Are you the spider, or are you caught in someone else’s SEO Web?

Do your partners, vendors, and suppliers provide you marketing assets, content, and recommended posts for Social Media?  If you leverage their content, are you increasing your own Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website, or are you caught in your partner or vendor’s web, doing more to help their SEO than your own?

Your business prospects and customers are researching their own potential purchases across the web and social sites as well.  Yes, SEO is one of those keys to success. With Google being the juggernaut and changing their algorithms frequently, staying at the top of your SEO “game” is key to your success.

The content your partners are providing you will help accelerate your success. Since creating original content can be time consuming and expensive, their recommended assets and support are greatly valued. However, if you only take their content and publish it on your website and social media sites, you have done more to increase their SEO than your own.

Google increases results for Search Engine Results Page (SERP) as companies are mentioned on other websites, and content is cross linked across the web and social media. Your partner and vendor support is good, but without thoughtful planning on your part, the content provided does more to increase your partner or vendor’s SERP results than your own.

So, how can you leverage their support while helping increase your SERP results along with those of your partners?

• Keep the role you expect the partner and their content to play in your overall marketing strategy in focus.
• Be sure the recommended partner content will increase the interest of your prospects and analyze the information to be sure it can support your own SEO and social strategy.
• When possible, add your company’s unique content or comments with a link back to your own site. Even a few extra characters in a tweet can help, so consider adding your URL.
• Leverage your vendor support to expand your connections, and share your content with their audiences when possible.

The heart of this strategy is to stay in control and objectively look at the content provided, assuring it supports your business objectives along with your marketing strategy.

No harm in helping improve your partner or vendor’s SEO score along with your own, but be sure it supports your own SEO and marketing strategy!

Photo credit: Mark Seton