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The new semantic tags and structure that form part of HTML5  specification are the biggest new features that’s fully ready to be used regardless of your visitor’s browser. The semantics are important for better search engine optimization, more accessible content, easier to understand structure and improved maintainability.

Semantics is the study of language meaning. In HTML the  language meaning relates to the tags we use to mark-up our content. the <p> tag means that the marked-up content is a paragraph.

HTML has a limited number of tags. As designers we tend to use <div> to mark-up navigation menus,  sidebar, page header and so on. So in HTML5, rather than create a header using the code <div id=”header”></div>, you can now use the semantic <header> tag.  Similarly, tags have been introduced for <footer>, <aside>, <article>, <section> and <nav>.

From a  search engine optimization point of view, having universal tags that describe content is a big plus; using these tags helps search spiders to determine the most important content on the page and index accordingly. Using a semantic approach to you code also helps with screen-readers, allowing disabled visitors to get to your content more easily.

HTML5  forms

One of the challenges associated with designing web forms is helping the use to complete the form correctly. Dates have to be checked to ensure they are in the correct format, email addresses need to be validated and so on. Each time a form is deployed , therefore, we are compelled to use client or server-side validation , writing own routines to provide date picker, validate input etc.

HTML5 solves these problems with the introduction of new input types, browser- native user controls and input validation.  The new options use the same core tag that you are familiar with, <input>, but add content specific features. Examples include the email input, number, tel, date and url. Crucially, because <input> remains the primary tag, older browsers will simply ignore the new type declarations and fall back to type=”text”, allowing these enhancements to degrade gracefully.

The syntax for new input options is the same. Rather than use the code <input type=”text” name=”email”> you can now use <input type=”email” name=”email”>. In addition, there are some new attributes and CSS pseudo classes that allow you to make the most of native browser controls and validation. The required attribute will tell an HTNL5 ready browser to validate and require a field, while the CSS invalid pseudo class allows styling to be used to provide visual feedback to the user without the need for any external scripting at all. Elsewhere, the placeholder attribute allows you to specify some example content that demonstrates the type of input you’re expecting from the user. This will typically render as light grey text inside the form field which disappears once the field gains focus on the page.

Older browsers will simply fall back to treating each of the new types as standard text field, and will totally ignore any attributes they do not recognize.  For the time being you will need to provide your own validation.

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With Googles’ fresh update, retailers and marketers hoping to boost their natural search rankings in the coming months, this new year could be dubbed the Year of Content. The relationship between original, updated and popular content on an e-commerce site, and potentially higher search rankings for a brand, merchant or product page, is hardly unknown.

In 2012, however, is how Google’s'  latest major update to its search algorithm—those mathematical formulas that carry so much weight in digital marketing—is pushing retailers to offer stronger content on their web sites, update that content more often and encourage those in-bound links that signal page quality to the search engine.

With relatively little original content most retailers are scrambling for more, while those web merchants that have long had staffers producing how-to articles, product demonstrations and the like are working toward improvements.

Another Google update called Panda was designed to punish what Google views as low-quality web sites, which includes those with unoriginal content, such as retail sites that rely on the same manufacturer product descriptions that many other e-retailers display. It also sought to downgrade sites that web users seemed to find of little value.

E-commerce site are likely to be downgraded if it fails to attract links from reputable sites, without paying for them. Paid links are worse than no links at all—if a retailer gets caught by Google.

Retailers used  manufacturer-supplied descriptions on its site instead of original content.  Retailers have worked to improve rankings by hiring  copywriters to write original product descriptions that contain keywords that consumers use when searching for products.  They also removed content that caused pages to load relatively slowly—another negative signal that can depress a site’s position in Google organic search ranking.

But now retailers will have to do even more  than they did to protect themselves from demotions in search rankings under Panda. Fresh is meant to help shoppers find the latest product information— and that points to all kinds of content-related improvements for e-commerce sites.  That includes, for instance, a steady stream of new user reviews on product pages. Merchants should rethink both their own product descriptions and also make sure that user reviews are happening whenever possible, especially when they are good reviews. Retailers should continually update content, starting with best-selling products and pages that already rank high in search results.

