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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Driving Referral Traffic: Social v. Search
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The Impact of Social Media on Search
• Search engines are indexing social media content
– 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
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The Best Social Media Platforms for Search
• Blogs
• Flickr
• YouTube
• Social bookmarks
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Blogs
• Platform for sharing expertise
• Continual source of fresh, updated content
• Content rich
• Strong opportunity to showcase keywords
• Search-friendly
• Tagging
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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
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• 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
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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
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• 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
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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
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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
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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)
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YouTube
• Second largest search engine
• 20 billion searches per month
• Great for link building
• Videos rank very well (Google owns YouTube)
• YouTube channel
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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
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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
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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!
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How to Track It
• Google Alerts
• Social Mention
• Twitter Search
• Facebook Search
• Hoot Suite
• Tweet Deck
• Radian 6
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Want to Know More?
7 March 2011 Presentation Title 26
Kat Jenkins
Vice President of Strategic Planning
513.784.9046
Twitter: sangereby
LinkedIn: Sanger & Eby