First off, how substantial is your Web sphere of influence or Web footprint?
Google likes sites that other similar sites like. We’re talking inbound links, someone making a reference to content on your site, or your site itself, and linking to it. If you are Heinz, and your site sells gravy, and there is another site that only speaks about gravy and they link to you, excellent. If there is a site about used cars that links to your gravy site, Google isn’t nearly as impressed.
From there, it is just a matter of identifying where you want to be, building these relationships, and getting these mentions. Smells kind of like traditional PR, doesn’t it? Welcome to Web PR, a huge aspect of Social Media.
This, of course, requires a true plan to be implemented to be effective.
Another nice way to increase your footprint is through tailored audience-specific content, be it landing pages, subdomains, or even microsites. Google loves them, they are easily tailored to specific topics (keywords), and it really helps you direct the story that unfolds in front of your visitor. Instead of the jack-of-all-trades approach most sites take, this allows you to easily build inbound links and increase targeted content. Other added benefits are easy segmentation of e-mail marketing lists, simplicity in pegging print campaigns to specific landing pages, and, most likely, a better return on your pay per click (PPC) investment.