Google’s fresh update will kick in around April or May, after Google finishes testing the changes. But retailers need to prepare their content efforts now. By studying what consumers search for, along with comments left by consumers via Facebook, e-mails and even phone calls to sales agents.

That old wisdom of search engine optimization hasn’t changed too much with Fresh, but the update, with its emphasis on new content, drives home how important a social media campaign and retailer-produced blogs are for retailers. engages consumers on  Twitter and Facebook, the search engine update will require even  more posting and communication via those social networks. It also underscores the importance of paying attention to Google+, the search engine’s own social network. A strong social presence, one that demonstrates a loyalty among consumers that can translates into links, is another sign of good content, and therefore another way to earn the good graces of Google.

Retailers are on the right SEO track if they are putting more effort into social media. The ‘freshness algorithm’ is Google’s attempt to continue to provide more relevant, real-time results for search queries, further highlighting the need for marketers to accelerate their focus on integrating SEO and social marketing practices to ensure pertinent, up-todate content is accessible to Google. Retailers can maximize the impact of their content by making sure they have the “social
share” buttons embedded on their sites, enabling consumers to pass on appealing content to friends and other shoppers on social networks, which also encourages links and builds credibility.

Retailers and marketers are increasingly using a variation of this mantra as both social networks and updated content assume more importance within e-commerce: SEO is social media, and vice versa.

Besides participation in social networks, retailers hoping to keep ahead of Google’s changes will want to invest in such marketing services as price optimization—technology that can help a retailer better compete with competitors’ off ers—and display ads based on consumers’ behavior.

Whatever the effects of the algorithm change over the next few months, retailers hoping to keep up or improve their rankings should embrace another concept besides fresh—speed.  That means getting fresh content onto a site quickly.

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The meta page title is the second most important factor in all of SEO (search engine optimization). When your website was first created, whoever was programming it had to fill in a section of the coding called the meta page title.

The reason this primitive bit of information matters so much is because search engines have, for a while now, considered the meta page title to be the one true description of a website. The meta page title is like the headline of a newspaper story or the front cover of a book. It encapsulates a web page in about 15 words or fewer.

Google’s decision to make it such a huge factor in ranking websites is pretty arbitrary. They could have made the meta description title, the meta keywords, or any other section of the website code the defining attributes of a website. But because they decided that this area matters so much, we are compelled to pay attention to it, too.

The meta page title is that code at the very top of your internet browser, above the address bar. The only other place you will encounter meta page titles as a normal internet user is when you are looking at search engine results. Those blue underlined headings on the first line of every Google result are simply a direct copy of each site’s meta page title. Google also uses a site’s meta page title as the heading for its search results.

When creating a meta page title, you need to know only the following three things:

–Keep it to a maximum of 100 characters, although Google will show only 65 or so.

–It needs to summarize what your site is about in a simple way for the sake of visitors but also contain keywords so that  Google knows which terms your website should rank for.

–After you’ve finished formulating it, make this sentence the meta page title of my site’s home page.

Effectiveness of Meta Page Titles: The key to a really effective meta page title is including all your most valuable keywords in a human-friendly and Google-friendly way. Lets assume that for a website to show up at the top of Google whenever someone is looking for a criminal lawyer in Mumbai. After doing  research, it was realized that all keyword phrases contain the words lawyer, attorney, Mumbai, criminal, and defense. In other words, if you combine these words in different ways, you will end up with the various keywords that people type in when they are looking for a criminal
lawyer in Mumbai. For the website to rank high for searches related to criminal law representation in two areas outside of Mumbai: Pune,  and Goa. Add those three city names to the list of words that a potential client might enter into Google
and it could be  more than 20 different keywords. That’s a lot of keywords to stuff into a 100-character title.

Earlier keywords would be placed in order of importance, in the meta page title tag.

