Week 9 & 10 – Social Media / SEO

Finally, we investigate the integration of Social Media applications with blogging, followed by Search Engine Optimization:

 

Social Media

Offering bi-directional communication, social media surpasses traditional media (such as newspapers, radio and television), and offers a channel of communication between content author and audience. This makes for a more dynamic blog while also helping to improve content through reader interaction and feedback. There are numerous popular soc media platforms such as Flickr, Facebook and Twitter that serve to embellish the blogging experience and also garner attention further afield.

 

Facebook & Twitter

During week 9 we perused the various benefits Facebook can offer, such as setting up a business page, news updates and group interaction. We looked at customising the personal profile page, ‘Insights’ statistics and also how to add a ‘Like’ box to websites. Following this, we observed the various intricacies of Twitter, a hugely popular micro-blogging site. Again, we covered topics such as profile customisation, keyword tags, URL shortening and Tweetdeck. Twitter would be a personal favourite of mine as I’m not a particularly big fan of all the ‘bells & whistles’ that come with Facebook, not to mention the privacy issues…

 

SEO

In week 10 SEO (search engine optimisation) brought the succession of lectures to a close. In this final lecture we observed how various plugins were freely available that can be utilised to improve blog terminology, in essence making written content more noteworthy to search engines such as Google. Keyword Research essentially uncovers the most regular terms or descriptions that general users search for using the various web search engines. Keyword tools such as Wordtracker offer stats on these missives, enabling us to build a useful vocabulary which in turn, will make for a more efficient and successful blogging experience. There are many applications freely available on the web and a quick search should throw up some of the more prominent ones. Keyword density is another aspect of enhancing how locatable one’s blog is in the cyber environment. A repetition of certain key phrasings or individual terms is often assumed by certain search engine algorithms to suggest a tendency towards the meaning of said article i.e. the more a phrase is repeated within a document, the more likely that phrase is relevant to the overall meaning of said document. A keyword density of around 5-8% is appropriate enough for the average blog and should be enough to merit some attention!

Other methods of improving search engine rankings include appropriate content labelling, tagging, organisation and a friendly URL structure. Also, all internal links should be optimised and appropriately formed to add to overall efficiency. In sum, like all information design and publication ‘Gestalt’ is the bottom line.

Cheers!