The state of search in social media times: the contextual prehistory

Last Sunday I posted an article about the state of both search engines and search engine marketing, from a personal perspective on my personal blog. It’s a bit provocative but, again, it’s my opinion and so I invite you to add yours. I think search is still in a very premature stage despite recent innovations such as Google Instant. All these tools are very nifty and some might find them cool, that’s OK.

Regarding the impact of them on search engine marketing, the jury is still out. But what matters most to me is that search is not relevant enough in these social media times from a user viewpoint. On top of that, I strongly feel the importance of content and context in search engine optimization and in the way search engines work should be much more prominent.

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Content, conversion and the integration of search, social and email marketing

Marketers need to have teasing and effective content on their web sites and blogs to attract visitors and customers. They need persuasive content in their emails. And, after all, that’s what search engine marketing is about as well: getting visitors to your website or to a specific landing page by offering consistent and relevant content. Blog marketing, search engine optimization, social media marketing, content marketing, they all have one thing in common: they aim to attract, be found and persuade. But is it any different than in email marketing and what skills do we need?

We all know that content is crucial in SEO and that the words in a search engine ad are key to conversion. We also know that content is essential in the post-click process, email marketing and in social media.

Valuable and relevant content is what makes people click a link, take action, download something, further discover your site or blog and share information with others over social networks. The content that matters, however, is the content you need for your – prospective – customers and business goals.

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