Mumbai criminal lawyer,Mumbai criminal attorney, Mumbai criminal defense attorney,
Mumbai lawyer, lawyer in Pune,Goa

That type of meta page title is not only unfriendly to visitors, but would probably get your site labeled as spam and dropped to the bottom of the results. The main thing that this meta page title lacks—other than adherence to the character limit—is the fact that Google can read words in any order as long as they are written one time. With that rule in mind, here is a perfect meta page title, the Mumbai criminal lawyer:

Mumbai Criminal Lawyer | Defense Attorney in Pune and Goa

This meta page title incorporates all the words to rank for, and Google doesn’t care about word order. This means that if someone types into Google Pune defense lawyer, Google will consider website an ideal match. Same with criminal defense attorney Mumabi or any other permutation of the words in his site’s meta page title.

So far I’ve been focusing on just your home page meta page title. But nowadays, especially with Google’s newest algorithm updates, it is important to get many pages of your site, not just your home page, to rank. This means you should be specifically concerned with the meta page titles on all the pages of your website, not just your home page. ave a specific page that focuses just on criminal defense in Goa, and the meta page title of that page could be “Goa Criminal Defense Lawyer | Attorney in Goa.” Creating separate pages, all with unique meta page titles for every keyword, is a good idea because it gives visitors a page that specifically suits their search, whatever it may be. It also gives Google lots of opportunities to rank your website’s pages for niche keywords.

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In Transactional web search queries  the person searching the web wishes to perform some interaction aside from reading. Many search engine marketers tend to spend a great deal of time focusing on transactional queries because they want to target searchers who are ready to buy. On the surface, focusing on a specific point in the buying cycle might seem like a great way to save time and money. However, this strategy may cost website owners prospects and lifetime customers. Transactional queries are important to website owners and search engine optimization professionals because they both hope to capture searchers at a critical point in the buying process: right when they are ready to buy and provide personal information (such as name, address, phone number, email address, and so on).

Additionally, items such as videos, sound files, slide shows, games, and so forth can increase the stickiness of a site, encouraging site visitors to stay on your site longer and view more content. Popular and informative interactive items can also increase a site’s external, third-party link development, which has a direct impact on a website’s rankings.

Transactional Intent: It is sometimes tricky because searchers do not always type the activity they wish to perform as a keyword. Example,  a person might be interested in buying a smartphone but does not type in the word purchase or buy as query words.

As another example, searchers might want to watch a video but not type the word watch as part of the search query. Searchers can show transactional intent by using nouns (video, music, game) as well as verbs (download, chat, enroll). The activity might occur on an actual website, such as getting a quote for auto insurance. Or the activity might occur
offline, such as making a phone call to a local pharmacy to refill a prescription.

Nevertheless, an easier case occurs when searchers do type the exact activity they wish to perform. The words download, apply, search, and find are more commonly used than you might imagine. Regular keyword research often reveals the precise action that searchers wish to take, and these action words (usually verbs) should appear in search listings as well as corresponding landing pages. Web pages that satisfy transactional intent do have special features, as shown in the following examples.

(A) Buying products: Product pages on an ecommerce site should satisfy transactional queries. Since searchers with transactional intent wish to perform a specific activity, product pages that meet their expectations should include the
following items:

-Actual query words

-Words associated with the desired activity (such as Add to Cart,associated with the words buy or purchase)

-Clear call to action

-Enough graphic and textual information (such as a product photo, product description, and price) to close the sale.

All of this information should appear above the fold, so that site visitors do not have to scroll. In other words, searchers’ most desired information and desired transactional keywords should appear above the fold.

(B) Entertainment: Transactional intent does not automatically mean the desire to purchase a product or service. People also use the web for entertainment. Recent years have seen a global explosion in online video viewing, photo sharing,
and audio file downloads.

Here are a few reasons that many users dislike Flash videos:

-users have to watch a video before they see their keywords validated.                                                                                                 -videos tend not to be keyword focused.                                                                                                                                                             -site visitors never see their keywords validated on a web page.

