Image Credit: Danard Vincente. Published under CC

Since Microsoft penned a deal with Twitter and Facebook back in October 2009, SEOs have been waiting for the Social Layer to come to the fore as a search metric. With the arrival of Google +1 at the end of March, this is much, much closer to becoming a reality.

This poses the million dollar question – “What does this mean for my site, and how should I go about optimising for it?” Being the charitable guy that I am, I’ve taken the time to ponder this and compiled a list of 5 helpful tips that should set you on your way to dominating the Social sphere. Tokens of thanks are welcome – the more outrageous and extravagant the better, but if you’re going to send me an exotic animal or a rocket propelled grenade launcher, you should probably let the Post Office know.

Tip 1: Harness Social Media trending topics

Just as you would reference Google Suggest for content ideas, you should keep an eye on Social Media trending. If something’s trending on Twitter, it’s obviously a hot topic of discussion – if this discussion in any way lends itself to your niche, don’t hesitate to jump on that bandwagon and craft some content for your site or blog.

There’s a very small window of opportunity here, but if you can capitalise on it there’s potential to attract masses of traffic – and “Likes” for your site – with just a carefully worded Tweet or two.

To give you an example, at the height of the Julius Malema Juju Friday mania last year, I threw together a blog post with a selection of the most amusing Tweets. I then Tweeted this blog post from a couple of accounts – with relevant hash tags included – and it was picked up and retweeted by several users. Within a couple of hours, I received 300+ visits from clicks on the shortened URL I used in my Tweet; not bad for a recently launched blog and just 20 minutes’ work.

Tip 2: Create content that is conducive to sharing

You should never try to manufacture “viral” content, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create content that you hope to see spread across the Web.

Lists, infographics, FAQs, on-site video archives and tools are all extremely well suited to Social Media sharing.
When creating this content, look to the Social Media space for inspiration and try to tap into topics and trends that are relevant to the conversation. For example, if you’re working on a Q&A section for your site, the likes of Yahoo! Answers and Answers.com can help you hone in on conversation that is relevant to your product or offering so that you can tailor your content accordingly.

Tip 3: Make it easy for users to share it

This may seem like a no-brainer, but only a very small percentage of readers actually “Like” what they read. With the rise of Social as a ranking metric, it is more important than ever that you capitalise on traffic to your site and encourage visitors to share your content within their network of friends and followers. Rather than squeezing in your Social Media chicklets almost as an afterthought, these buttons should be prominently displayed alongside a strong call to action that leaves no doubt as to what they do.

Tip 4: Don’t restrict your “Like” buttons to your content pages

When doing link building, you don’t only establish links to your homepage. The same principle applies here, and you should make it possible for users to “like” all the core pages on your site.

This will drastically increase the number of Social Media up votes your site receives, and will ensure that these are distributed across your domain.

Tip 5: Traditional SEO practices still apply

Make it easy for the search engines to index your site, and visitors to find what they’re looking for. Create informative, engaging content and seed it on as many touch points as possible. Build relationships with other webmasters in your niche and help each other out in any way you can.

The rise of Social Search may necessitate a change to the way we conduct link building, but the key tenets of SEO are as relevant as ever.