Google Social Search or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love SEO

He's excited about SEO.
Image courtesy of makefive.com

This week, in my efforts to collect web marketing tips for theater companies, I realized that one of the most important items was one I knew very little about.  Boy was I intimidated.  Knowing virtually nothing of algorithms and hearing phrases I didn't understand (FYI, "living in a post-Panda world" has nothing to do with the availability of delicious orange chicken) left me determined to figure out this all-important acronym.


What is it, you ask?  Why, SEO of course!


SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.  Basically, SEO is the method you use to get your website to appear at or near the top of the page when people search for you (or when they search for things that describe you, like "entertainment near <your city>").  While you can certainly hire an SEO expert to help you with boosting your website to the top of the search rankings, here are a few basic tips I've picked up to help get you started.


7 SEO Tips for Your Theater Website:

1. First and foremost: decide the content of your site based on what is best and most relevant for your audience.  Ultimately, you're going to be found by the right people if you are providing the content they're looking for.  A theater company's website may not be found very easily by potential audience members if they only refer to themselves as a "performance collective," for example.
   
   
2. Do try to include words and phrases in the content of your website that you think potential audience members will use to describe you in a search.  Make a short list of phrases you would use to find a theater like yours and then ask your coworkers, friends and family to do the same.  If you see big similarities in these lists, you'll have found some great key words and phrases to include on your website.
   
   
3. Just make sure you try to get 2 or 3 of those key words on the home page of your site.  This will help the search engine direct users to the correct starting page.  To gauge success of these keywords, keep an eye on your site ranking in search results and see if there is movement.
   
   
4. Write a page or blog post on your site that’s dedicated to each of your top keywords.  This is also a good way to show your customers you know all about the specific product or service in which they are interested. Picture yourself explaining to a friend or relative in five minutes what you do in that specific area.  The write up need not be more than 200–300 words and should list the target keywords no more than two or three times. Remember this should be as natural and easy to read as possible, but have the keywords mentioned in a way that makes sense.
   
   
5. Post links to your site (or relevant updated pages) on your social networks.  Link it to your theater's twitter feed and facebook page.  Some of what helps a site earn a high search ranking has to do with the amount of traffic the site is generating.  At the very least, it will be easier for friends to share with one another.
   
   
6. Ask your friends and colleagues to post something about your theater company on their website, and return the favor.  Ideally, when they mention your theater's name, they can highlight it as a link back to your main website.  When done in a relevant way that provides value to the reader, this sort of link exchange makes good business partnerships and helps boost both sites.  Consider yourself an amateur concierge helping fans of your work reach something else they might like (much like Amazon.com does with purchases).
   
   
7. Also, search engines tend to favor sites with more external links pointing to them from a variety of sources over websites with few back links (if any).  In other words: search engines view relevant links to a website as a vote of confidence.

Google Social Search: Social Networks to the Rescue! 

Maybe you just can't seem to crack the right keywords to get your site out front and center.  After all, nearly every theater company's website has the words "theater," "theatre" (which is the British spelling that Americans still seem to love), or "play."  If you get TOO specific, your audience won't know how to find you.  

Don't worry, your friends and colleagues will now be able to help in an even bigger way.  A darling video from Google explains how:

Though Social Search was launched in 2009, the new updates have an effect on webpage rankings.  Like the video explains, if a friend of yours has linked to your page, Social Search will move that page up in rankings since the search engine will deem the page more relevant to you.  The more people in your local network who recommend or link to your page, the more likely potential audience members for your theater (aka locals) will find you when they search.

So as all these tips seem to sum up, know your fans and treat them well.  Good deeds on the internet are usually rewarded.