After users click a link to a web page from a search engine listing, they generally do not want to watch a video (which might be an advertisement).

Search Listings and Transactional queries: In terms of individual parts of a transactional search listing, transactional listings are similar to informational search listings. The URL is less important to searchers because the information and the associated activity is the main target, not necessarily the URL.

For a transactional query, the two most important items in a search listing are the (1) title-tag content, and (2) the page snippet or meta-tag description. If the activity words play, set, and try appear in the listing description, it encourages
searchers to click the link to the website.

Transactional query indicators: Your Web analytics data and keyword research data can help you determine
which query words show transactional intent. Some transactional query indicators include:

-Specific interaction verbs (buy, find, search, download, play, view, log in, register, enroll, subscribe, join,   apply,contact, chat, and so on).
- Nouns that are associated with some type of activity (games,movies, music, recipes, slide shows, demo, tour, quote, calculator,software or the software name, and so on).
- File extensions for non text files (.jpg for photos, .mp3 for music, and .mpg for videos) and file compression (.zip for
Windows computers and .sit for Macintosh computers).

Optimizing for transactional queries:

-The primary call to action should be painfully obvious to both site owners and searchers. For example, if you want
searchers to download a fi le, the word download should be part of the hyperlink, and that hyperlink should look clickable.

-Include desired activity words in the title tag on key pages. For example, if you offer a specific search page on your site, then make sure you use the word search or find in the title, heading, URL, and description of the page. Likewise, if you have a login page on your site, such as an email login, make sure you use the word login in the title, heading, URL, and description of your page.

-Don’t assume searchers want to take an action without initiating it themselves. In other words, don’t start playing a video or sound file unless the searcher specifically indicates that he wishes to watch the video or listen to the sound file.

-Focus groups are not always the best source of information for feedback on interactivity and multimedia because the focus group leader, not the user, guides the interactivity. Furthermore, a focus group typically shows initial reactions to an interactive feature, not long-term effects.

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Inbound Links from Other Sites can help a website move up in natural search rankings. But if the search engines conclude that your website is  stockpiling links solely to move up in search results, your website may be penalized and see the  site virtually disappear from search engine pages.

Links had evidently been purchased solely to enhance search engine rankings, in violation of Google’s rule against buying links in order to manipulate search results. Google typically gives more credit to links from educational sites with .edu domains because they are deemed to be more objective than commercial sites.

Only Google’s own Webspam team knows exactly what search engine optimization tactics raise red flags, but certain SEO practices are known to be risky.

Manipulated anchor text in inbound links: Search engines can easily identify inbound links that contain manipulated anchor text, the highlighted word or phrase in web content that someone clicks to get more information. A
classic example of this violation occurs after you identify a specific keyword phrase or group of phrases that command high search volume, and then you attempt to own these phrases by purchasing many identical links that use the exact words in the targeted phrases.

When search engines see unnatural repetition of precise keywords within the text of these links, originating from hundreds or thousands of sites, they may deem this to be an indicator of manipulated anchor text.

Links from irrelevant sites: Relevance is one of the most important aspects of any link portfolio. Just as search engines evaluate each site in terms of its relevance to particular search terms, so, too, do they evaluate sites linking to that website. If the linking sites tend to be relevant to the website and the products it sells, this provides a greater boost than links from irrelevant sites.

However, garnering many links from sites that have little or nothing to do with your site content not only provides little benefit, it can be seen by search engines as an indication of unsavory SEO practices and lead to penalties.

Links from unrelated foreign sites: Links from sites based in countries where a you do not do business can also raise a red flag. If you do not sell in Russia and China, Google may look askance at links from sites using the domains .ru
(Russia) and .cn (China). Though these links can occur naturally, and are not under a retailer’s control, the rapid acquisition of many such links may suggest intentional link manipulation and trigger penalties.

