Social Media & Search: Tying It All Together for Increased ROI

Social Media and Search: Tying It All Together for Increased ROITying It All Together for Increased ROI

Sanger & Eby24 May 2011

About Sanger & Eby

• Strategic design & technology firm focused on specialized business communications

• Services Include:

– Strategic planning and research

– Social media strategy and execution

– User experience planning– User experience planning

– Print and interactive design

– Interactive and multi-channel marketing

– Content development

– Search marketing (SEO & SEM)

– Website development

– Custom business and web applications

– Mobile applications

24 May 2011Social Media and Search

Copyright 2011 Sanger & Eby All Rights Reserved2

Sanger & Eby Fast Facts

• Founded in 1988 by Lisa Sanger & Donna Eby

• Certified Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE)

• Staff of 21 Employees

• All strategy, design, programming done in-house

• 15 years experience creating websites

• 700+ Sites designed and developed

• 95% client retention rate year over year• 95% client retention rate year over year

• Clients include:

– Macy’s

– Fifth Third Bank

– Luxottica

– AT&T

– RotoRooter

– Crayons to Computers

– Children’s Hospital



What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

• The process of improving the visibility of a website or specific page in search engines through natural or organic search

• Utilizes search engine algorithms to elevate a site to top rankings in search results

• Considers how search engines work and what people search for

• Ongoing process (search engines continually refine algorithms) • Ongoing process (search engines continually refine algorithms)

• Key techniques include:

– Editing content and HTML within a site

– Increasing relevance for specific keywords and phrases

– Removing barriers to search engine indexing

– Building link popularity

– And now, social media and social search

• Related negative category: Black Hat SEO



Some Key Facts on Search

• SEO drives 75%+ of all search traffic

• 50% of consumers start buying cycle with online research

• 63% of B2B buyers start with online research

• 85% do online research during buying cycle

• To buy from you, they have to find you• To buy from you, they have to find you

• 75% don’t look beyond the first page (~10 listings)

• Rankings 1-5 are 10 times more likely to be clicked

• Yields the highest ROI of all online marketing



Benefits of SEO

• Powerful branding and messaging to target audience

• Increased targeted traffic to your website

• Increased visibility and awareness for products & services

• Perception of leadership & increased credibility

• Improved quality of leads

• Increased conversion rates for call to action

• Drives more sales

• Decreased cost per sale

• Take market share from competitors

• Long-term visibility (SEO)

• Measurable



How Search Engines Work

• Automated site crawlers (AKA “spiders” or “bots”)

• Index content in database

• Thousands of factors involved in algorithms

• Algorithms differ by search engine

• High level of complexity• High level of complexity

• Continually evolves based on market, competitiveness,

technology and new engines

– Better user experience

– More relevant search results

– Personalized search results

– Level playing field



So, How Does Social Media Affect SEO?

Search Behavior Is Changing

• 61% of consumers rely on traditional search to find websites

– Down from 83% in 2004

• Following the content to new engagement platforms

– Social sites

– Peer recommendations, likes, shares

– Apps– Apps

• Search engines leverage social media to remain relevant

• Provide an increasingly personal search experience

• Savvy marketers are including social touchpoints in their search

and marketing strategies



Driving Referral Traffic: Social v. Search



The Impact of Social Media on Search

• Search engines are indexing social media content

– Facebook

– Twitter

– LinkedIn (particularly Groups and Answers)

• Social media influences search rankings

• Impact is increasing

• Increases visibility and inbound links• Increases visibility and inbound links

• Generates multiple and unique listings

• New Category: Social Search

– Google +1 Initiative

– Bing Facebook Social Graph Tie-In (Universal “Like” Button)

– More personalized search results

– Shows users content friends have “liked”

