Social channels are fuelled by content, no matter if it is branded or user-generated. A great social platform would be like a circus without an elephant when it does not have comments, shares, and retweets. Content is what makes business move, and if you are able to let people talk about your brand then the search engines will reciprocate you with good rankings.

Anything without planning would result in a disaster. It is like having no blueprint when you are building your dream home. It is therefore important that content in Facebook should be planned. Here are the ways on how you can do this.

Know Your Customers

Using your Facebook page to its optimal level can be a skill on its own. You can entice people and turn them into fans if people love your brand. If they feel that they can share content that you feed them, then you’ve succeeded in your goal of encouraging people to like them. You do not have to monopolize the page by talking about your services or your products.

Touch on Emotions

People change from viewers to fans because of a reason. They love the brand. Fans do not like the fan page of a brand just for the updates. They join it because they love it. You should learn how to be skilful in user engagement. This involves connecting with the fans on an intimate level.

Take not that you should not monopolize your brand as your fans own your fan page as well. People do not want to engage with someone who always does sales talk. You should be able to get into a real conversation with them.  Your facebook content should not be all about advertising but is providing important conversations. Fan pages are built on user-generated content.

Telling Stories Passionately

Facebook changed the ways how brand think. It started the idea that brands should have the same mentality as publishers and avoid hard selling. The changes in Facebook this year that includes the Timeline format allowed brands to highlight products and include company milestones to share to their fans. Great brands such as Coca-Cola and Starbucks permit fans to feel that they are part of brand history. Coca-Cola shared a video entitled “Content 2020” that gives importance to brand storytelling.

Consider Mobile

The Internet is not only limited to desktop or netbooks. It can be accessed through mobile. You should consider your mobile landing page when you create your page.  Keep in mind that social media thumbnails are visible on the mobile page. Taking care of this change will help you convert those visitors into customers.  Remember that your mobile presence is an important tool in motivating your potential clients to become customers.  Mobile gadgets make the Web accessible to people. Thus, you should consider how you can improve your mobile landing page.

Planning your Facebook content is an important factor in the success of your web enterprise.

If you have any ideas on how to plan Facebook content, share some of it on the comments below.

The Dilemma For Website Writers

Recently, a Business2Community contributor posted a blog that received quite a bit of back traffic.  The topic was about how to write content for SEO, and the post directly dealt with whether or not website writers should be creating their content marketing for Google, or for users.

The answer the contributor gave? Write for the user, not for Google.

How true is this? You probably know that some keyword content is vital to getting that content actually seen on the web, but just how much direction should the content have for SEO? Where is that fine line that determines if the content is really people-friendly, or a push towards higher ranking?

How Website Writers Write To Engage People AND Google

Once upon a time, it used to be the content stuffed with the most amount of keywords that made it to the top for its keyword. But yesteryear SEO strategies have flown out the window on a pair of wings.

Today, Google favors content that is more reader-friendly and people-driven than search engine focused. True, it really won’t know how to find content that has absolutely no keyword direction: but at the same time, it won’t rank anything that’s totally and 100% directed at the search engine. Meaning, it was written only for the keyword and ranking purposes, and not for readability.

The B2C post claims that the #1 key to content marketing is writing content wholly for the user. The writer said that this is Google’s direction. When you only write for Google, you miss a few key points. Since social media has become an influencer in SEO, ranking is influenced by likeability factors and readability instead of the technicalities. In short: Google likes when you optimize website content for your visitor, and not for them. You’ll get the best of both worlds in pulling in new visitors and ranking higher in the SERPS.

The Takeaway

So what are some guidelines for website writers to follow when they create content for the end user rather than just Google alone?

#1: Relevance

Your content needs to answer the why question. Why is the reader here?  The content should have the answer. Keyword driven content won’t provide enough information to answer that question.

#2: Usefulness

Why would anyone want to read something that won’t benefit them? Here’s a tip: that benefit doesn’t have to be a physical reward. It can be a mental reward, as in a good feeling from a funny story. Website writers know how to create memorable content that is useful for the end reader.

Google never gives a clear warning for penalizing or banning websites except for the obvious indicators of sales dropping and getting fewer visitors to your site. Most website owners and SEO firms are left in the dark with no idea as to why their sites were banned or penalized. They do not have any idea how to resolve these issues. There are many reasons why sites are banned, but the following are the top reasons why such actions happen. You can contact your SEO company if you find that your website has been banned in order to help you get back on top of Google’s rankings.

Duplicate Content or Websites

Google hates duplication of content or websites. Even though you might be the original author of the content, Google will still ban you for having duplicate content. You have to make sure you are the only one using your content. Use quotation marks (“) around some of your text and perform a Google search. Read more about copyright infringement if you find another website that is using your original copy, check out: Google DMCA.

You can even monitor if your site has been replicated through Copyscape.

Cloaking (A BIG Google No-No)

Cloaking is the display of different content to a search engine spider (versus a real site). A page that uses cloaking is jammed with keywords and phrases that the website owner is trying to rank for. Cloaking is the same as cheating, as Google will eventually catch up to you.

Keyword Spamming and Keyword Stuffing

Keyword spamming is the excessive use of keywords in a webpage. This is not only limited to the contents of the page but it can also be done with the code such as in invisible text, meta tags, alt tags, comment tags, and title tags. Google often reduces the rankings of the site or just simply ban the site from the search if it finds a keyword is repeated too often. Targeted keywords should have a 1% to 5% keyword density on a page. The best guide in preventing keyword spamming is to create content for the real people and not the search engine. Keywords should flow naturally.

Purchasing Links

Purchasing links will not get you banned but it can affect your page rank. The Google algorithm can penalize your site and put it in limbo for 6-8 months. This is also known as the sandbox effect. Surely you can see that purchasing links will not benefit you one bit. Google already devalues websites that sell links, so buying them for your site will not help your cause either.

Hidden Text and or Links

Text can be hidden in a number of ways. It is considered to be a hidden link or (hidden text) when it is not visible to the visitor/user, but can be picked up by search engine spiders. The use of cascading style sheets, or the use of white text on a white background makes it possible to hide text. However, search engines can easily catch these methods nowadays. It’s just best not to perform these sneaky strategies.

Doorway Pages

Doorway pages are pages that lure search engine spiders to crawl a site to rank high for their targeted keywords. Real people who visit this page then are redirected to a real website. This is a doorway page.

Redirect Pages

Redirect pages target related or similar keywords or phrases. However, these pages do not contain interesting content that readers want to deal with. They can be high in the search engine rankings, but clicking on these pages will redirect you to another page that do not have any connection with the link you clicked for.

Code swapping

Website owners strive to have a page that will have high SERPs. Once they obtain the top ranking, they will swap another page in its place.

Linking to Bad Sites

It is necessary to have link campaigns in the SEO world, just make sure that these links are done correctly. Linking to bad neighborhoods will be a sure formula for losing rank or getting banned by Google. Do not link to sites that use black hat techniques to increase their search engine rankings. Always monitor your site’s outbound links and remove any offenders.