There has been a lot of talk about the ‘new’ Google Panda update. This is a change to the Google filtering used to rank sites. The update is designed to hurt the sites that try to cheat or use what is called ‘black hat’ techniques to get to the top. The people it is affecting badly are the sites with traditionally high traffic and rankings. If they have used sneaky methods to inflate their position they will suddenly drop and others don’t necessarily rise, they just don’t drop. The net effect is they appear to rise.

However, a lot of SEO companies are advocating changing the sneaky methods to new sneaky methods to compensate. They fail to realise that the practice is the reason Google introduced Panda and when they see people working around it they will just make a new update. Its’ an expensive battle to keep on top of Google’s attempt to normalise results and keep high quality sites at the top. It’s why AsOne believe that Social Networking and Social Marketing using the power of people is a more reliably long term strategy and the foundation on which your Marketing should be based.

Think of this, Business has thrived for thousands of years based on word-of-mouth. You best clients tell their contacts and before you know it you have a good business. Concentrating on Search engines is like advertising in the yellow pages … time, effort and money getting a good advert, good position. Remember people changing their company name to ‘1st widget company’ so they appear first in the book? Google is the modern Yellow Pages. It relies on people ‘picking it up’ and looking for what they need. 

Social Marketing goes back to the beginning, it’s the modern equivalent of word-of-mouth. People will always trust their friends over an advert. Use that power to encourage and assist your customers to advertise for you.