What Easter Can Teach Us About Search, Social Media and Blogs
Yes. I usually enjoy a short break during holidays like Easter
Yet I often can’t resist to think about SEO 2!
It consists of three major parts:
- search
- social media
- blogs
I want to share with you a saying that kept popping up on my mind:
Do not put all your eggs in one basket.
All the eggs may break at the same time.
This is an idiom that is used very often on the Web in the realm of SEO or business in general.
Why? It can be applied on many different levels:
a) Social media participation
Users who have been banned on social media sites for no reason after participating for years can tell you a whole lot about that.
Do not contribute solely to one social media service because you can lose all your authority any day.
A site can even go bankrupt. It can break down, ban you or become otherwise useless.
Thus I am actively participating at 3 sites and occasionally at 3 more. In short it means:
Do not put all your time and effort into just one social medium or UGC site.
Rather use the triangle strategy by combining three but not more than five social media sites. Do not get stuck in one walled garden.
b) Traffic sources
In Germany and beyond most website and worse business owners are often highly dependent on Google traffic.
Many of those have to buy ads to get it at all.
Luckily in the international blogosphere and beyond by now lots of people rely on Facebook etc. as the main source of traffic.
That’s also a gatekeeper but at least your friends still have a say. Nonetheless
I quickly found out how relying on one social media site might backfire.
From then on I focused on providing value for regular visitors or those who subscribed to SEO 2 instead of the fickle Google audience.
When they already know something I won’t write another post about it just to suit the lowest common denominator of the fickle social media audience.
My posts get nevertheless shared on social media sites each and every time but on many days the direct visitors outnumber the casual social media visitors.
A proper blog has at least three or more major traffic sources:
- Core audience coming via type in traffic, subscribers from Feedly or mail
- Community and niche sites I contribute to like Growth Hackers.
- Also I get more and more traffic via blogs and sites that link to me, where I guest posted or even commented. Thus the success of others is also my success.
- A social site like Facebook, where your content gets shared by my readers. I rarely self promote – only if I think I have been misrepresented)
- Oh, yes, Google long tail search queries but I don’t care for these enough.
In short it means:
Do not rely on one major traffic source, be it Google search or Facebook or anything else.
Diversify your traffic sources and concentrate on a core audience of fans, subscribers and returning visitors.
c) Revenue or income streams
I already mentioned this very important aspect of freelancing or doing business.
You need to have several income sources.
When you are just working for one client you can end up broke very quickly.
I had to learn this the hard way.
Also being dependent on client work itself is a mistake. You need to find ways to earn money while you are asleep via selling products, ads or affiliations.
What happens when you get sick and you can’t work for clients?
The same applies to small businesses and companies. They don’t get sick but they might lose their clients.
When small business owners don’t have profitable side projects that yield substantial revenue they will fail.
In short it means:
Do not depend on one client or client work at all.
Diversify your income. Try to establish your won scalable projects which will run on autopilot if necessary.
Do not let any medium monopolize you.
SEO 2 is about using search, social media and blogs without being enslaved by them.
It’s the declaration of independence online.
Overhauled: September 18th, 2015: replaced StumbleUpon with Facebook. Added text formatting and subheadlines, removed broken, outdated and misleading links, added new ones.
I like the sense of balance you advocate. Trying to be effective across all mediums is an impossibility.
Being effective in one or two mediums is certainly easier, but as you point out, potentially shortsighted and dangerous.
I think the triangle theory you cite is the best balance of the two. It is also the most manageable. Too much social media will turn your brain to mush.
Hey I’m glad you like the Triangle Paul. To me, at one point I had to make some decisions because I was really trying hard at too many places. Refocusing my social media presence is one of the best thing I did so far.
Thanks Tad for linking back.
Patrick
Yeah Paul: I mentioned it in one post about social media usage already, you got to focus. I guess I should write a post about that, I think Steven Snell already wrote one though.
And yes, I used the triangle strategy even before Patrick coined the term but it fits perfectly so thank you Pat for naming it!
I like your triangle suggestion. With social media getting so much attention, it is overwhelming to devote time to all of the available social mediums. Finding three that will benefit your business and devoting your time to it will keep companies for stretching out their resources.
What triangle do you use for your business? And do you have a particular social medium suggestions for B2B companies?