Success in SEO is analogous to success in real estate
The key to success in real estate is owning a variety of properties in good locations. The key to success in drawing traffic to your site is ranking well for a variety of frequently searched keyword phrases. When prospective clients perform searches they rarely look beyond page one of the search results pages. So you can think about that first page of search results as a residential sub division with just 10-15 ten lots in it. As in real estate, you want to own the best location in within the sub division. Which from an SEO perspective is the first result.
Now it would be nice if you could own all 15 lots in the sub division, but Google works very hard for that not to happen. So to acheive success in SEO your goal is to rank high (best location) for a variety of frequently searched phrases. (best sub divisions) In writing content for your site always be thinking about phrases you can rank well for and make sure they are included in your copy.
Social networking (Facebook, LinkedIn) - Be an interesting guest at the cocktail party
To be effective at social networking imagine that you are at at cocktail party where people are talking about divorce. Your goal is to be recognized by a lot people at the party as a leader in the conversation about collaborative divorce and mediation.
So, what do you do? You could try the interrupt approach. Like with traditional marketing you could move around the party and tell as many people as you can about your message and how smart you are. The problem with the interrupt approach is that it is all about you and not them. If the word gets out it is possible that the people at the party will start avoiding you.
Another approach would be to find the various thought leaders on Divorce who are at the party. These are people who know a lot of people at the party and are known for interesting thoughts on divorce. When you connect with these people your goal is to first listen and comment on their message and perhaps share their message with others. Your goal is to become a supporter and contributor to their dialogue. As a result of being part of their dialogue they start to find you interesting and soon their friends think you might be interesting too. As a result they start checking you out and asking about your thoughts and sharing your thoughts with other people at the party.
So the goal with social networking is to be an interesting participant in the overall conversation at the party. And to be interesting you have to take interest in others first. This is vastly different than the traditional interrupt driven approach to marketing.