Link Spam: Each inbound link your website can be evaluated for the contextual relevance of the linking source page. But if that source page also links to a number of other unrelated sites—most likely taking payment for that link spam—it can raise a red flag and get labeled by search engines as an undesirable inbound link for your site.

Links from bad neighborhoods: your site can be evaluated for links from sites with low PageRank scores and or questionable incoming link portfolios. Google prefer sites to avoid links to web spammers or ‘bad neighborhoods’ on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

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YouTube also looks within your video’s title for keywords that match viewers’ queries, so optimizing title, description in YouTube search is a requirement.  It’s more difficult to fit keywords into a title, however, because you’re limited as to the title’s length. Specifically, a title can include no more than 100 characters, so writing a title that is both descriptive and includes a number of keywords is challenging.

Optimizing your Title: Learning how to incorporate your most important keywords into various text elements, while maintaining the usefulness and integrity of those text elements is a part of SEO. The best titles describe the video’s content in a way that appeals to the target audience. They also include a handful of the most important keywords, those words that target viewers are most likely to be searching for. Ideally, these keywords are also the best descriptors of your video’s content.

What you don’t want to do is randomly insert keywords into the video’s title. One, that makes the title less descriptive, and thus less useful for prospective viewers. Two, it reeks of keyword stuffing, and YouTube won’t reward that. Instead, work the keywords into your title in an organic fashion; if you can’t do so, then don’t include them.

Optimizing your Description: Adding keywords to your video’s description is much like performing SEO on your website’s body copy. You have lots of space to work with, so you’re not as limited as you are with the video’s title. Yet you still need to incorporate keywords in an organic fashion; they have to feel natural, not artificial.

Fortunately, it’s easier to work keywords into descriptive copy than it is into short titles. The extra length works wonders. Again, make sure that the keywords aren’t just inserted randomly, or in a list at the end of the description; that’s keyword stuffing, and that’s a no-no. Instead, write your copy to include as many keywords as genuinely fit. If your keywords are indeed descriptive of your video’s content, and not just chosen to attract a certain audience, then this shouldn’t be a problem.

Optimizing Embeds and Links: In traditional website SEO, the number of inbound links to page will increase that page’s ranking. The same thing goes for YouTube videos. The more web pages that link to your video, the more likely it is that your video will appear higher in YouTube’s search results. Likewise, you can increase your search ranking by getting your video embedded in more external web pages.

The links to and embeds of your video will affect its YouTube search rank. The challenge is, you have little control over how many sites link to or embed your video.

First, the more unique and authoritative the content in your video, the more likely it will be linked to or embedded. It all comes down to quality content; you need to make your video as “linkworthy” as possible.

In addition, you will want to encourage viewers to link to your video. The more you spread word of your video, the more people who will be exposed to it. Have your PR department push your video to influential bloggers, encouraging links or
embeds. Email related websites and encourage them to embed or link to the video. Encourage recipients of your email mailing list, readers of your company blog, fans of your Facebook page, and followers of your Twitter feed to do the same.

Optimizing Views: Here’s another important factor in determining YouTube’s search rank—the number of times your video has been viewed. Fair or not, YouTube will rank a popular video higher than a less popular one. This is just another good reason to try to push more people to view your video.

Optimizing Comments and Ratings: The final factor in YouTube’s search rank are the comments and ratings your video receives. A video with more comments and ratings (assuming it’s a net positive rating) will rank higher than one with fewer comments and ratings. For this reason, you need to activate comments and ratings for your videos, and then encourage viewers to voice their opinions.

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How people find new videos on YouTube?  How do people search for new videos? Do people search for videos by topic or type of video? Videos that display high in search results get more views. It is important to optimize videos for YouTube search results. Video search optimization is similar to search engine optimization (SEO).

YouTube searches Videos: Search online is about keywords. Keywords or phrases are entered as a search query.

Example, If people are looking for videos on golf, they might enter the keyword golf.

