SEM Meetup

SEM Vancouver Meetup - Search and Social

Tactical Social Media & Search Engine Optimization

Who Am I?

• 10 years of online marketing and product merchandizing experience in e-commerce

• Worked in all facets of online marketing with a focus on SEO, Social and Content

• Currently with Reinvent an in-house incubator for one of the largest domainers in the world

• Currently evaluating and preparing domains for launch in several different verticals

• Run my own SEO consulting business

What Has Gone Before

The History of Google SEO + Social

Google’s Attempts to Crack Social

• Orkut – Facebook Competitor. Successful only in India and Brazil.• Picasa – Like Flickr only less popular• Google Profiles – Not adopted by many mainstream users• Buzz – Like combining Twitter and Gmail. Under fire from the FTC.• Wave – Not sure even Google know what this is supposed to be• +1 – Who knows?• The fact remains that Google IS attempting to become more social

How Do We Know Social is Becoming Important to Search?

Google Says So

“Sometimes it’s easier to find exactly what you’re looking for when someone you know already found it.”

*Source searchengineland.com/report-google-ceo-page-ties-bonuses-to-social-success-reorganizes-google-mgmt-team-72197Image Source: Forbes.com

“For Googlers on the Company Plan, the multiplier has both an upside and a downside. It can range from 0.75 to 1.25 depending on how well we perform against our strategy to integrate relationships, sharing and identity across our products. If we’re successful, your bonus could be up to 25% bigger. If not, your bonus could be as much as 25% less than target. We all have a stake in the success of this effort and this multiplier is designed to reflect that.”*

Panda Update

• Google update aimed at “low quality” sites• Huge e-commerce site (nameless) pages that were tweeted

were saved by authoritative tweets• Ehow / Demand media may have been saved in part by social

(the first time around)

Independent Studies

Credit: seomoz.org

What about Bing?

• Bing created an alliance with Facebook • Enables Bing users to see whether their friends like certain

pages• Bing is using Likes and Shares to rank pages• In theory adding the FB Like function may lead to more search

referrals• Bing – Yahoo passed 30% market share recently• Lack of Facebook integration might be part of why Google is

slipping

What’s Happening Now?

Search is Becoming More Social

Social Search Blended Into “Regular” Results

Different Kinds of Social Results

• Insert another image example of blended search

Other Social Results

What’s Happening Now?

• Social Connections Might Boost Pages• Depends on your relationships with

“promoters”• Also depends on how authoritative those

promoters are• Now content shared by, not just created

by your network gets promoted• Moving to content “liked” by your

network being promoted• Moral? Make friends with promoters,

authorities, and influencers

Does Facebook Influence Search?

• Facebook “Likes” and “Shares” Not Included on Google For Now

• Google can access Pages on Facebook but not wall updates (Bing can)

• Google wants access to Facebook’s data w/o giving up it’s own• Stalemate (for now)

It’s all About the Tweets

• Without Facebook Like data what else is Google using?• Tweets are acting as the best proxy Google can get for Likes• Also pulling from several other networks• Twitter has far less adoption and less rich data that Facebook

Other Social Sharing Sites

• Digg• StumbleUpon• Reddit• Etc.• Not seeing these affect SERPs• Good for traffic and visibility which can lead to Tweets, links,

and likes.

What Can you Do Right Now?

How do you Prep your Site for SEO and Social (technical stuff)

Get a Blog

• Set up a corporate blog• Use WordPress• An easy place to post new content• Passes link equity and traffic back to main site• Gets indexed quickly• It’s cheap and easy• Easy to use & configure• Easy to integrate social sharing and monitoring• Lots of premade plugins • Easy to collaborate on content

WP Plugins

• fbLikeButton - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/fblikebutton/ • Postrank - http://labs.postrank.com/top_posts • Slug Trimmer - http://pietersz.co.uk/ • Tweet This - http://richardxthripp.thripp.com/tweet-this/ • Tweet Old Post - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweet-old-post/ • WordPress SEO - http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/ • WP Twitter Button - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-twitter-button/

Bonus Plugins• Insights – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/insights/ • Yet Another Related Posts Plugin -

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/yet-another-related-posts-plugin/ • Search Meter - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search-meter/

On-Site Social Sharing

• Sharing plugins and widgets on main site • Implement on your own if you can (some plugins can be slow)• Standard twitter button is good. I’d use it over Tweetmeme • http://twitter.com/about/resources/tweetbutton

Even Tweetmeme says “We recommend using the Twitter Tweet Button. You can find more details about it on the Twitter goodies page. If you want to use the TweetMeme Retweet Button, you can find out how to install it below.”

• FB Like button• https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/ • Save other social sharing like Digg and StumbleUpon for pure “content”

URLs

• Sometimes shorter is better• No www (http://example.com) • Make them meaningful• Good - http://blackfriday.com/spring-black-friday/• Not so good - http://

www.example.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/HomePageView?langId=-1&storeId=10951&catalogId=1003

URL Shorteners

• If you can, build your own shortener • http://outspokenmedia.com/branding/how-to-easily-create-y

our-own-url-shortener-with-wordpress/

• http://code.google.com/p/phurl/ • Why? Control your own destiny• Bit.ly, Ow.ly • Twitter has moved away from Bit.ly to t.co

What’s Wrong with .ly?

• Guess who ultimately controls the .ly TLD?

What’s Wrong with .ly?

• Guess who ultimately controls the .ly TLD?

THIS GUY!