– From page 89 to page 1



The Best Social Media Platforms for Search

• Blogs

• Twitter

• LinkedIn

• Flickr

• YouTube

• Social bookmarks



Blogs

• Platform for sharing expertise

• Continual source of fresh, updated content

• Content rich

• Strong opportunity to showcase keywords

• Search-friendly

• Tagging



How to Leverage Blogs for Search

• Make content value-added and compelling

• Use strategic keywords in blog posts and tags

• Use HTML header tags (H1, H2)

• Find and include relevant links

• Provide permanent links

• Share across social media platforms



Twitter

• Used by Google and Bing’s social components

• Google indexes Tweets

• 140 character limit (including spaces)

• Breaking news platform

• 165 million users• 165 million users

• 95 million Tweets per day (up 250% from 2010)

• 51% of Twitter users follow brands

– 3x higher than for other social media platforms



How to Leverage Twitter for Search

• Memorable, relevant handle & account name

• Optimize Twitter bio

• Integrate Twitter presence into website

• Make it stand out!

– Users scan results quickly

– Only the most eye-catching get clicks– Only the most eye-catching get clicks

– Opening words are the most important

• Integrate keywords into Tweets and hashtags

• Include links to drive traffic to your site

• Make sure you’re adding value

– Users will tweet content that’s useful or entertaining



LinkedIn

• Very high page rank(1st Page Results)

• Company and individual name searches

• World’s largest professional networking site

• 100 million+ users

• 1 million new members per week• 1 million new members per week

• 2 million company pages

• Members in 200 countries

• Members and executives from all Fortune 500 companies

• Affluent, influential membership

• 2 billion people searches in 2010



How to Leverage LinkedIn for Search

• Use strategic keywords in profile

– Company

– Individual

• Participate in LinkedIn Answers

• Join LinkedIn Groups (or start your own!)Join LinkedIn Groups (or start your own!)

• Start and maintain conversations in groups

• Use your status updates

• Share value-added content



Flickr

• Online photo and video sharing site and community platform

• Community tools allow browsing, comments, tagging of photos

• Very highly indexed in search engines

• Major factor in Google & Bing’s social component

– Photos liked by individuals rank higher in friends’ search results

• Bloggers use to host images they embed in blogs, social media

• Great way to showcase company photos



How to Leverage Flickr for Search

• Categorize and tag photos with keywords

• Optimize images and videos for search

• Filenames and file types (.JPG or .GIF)

• Include ALT Text (but don’t overdo it)

• Caption images with your strategic keywords

• Watch image size (fast downloads rank higher)



YouTube

• Second largest search engine

• 20 billion searches per month

• Great for link building

• Videos rank very well (Google owns YouTube)

• YouTube channel



How to Leverage YouTube for Search

• Establish a YouTube channel for your business

• Title your videos and include your keywords

• Use descriptions and tagging

• Link back to your website

• Encourage likes and shares



Social Bookmarks: Share and Like

• Most popular: Facebook, digg, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, Del.icio.us

• “Like” and “Share” work together

• “Like” an object (I “like” peonies)

• “Share” an action (I bought peonies from dutchbulbs.com)

• Likes are published to a user’s Facebook feed (driving • Likes are published to a user’s Facebook feed (driving referral traffic)

• Share provides a way to express something when it’s not appropriate to “like” it

• e.g., Joplin, MO tornado or Japan tsunami)

• Both increase search visibility

• Crowdsourcing relevant and interesting content



How to Leverage Social Bookmarks for Search

• Make it easy: Add single click sharing tools to pages

• Ask for it! If a user has taken the time to do something on your

site, they’re likely to share it with their networks

• Provide multiple options (and to multiple feeds at once)

• Optimize content and make it value-added

• Shorten links (do the legwork for them)• Shorten links (do the legwork for them)

• Do it now—while they’re on your site!



How to Track It

• Google Alerts

• Social Mention

• Twitter Search

• Facebook Search

• Hoot Suite

• Tweet Deck

• Radian 6



Want to Know More?

7 March 2011 Presentation Title 26

Kat Jenkins

Vice President of Strategic Planning

[email protected]

513.784.9046

Twitter: sangereby

LinkedIn: Sanger & Eby