YouTube, then, tries to match the keywords entered by a user with those videos that best fit that query. YouTube has no
way of analyzing a video itself to determine its content. YouTube must rely on the description of the video to determine
its content. YouTube analyzes the text you enter to figure out what your video is about—and match it to the appropriate search queries. That means you need to focus on three fields when uploading or editing your video: tags, title, and description. They all matter, to some degree, and will affect how your video is ranked when someone is searching for a related topic.

Choose the right keywords: Whether it is the tags, title, or description, you need to determine the right keywords to use, and then include those keywords in all three fields, as best you can.

It’s vital, then, that you learn how to create a list of keywords that best describe your video, in the way that users will think of and search for that video. The art of determining which keywords to use is called keyword research, and it’s a key part of SEO, whether you’re optimizing your complete website or a single YouTube video. When you know which keywords and phrases that your target customers are likely to use, you can optimize the description of your video for those words and phrases.

It’s all a matter of determining how viewers search for the information they need. When you figure out the keywords they’ll most likely search for, you have the most effective keywords for your video.

As such, you probably need to come up with a combination of both generic and specific keywords. For example, if your video talks about the differences between incandescent and fluorescent lighting, you should include generic tags such as
lighting, light bulb, energy efficient, and the like, as well as more specific tags such as incandescent, fluorescent, and your company name. In this way, you attract viewers that are essentially browsing or just getting interested in the topic, as well as make yourself known to those viewers that have more specific needs in mind or are searching specifically for your company.

Optimizing Tags: there are three places where you can include keywords: your video’s tags, title, and description. What YouTube calls “tags” the rest of us call keywords; it’s just another term for the same thing. So naturally you should enter your keywords into the Tags field when you first upload your video, or later via the editing function.

Tags box has plenty of room for all the keywords you might want to target. Enter individual words with spaces in between. To enter a multiple-word phrase, enclose the phrase within quotation marks, like this: “multiple word phrase”.

YouTube recommends additional tags, beneath the Tags box. These are based on the tags you’ve previously entered and the video’s title and description. To add any of these suggestions to your official tags list, just click the tag. The tags field is perhaps the most important for optimizing your video for search; it’s where YouTube looks first. Without the right tags, great content will go unfound.

Tomorrow I will complete this post in the second part (Title, Description, embeds & links,views,comments and ratings).

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Targeting different markets offline requires separate strategies such as distinct branding and packaging, targeting different online markets requires distinct Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies for each market, you can call it international SEO.

Faces of Google search: Google geo targets search results at two levels. First, country specific portals such as Google.ca and Google.co.uk, serve as the default for users from a specific country, and return search results that are localized and tailored for their respective countries.

Then, there is Google.com within the US and Google.com abroad. Example, if you are in Canada and go to Google.com, that doesn’t  mean you will get “US”  or  “international” or “objective” search results. Rather, you will, get results that blend results from Canada and abroad.

International rankings: How foes Google decide what to include in its different search engines? Their are four main factors.

(1)Site domain: TLD vs ccTLD-  Simply put, a TLD is the extension that appears at the end of your domain name such as .com, .org etc. The more relevant your TLD is to a geographic market, the more likely your site is to rank on searches for that country.

First, there are general TLDs. These are better for ranking internationally, and include extensions such as .com, .org, .net, .edu etc,

Then there are country code TLDs (ccTLD), which are better for ranking within a specific country. Examples for ccTLDs are  .ca for Canada, .co.uk for UK and .de for Germany.

(2)Site IP address:  Search engines also consider the IP address of a site. Essentially every website is hosted on a web server, and every server has an IP address. The IP address indicates which country the server is located in. So if you want a site to rank well within a certain country, you should host that site on a server in that country.

(3)Onsite content:  The  reason “content is king” is SEO. If you are targeting different markets, you will need page titles, meta descriptions and page copy (product descriptions) that reflect the different vocabularies and languages your targeting.