Page Speed, Hosting & Mobile

• More social is consumed on mobile than desktops• Have a mobile CSS• Build social sharing into your apps• Make your pages load fast (or mobile users will leave)• Google has stated that page speed is now a ranking factor• Prepare your hosting company for potential traffic

Build Your Social Presence and Engage

Build Your Social Presence and Engage

• Become authoritative • Create great content and promote it• PR pitches• Guest blogging• If you haven’t started it’s not too late (but start NOW!)• Build social profiles on Twitter, Facebook, and other sharing

sites and engage influential users

Building Your Twitter Profile

• Follow others• Help without expectations• Engage in conversations with no agenda• Look for authorities to engage with but don’t go right to the

“stars”• Tweet frequently• Some good tools for this are: Wefollow, Twillow, Klout

Building Your Twitter Profile

• Promote other people’s content• DON’T talk about yourself. Talk about them.• Once you establish a network selectively ask for RTs • Don’t just ask on Twitter, use contests, email, etc. to ask for

Tweets• …and of course create great content worth retweeting!• Only 1 in 318 URLs get retweeted, make sure yours are worth

it• Don’t forget to build a decent Twitter page with a real avatar

and bio

Target Your Tweets

Target Your Tweets

Credit: http://danzarrella.com/bio

It’s all about the Tweets

• Retweets are The New Link Building• Twitter data plays a role in web search• Who you are perceived to be matters• Google has a “trust” or “authority” rank for people• Get your pages retweeted by authorities and they will rank

better

Create Great Content (works for SEO and Social)

Know What Interests Your Audience

• Know your audience (they won’t share if it’s not relevant)• Research what’s relevant • What’s trending on twitter?• Monitor conversations• Check the big social sharing sites like Reddit, Digg, and

StumbleUpon• Follow or stalk your competitors• Check Comscore and Quantcast • Conduct surveys (SurveyMonkey, Constant Contact, 4Q)• Talk to your customers• Do your keyword research

Build Your Platform

• Learn how to write great titles! • Use titles to populate tweet copy • Only 140 characters total• Retweet Info = 21 characters • Title = 98 characters • Shortened URL = 21 characters • Google only displays about 60 characters for titles anyway

Build Your Platform

• Use your brand and URL in your tweets for branding and an extra clickable link (in TweetDeck)

• “Best Buy Black Friday Tips http://t.co/uP0Btv6 via BlackFriday.com”

• Keywords near the front of the title• Put your content on your main domain (Fight with IT if you

have to)

12 Surefire Ways to Write a Great Title

• Tips & Tricks – “Tips & Tricks to Save Big on Your Taxes” • Top X Anything – “Top 13 Things You Don’t Know About Kate Middleton”• X Ways to … - “27 Ways to Drive Your Man Wild in Bed” • Who Else wants X? - “Who Else Wants to Get More Traffic for Their Site?”• The Secret to X – “The Secret of Selling Anything to Anyone”• Be Blunt – “Trump Denies Obama is American” • How to This and That – “How to Win Friends and Influence People”• Current – “Inside the Royal Honeymoon”• Worry People – “The One Thing You Should Never Mix with Caffeine” • Look at what content has been popular before• Check tried and true sources• http://www.copyblogger.com/magnetic-headlines/ - 11 Part Series

Types of Content

• Blogs• Whitepapers• eBooks• Humor• Interviews• Case studies• Videos• Infographics• Contests or quizzes• Press Releases• Buying Guides

Give the People What They Want

• Goal used to be to get people to link now it’s also to get people to share

• How does that affect your content strategy?• What kind of content to people link to? What kind do they

share?• Maybe more entertaining, controversial, opinionated, rather

than informational, educational.

http://blog.builddirect.com/redneck-home-remodels

https://twitter.com/#!/IJasonAlexander/statuses/62989037304168448

How Do You Get Content Ideas?

• Spy on competitors• Brainstorm• Keyword research• Ask customers and employees• Monitor social sites• Look at magazines• Mine your site search• Google Trends• Google analytics

Sounds Simple…

• Build a network of influential people• Create great, interesting, and useful content• Get them to Tweet , RT, Like and Share• Prepare for the future

Bonus Tip:It may make sense to have more than one online “persona”

What’s New?

Google +1

• Google +1 on SERPs and ads right now• +1 Button has just arrived• Response to Facebook Like• Probably also to promote Google profiles• Why it may not work…• Not much Google has done in social has• Based on search information not more holistic information like FB • Only seen during searches • Users spend less time on Google than FB• Google’s network isn’t as big• Try it anyway – Low risk with possible reward

After +1 ???

• Google will likely need to come to some understanding with FB

• No love from FB Likes or Shares (probably)• “Social Rank” won’t replace Page (link) rank but it will add to

it• Google will continue to look to find ways to leverage user

behaviour and user voting• WWGD? (If you owned Google, what would you do?)

Content is Still King

Links are Still Queen

But Social Shares are the Heir Apparent

(Gratuitous Will & Kate Photo)

Bonus: Favourite Tools and Apps

• HootSuite - http://hootsuite.com/ • TweetDeck - http://www.tweetdeck.com/ • Raven Tools - http://raventools.com/ • PostRank - http://www.postrank.com/ • SEOBook - http://tools.seobook.com/ • SEOmoz Open Site Explorer - http://www.seomoz.org/

Thank You!

Contact Me:

Rob Woodsrob@robwoods.org

rwoods@reinvent.com Twitter: @robdwoodsSkype: rob.d.woods

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/robwoods