In fairness to the myth peddlers, a lot of them are grounded in fact, albeit historical. SEO is, by its very nature, a constantly changing and evolving landscape. Google regularly updates its algorithms, and every time it does, the rules change slightly. Google’s most recent approach and the latest batch of updates, some of the most notable of which include Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird, have begun to usher in a new age of SEO.
Gone are the dirty parlour tricks like keyword farming. Google is now focussed heavily on the quality of a website’s content and the intent of the user. Not forgetting on-site techniques like the site’s speed, security and mobile user experience. Perhaps more interestingly, we are seeing bigger impacts from a brand’s wider digital footprint.
Digital Footprint and SEO
Your digital footprint simply refers to your entire activity online. Not just your website, but social media, directories, rating sites and other blog sites too – in essence, anything you’re doing online that can link, directly or not, back to your site and brand. Google and other search engines are fantastically talented at finding all of this online information and pulling it together for one complete picture. The more info they have, the easier you’ll be to find, and, in general, the higher up SERP’s (Search Engine Result Pages) you’ll appear. I recently wrote an article giving my top 5 marketing tips that are sure to help your wider digital footprint.