Search Engine Simplicity and The Union of Search & Social : The Cheat Sheet Presented by Tinu Abayomi-Paul leveragedpromotion.com tinu@asktinu.com | @Tinu on Twitter | For the Virginia SEO MeetUp

A- What is Search Engine Simplicity?

● Choosing the path that is the balance of least resistance and best results.

● Instead of being married to a number one ranking of one term, spread the wealth around, own the basket not the eggs. Also: Own 1, Lease 9.

● Most importantly - we use several other traffic methods to get traffic to a website and optimize those too. Social, expertise marketing, podcasting, video. What if Google Was Gone Tomorrow?

B- Basic Search Optimization Isn't Rocket Science

● Build a great site, structurally - if you're blogging you're already partly doing this.

● Fill it with compelling content - worry about what your target audience thinks is compelling and ignore everything else.

● Get links to it. When possible, go for quantity over quantity, but do both.

● Get social - relatively new, but growing in importance. C- Need to Go Beyond the Basics? Get the Right People and the Right Tools

● Even experts use experts. I'd never try to fix my garbage disposal or do my business taxes on my own, even though technically, I can.

● If you can't afford the best people, use the best tools you can to get the job done as well as possible. Examples: SEOMoz.org's Keyword Difficulty Tool, Wordtracker's Keyword Questions Tool

D- The worlds of search and social have already merged

● Both Google and Bing have confirmed that they use social signals. This was last year, that they confirmed this formally, before Google + became allegedly popular.

● Have a look at your Google Social search circle. Since at least October of 2009, Google has been examining social connections.

E- What Do We Need to Have Strong Search Signals?

● What You can't do: just sign up to every social media site and create

a profile with a link back to your site. Search engines are on to that. Rely completely on Synnd (this tool is kind of black hat) or Triberr (much more white hat but you have to be careful to maintain your social rep)..

● We can tell when we're talking to robots or interacting with automation. Some automation is good - Buffer helps you keep from overwhelming your stream.

● What you can do: develop a strong authority profile. If you write for any top shelf publications, be sure your Google author profile is in order.

● Be active but not hyperactive - no one is on social media 24 hours a day who actually runs a real business. Robots don't sleep but we do.

More Resources Creating Compelling ContentThe Rotating Digital Strategy Cheat SheetYoast Google author tool