly smooth in terms of bringing over content, though for now it is still recommended that business owners manage their listing through the Places for Business. Right now, the changes have created new plus pages for the business that you can navigate to through the maps listing. For businesses that already have created and manage a local Google Plus page, Google’s instructions is to “hold tight” for updates on how to link the two pages together.

The change will not make a huge difference to customers / searchers in terms of their searching habits. If anything, the move to this new platform should make finding the right places easier, offering more insight on recommendations and reviews, as well as personal “plusses” from those in their circles (if they are signed into their Google account). For business owners, it will require more effort. Whereas before it was enough for owners to claim, optimize, and manage their places page; Google Plus has plenty of bells and whistles to enhance listings. It will be to the owner’s benefit to add content and find ways to get the page out there. In addition, this Local Plus page will count as an indexed page, meaning it will show up as a search result.

Stay tuned to the Evolving Interactive blog for more information on the transition to Google Plus Local, including optimization tips and important notes.

In the meantime, here are some resources to help you better understand the transition.

Search Engine Land

Blumenthal’s Blog

Google and Your Business

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Here in Chicago, it’s raining links and blogs. (SEO joke. Sorry.) In our last blog post, we discussed being proactive and original with your SEO campaigns, wowing potential customers with your freestyle, outside the box thinking. But, today I don’t feel like it. With the dreariness of a long Chicago winter ahead, and days like this, here is a list of five SEO strategies that can pass the time and still help you market your business.

Link Building – This is one of our premier SEO services for our clients. It’s the strategy (art) of connecting with relevant sites and having them link back to your site because you have something important to share; like an idea, product, or service. Link Building is my #1 favorite lazy day SEO activity. I turn on a movie or play a few albums, and just plug away at the computer. Most of link building is research, and reaching out to websites. It takes a while, but it is the backbone of search engine optimization. Plus, you can get in the zone and make a lot of progress when not distracted with the dreary outside world.

Blog Writing – Considering our last post, you can look for inspiration in anything to promote your website with a new blog post. A grey day is no exception (re: this post). Grab a hot beverage and just write. Try to keep it loose and comfortable. Come up with a few topics you haven’t blogged about in a while, and give a few reminders and updates to your readers.

Social Media Promotions – From a marketing standpoint, this is a slam dunk for local businesses that are social media savvy. In order to get a few extra followers, likes, and shares; target the people nearby passing the rainy day blues in front of their computers. Offer a promotion that will warm them up a bit. For example, “Rainy Day Special – The first five people to repost this on their wall receive two free movie passes, Starbucks Giftcard, etc”. If you’re running a restaurant or local service, you can give away a little something to get people to call you, as well as promote your company online. (I know this is skirting a fine line between being creative and proactive…I’ll fix that)

Organize Your Monthly Schedule – Don’t do today what you can put off tomorrow. While this seems like the ultimate lazy brush off, it can actually be quite helpful. Take a look at what needs to get done for the month in your marketing campaign. Go to your calendar; mark your time for link building, social media updates, blog posts, and more. Get organized, and it will help you when you feel like be more proactive on the next sunny day. I’d actually recommend doing this once and a while anyway, but why not on a day with nasty weather?

Website Maintenance – This is another thing you should do every once in a while anyway, but it can be tedious, so better to get it done without the allure of the great outdoors (of Chicago). Go through the back end of your site, and make sure everything is working properly. Make sure each link on your site is working, that your 404 page is in order, and update your content with some fresh, keyword rich text.

These tips should help maintain your valiant SEO efforts while keeping your occupied mind off of the rain, sleet, and hail of the longest season. Happy internet marketing!

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