(4)Backlink profile:  Targeted backlinks from relevant and related sites are a fundamental part of SEO. The more backlinks you have from related sites, the better your site will rank overall. Google also looks TLD, IP address and the onsite content of the sites linking back to yours.  Getting a backlink from a .co.uk site that is hosted in the UK will boost your rankings in the UK more than a link from .com that is hosted in the US. So the big part of ranking in a certain country is getting links from other sites that are relevant to that country.

(5)SEO with borders: You should not invest more SEO resources  into targeting a market than that market is worth. If a specific market doesn’t yield  sufficient sales to warrant investing in and maintaining a separate site, you might opt for  country specific subdomains (uk.domain.com), which offer reasonable trade-offs, or subdirectories (domain.com/uk), which are least optimal.

If you are targeting multiple markets, you will probably end up having country specific sites  for some but not others depending on the ROI it yields.

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You’re probably familiar with search engine optimization (SEO) tactics for improving your website’s search rankings in Google and other major search engines. But have you thought about how to incorporate social media into your search strategy? Optimizing for Facebook and search engines is benefits overall search rankings.

Facebook can be a valuable asset for search results. The volume of content and variety of places to add keyword-rich content can help you attract new Page members on Facebook, while providing more natural search results.Facebook is indexed by search engines and also has deals with Google and Bing to display social search results that include posts from your friends.

In the more general natural-search realm, a well-optimized Facebook Page can help you overtake a competitor by providing a second set of Pages (in addition to your own website) to display on the search results page. This can also be helpful when you’re looking to do some reputation management. A Facebook Page can also give you the opportunity to add a few more keywords that didn’t work as well on your website.

Places to Put Keywords:

Page name:    Your Facebook Page name or title is one of the first things both users and search engines. Create a keyword-dense title, but make sure it’s clear who you are and what you do.

URL:    You can also choose a vanity URL for your Page, which is another great place to include branded keywords like your company name. Facebook Page URLs are a large part of optimization, as content space is limited.

The Info box:    This small, 250-character box located below the Page icon is an underused gold mine for both traffic and SEO purposes. It’s one of the first things a current Page member sees when looking at either the Wall or Info tab. The keywords you use in the Info box can go a long way in search. With its prominent placement, the Info box is a great place to optimize a little info about your Page, because it’s the highest place in the Page code that allows custom text. You can even put a clickable link in there. You just need to include the http:// part first.

Keywords on Facebook Tabs:

The Facebook tab structure creates a helpful hierarchy of information and the ability to add lots of keyword-rich content. Facebook offers several standard tabs for your Page, including the Wall, Info, and Photos or Videos tabs. You can also add your own custom tabs.

Default landing tab:    Facebook allows you to choose a specific landing tab for new Page viewers. This is the first tab they
see, and its primary goal is to encourage them to click Like for the Page. It is also the first Page crawledby search engines. This default tab can be a custom tab you create, so make sure it contains relevant text that explains to both search engines and Facebook users who you are and what you do.

Info tab:  The standard Info tab has fields containing important descriptive data about your Page. It’s important to fill out all fields, as they provide an opportunity to include keywords and links for both local searches in the Location field and more general product or service queries in the Company Overview section.

Other Content:  

It almost goes without saying, but it’s important to continually share interesting content on your Facebook Page and always use all available descriptive fields on each type of content shared. Facebook allows nearly every piece of content to be indexed by search engines, so use the tabs, tools, and input fields that Facebook provides to your full advantage.

Media:   Post photos to multiple albums and include keyword-rich descriptions of the album and each photo. Every event or topic should have its own album for easier searching. Allow Page members to post their own photos and comment on or tag your uploads.

Events:  Use the Events feature for both real and virtual events. Always fill out all fields with a full description of the event, and make it open to the public.

Status updates:  There is a lot of debate about the extent to which updates help with search engines, but it’s clear that they are a big factor in Facebook searches. Take your time when planning content and include keywords; this is the bulk of what Page members will see on a daily basis.

Increased Interactions:
User interaction is a crucial yet elusive factor in optimizing your Facebook Page and improving search presence. Facebook views interactions with your Page (likes, comments, and posts) much like a searchengine views links pointing to your site. A user interaction is a vote for the content of your Page.

