For the past week, we have been on this subject of incoming links and why they’re so important to your search engine optimization campaign. Even within that trend, however, things are changing quickly; while no one knows exactly how Google, Yahoo, and Bing configure their search algorithms, there is a deep suspicion within the search community that all three are starting to give more weight to real-time incoming links.
There are two good reasons for this: first, it’s a realization that more people than ever are going online to find breaking news. The major search engines know this, and so they’re giving greater priority to news items not only from sites like CNN.com, but also blogs and lesser-known industry news sources.
Just as importantly, and particularly interesting to search engine marketers, is that links from places like Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites are gaining in weight, too. As more people continue to join up – not to mention use these sites as serious news and business resources – they have begun to play a more important part in search engine positioning. After all, if thousands of people are passing your tweets back and forth, then doesn’t that tell search engine something?
So, what is an online marketer or business owner to do with this information? That’s easy: continue to build your online platform through blogs, new content, and inbound links. At the same time, though, don’t ignore the power of social media. The Internet is constantly changing and evolving, prioritizing one medium or site over another. It doesn’t make any sense to skip a popular trend – whether you are concerned about your search engine rankings or not.
Working online is all about speed, so there’s no reason to believe that real-time incoming links are going to become any less important in the near future. Keep that in mind, and generate several pieces of fresh content today, whether through your blog, Twitter, Facebook, or the next great thing… whatever that might turn out to be.
Tags: Bing, finding new customers online, Google, search engine optimization, search engines, SEO, SEO campaign, SEO ranking, Yahoo