SEO 101: Optimizing For “Other” Search Engines

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Despite what the naysayers may say search engine optimization is still very much alive. And today, it remains as one of the many Internet processes that drive the most traffic to particular websites. Additionally, with the recent web developments modern technology has made and with the different updates that have been made for SEO, it has showed no signs of slowing down so far.

However, with so much SEO companies specializing in link building services, competition remains stiff and relentless. In order to keep up with the steady competition, various SEO companies would need to think of ingenious ways to revamp and update their SEO strategies. They keep up with Google’s updates and constantly come up with fresh techniques that would keep them relevant and on Google’s good list. But, this is a vast oversight most SEO companies make.

By focusing on search engine juggernaut Google, most SEO companies neglect to polish and optimize their sites for other search engines and this could be a fatal and erroneous move. Google may be the biggest search engine there is, but this is also where 99% of SEO companies focus their attention on.  Apart from adding diversity into your optimization techniques (and coming up with SEO tactics for search engines where SEO is virtually nonexistent), you would be taking advantage of ranking for these lesser known search engines—the ones on social media sites.

As SEO presence is rather sparse on these websites, it would mean that you would have less competition making it much easier to overpower amateurs who are accidentally just ranking for terms than it is professional SEOs. Rankings would also be relatively simpler as most people are manipulating algorithms and search results elsewhere.
To fully exploit this rare SEO advantage, here are a few of the things you should do:

SEARCH IS VISIBLY PROMINENT IN FACEBOOK’S FEATURES, TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT

That nondescript and neglected search bar on Facebook is more powerful than you give it credit for. Though Facebook is all about making connections, this is not to say that converting Facebook’s search traffic into traffic for your business cannot be done. Consider the fact that most local businesses need to be on Facebook, couple that with a significant portion of its daily searches used to find these businesses and you have an opportunity for rankings.

Being discovered in Facebook’s search results guarantees you immediate business and in addition to this, you can often get that searcher to like your page which could potentially mean this follower can market your business in the future. Facebook’s present algorithm understands that when a user types in a particular product (i.e. burger), the searcher is not necessarily looking for people, groups or photos so the results it will show are pages or places.  Likely ranking factors are likes, reviews and having the exact search phrase in your title and they do count if only for a bit. The benefit of having more of this would yield diminishing results so make sure to get a lot of reviews and likes and you might just have the desired effect you have on your rankings.

What is imperative when it comes to local business is the location but this is not as easy to change as we want it to be. However, if you have a business with a flexible address, change the address of Facebook and see if there is a significant difference in the way your business shows up in the results. Apart from this, you can utilize long tailed keywords which might be an easier keyword to target but would get a good search volume regardless.

TWITTER SEARCH IS A SUCCESS

Twitter is not simply a social media platform for micro-blogging. Over the years, the usage of Twitter has evolved from connecting with other people but rather it has used to garner more followers and has been massively exploited as a source of traffic to many websites. In fact, Twitter is the largest purveyor of trending topics online and it has a section specifically designated for it. This is so users who are curious about trending topics would just click the hashtag or search for it. The main benefit of this is that when a user searches a particular topic, they will see all of the tweets about it even from those who do not have an impressive follower count. This is a great opportunity to get in front of an audience right away.

Exploiting this opportunity requires you to tweet about things that include any of those trends and relate them to your business or niche. Though this is not necessarily practical for all hashtags, you can rest easy knowing that if a lot of people would see your tweet, at least a few of them will be interested in your niche and could follow you later on.
Complement this with a good social media strategy and you have a workable technique to drive more traffic to your website.

DO NOT NEGLECT LINKEDIN 

LinkedIn’s search engine mainly has two purposes: To find people to connect with and for people to find potential companies and persons to hire. This is why good optimization for LinkedIn can lead to potentially high paying clients making it so valuable. Keywords play a great part in SEO and these are massive in LinkedIn but there is not so much of an advantage in having the exact phrase, but you are guaranteed to show up in the search results anyhow. Additionally, should you click any of the results; LinkedIn would highlight all the keywords in that person’s profile page.  So start by optimizing your profile and have the right keywords in the right place. This would mean your keywords should be in three pivotal areas (job description, current job title, and past job titles). Couple this with including commonly searched words and edit your professional description and you are good to go.

Connect with more people so that you can get more profile views and try to accept all requests even if you do not necessarily know them as this will up your chances in showing up in other people’s networks and lastly, look for opportunities to connect with people with a lot of followers.  A more tactical approach is to target and connect with people who have certain job descriptions.



There is so much potential in ranking highly on social media networks and to top that off, it is much easier to accomplish that than it is to rank for searches on Google and it would still produce worthy results. Find the network that is most suited and appropriate to your business and build on that. Create a social media marketing plan which would direct you to which networks to target. From there, you can begin optimizing your posts and profiles and you will get faster and better results.