Facebook’s focus on user behavior and interaction extends to visits, clicks, and Event RSVPs as well. The exact weight or algorithm the site uses to calculate interaction is unclear, but the higher the engagement on your Page, the higher you will rank in Facebook searches and the more prominent your placement in a suggested search.

Encourage interaction on your Page by posting frequently and including lots of content that asks users directly to interact.

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When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), one truth is everlasting: The landscape is continually changing. For an example of search’s ever-changing environment,  look no further than a popular search on Google. Search for “Xbox 360” and you will see more than just organic results from websites that mention those keywords. A broad range of content appears, including news, paid advertising, shopping feeds and social media results, including user updates from Twitter. This means that publishers and merchants need to concentrate on more than just increasing organic search placement for an Internet marketing plan to succeed.

Search Basics
Several factors have traditionally produced consistent SEO results. Content is still king, in many ways. Compelling content with proper keyword density and keywords highlighted in titles and meta tags remains very valuable to improving search engine rankings. Link building — inbound and outbound — adds strength to your site in the eyes of search engines, giving your site credibility and respect. Site structure is also important — if it’s easy for search engines to index your content, rankings are not only more easily achieved but longevity can result, too.

Social and SEO
As it stands today, no shift in search is more important or prevalent than social media. Every day, millions of people communicate with social media tools like Facebook and Twitter. Reaching these people can be a critical component of any successful online marketing campaign. However, every social media strategy needs to be more sophisticated than simply starting a Twitter page and posting your company’s latest specials.

Social media and SEO marketing programs can strengthen each other. A high-quality social media campaign that is interactive and engages audiences can improve search engine rankings on two fronts — both in organic listings and as a source of inbound links. At the same time, applying smart SEO practices to social media content — such as keyword-rich updates — will increase the reach and visibility of your social media campaign.

It is important to use your social profiles as a way to attract attention by making sure that the right keywords are highlighted within them. This way, when a user searches for your brand, business or industry, your profile will appear in results. A nice side effect is that the more results containing your brand, the less room for your competition. It’s also important to be active on your chosen social media sites. Along with making your own posts, build friends and followers by being involved in communities with similar interests.  Social bookmarking tools like Digg and Delicious will help promote your own activities along with helping you share useful information with your followers.

Video and Feeds
Feeds have also become a valuable tool in the new SEO landscape. This includes RSS feeds with the latest company news, press releases, blog posts or social media updates. It can also include product feeds — another reason why it’s important that your products and shopping carts can be easily indexed by search engines.

A relatively new concept is video SEO. Since acquiring YouTube, Google presents many video results in regular searches, often on the first page. Applying SEO concepts to videos can not only increase their placement in various searches but also improve the overall ranking of an entire website.

 Getting Personal, and Local
Search engines are constantly looking for ways to differentiate themselves from the competition. One way has been attempting to deliver individual users with as much personalized content as possible. Localized search results have become increasingly expected by users in recent years, as they seek information relevant to their specific geographic area. Even as a small business, it might make sense to have offices (or even phone numbers) in different parts of the country or world to help improve search results in localized searches.

Beyond localized searches, search engines are continually looking for ways to drill down searches with results as individualized as possible. The new Google Personalized Search is just one example of this. Not only are search engines taking factors such as location into account when delivering results, they are also considering previous search history and other sites users have visited in the past. The reality is that, in many cases, no two searches will produce exactly the same results.

Because of concepts like personalized searches, it’s important to feature customized content. Microsites that are targeted to specific areas of interest, demographics or geographic regions are one way to do this. You might build a microsite for teens, or city and state pages for different parts of  the country. These sites also give places to post fresh content on a weekly or even daily basis — something that search engines like to see.

The bottom line is that basic SEO concepts are still critical, just not by themselves. In order for SEO campaigns to be truly effective they need to be paired with smart marketing campaigns that involve every aspect of a company’s online
brand.