Search, Social and the Future (OMCap/Berlin)

Search, Social & the Future

Who’s the speaker today?

Duane Forrester

@duaneforrester

Bing Webmaster ToolsSpeaks at shows, runs forums and blog, provides guidance on new WM toolswww.bing.com/toolbox/webmasters

Does he have a clue?14+ years as an inhouse SEO; ran seo at MSN; has helped GM, Disney, GAP, Walmart +http://www.linkedin.com/in/dforrester

And this helps me how?Blogging since 2001; owns 150 domains; runs several websites of his ownhttp://twitter.com/DuaneForrester

what does duane do at bing

Your data, always fully provided.

History of SEO & Social

Data credit: gossip.greenlightdigital.com/blog/the-history-and-evolution-of-seo/

• Keyword stuffing all the rage

• SE submissions help rankings

• Dawn of modern search engines w/Altavista

• Death of SE submissions

• SEO software works very well for #1 placements

• cloaking makes its appearance

• Google and MSN Search launch• Word spreads that links help

rankings• DMOZ launches and starts

directory movement

• Google Toolbar shows PR – drives link requests

• Google fights spam with Florida update; hurts legit sites

• Blogging takes off• Text Link Ads creates

network link buying

• First paid link network appears

• First SEO conference held: SE Strategies

1994

1999

2012

2011

2010

1995

1997

1998

2000

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

• Universal search appears • Text Link Ads banned by

Google• Wikipedia shows the future –

domain authority through content depth

• Nofollow tags appear; PR sculpting follows

• G Jagger/BigDaddy updates seek link spam

• XML sitemaps jointly supported by all engines

• Google notes the “sandbox”

• Link Farms appear

2013

• Google’s “Brand” update uses “trust signals” to restack SERP around brands • Bing partners

with Facebook to integrate social signals into SERPs

• rich snippets starting to be used by sites

• Canonical tag appears

• Caffeine rolls out allowing faster indexing – “real time” search is here

• Tweets integrated showing future of social influencing search

• Social signals continue to influence SERPs

• Google launches G+

• G launches +1, tells sites they rank better displaying it

• Bing expands social inclusion with FB, Twitter, Quora & 4Square

• Rich Snippets impacting SERPsYour data, always fully provided.

• Don’t try to extrapolate from this graph• Importance is relative• Use as a guide – no item is unimportant

Where does Social fit in?

Content Social User Experience Link Building SEO


Why social matters to search

• Signal of topical authority

• Real-time – engines want fresh content, fast

• Integrated social signals influence click actions of searchers

• Social signals remain only a few of thousands of signals for organic ranking

How users click on your results can impact rankings and when we show cues like your Facebook friends with results, click rates can be impacted.

http://www.kyleclouse.com/social-media-marketing/Your data, always fully provided.

Search – we're trying to solve…

Imprecise Results Refinements Lengthy Tasks

1 in 4

delivers successful

results

44% of sessions lasting day

or more

42% of sessions

require refinements

ComScore and Microsoft Internal AnalysisYour data, always fully provided.

Time Spent on Sessions by Length Queries Over Time

0-3 mins9%

3-10 mins12%

10-15 mins10%

15-30 mins23%

>30 mins46%

Almost

50%of all time spent searching is on sessions > 30

minutes

Almost

50%of queries are returning to

previous tasks

New Queries51%

Partial Repeats

30%

Exact Repeats19%

Moving Beyond Queries to SessionsIncreasing Use for More Complex Tasks

Search Sessions are Long and Repetitive…


How social impacts search


Humanity is leaving its traces…

50+ Billion Tweets sent on Twitter in 2011

60 hours of video uploaded every minute to YouTube

28 photos uploaded to Flickrevery second

30BB+ posts/month Facebook!


More than just traces, a collective convo…

http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/visualizing-friendships/469716398919


Twitter on NYE 2010


6 major investment areas for SEO

• Crawlability– Xml sitemaps– Navigational structure– Rich media cautions– Graceful degradation– URL structure– Robots.txt

• Site Structure– Links– URL structure and keyword usage– Clean URLs – no extraneous parameters (sessions,

tracking, etc.)– HTML & XML sitemaps– Content hierarchy– Global navigation – springs form hierarchy planning +

style of nav (breadcrumb, link lists, etc.)– Rich media – don’t bury links in Javascript/flash

/silverlight/AJAX

• On-Page– Head copy

• Titles – unique, relevant, 60 characters or so long• Descriptions – unique, relevant, grammatically correct, 160 or

fewer characters (Google shows up to 160 characters)

– Body Copy• H1, H2 and other H tag usage• ALT tag importance & usage• Keyword usage within the content/text – see “Perfectly

Optimized Page” image• Anchor text – using target keywords to support other internal

pages

• Content– Build based on keyword research– Down-level experience enhances discoverability– Keep out of rich media and images– 250 words per page or more– Produce new content frequently– Make it unique – don’t reuse content from other

sources– Content management – using 301s to reclaim value

from retiring content/pages– <LINK> canonical to help engines understand which

page should be indexed and have value attributed to it– 404 error page management to help cleanse old pages

from search engine indexes

• Links– Plan for incoming & outgoing link generation– Internal & external link management– Content selection – planning where to link to– Link promotion via social spaces – direct traffic & seo

value– Managing anchor text properly– URL structure can help insert keywords where they are

needed

• Social– Build your community– Interact often– Share useful content– Be consistent and useful– Grow facebook, twitter, etc.


13

Search: Discovery & Interaction

vertically integrated areas

online services

DEVICES PLATFORMS SERVICES

REAL-TIME SOCIAL LOCAL & MOBILE COMMERCE

web

There are over a trillion pages online, from ~ 700 million sites

We need to crawl them all to see if they’re worth indexing

To crawl a URL costs roughly a penny…a little less, in fact

http://


keywords

UNDERSTANDING THE WEB

UNDERSTANDING THE USER

apps

geo spatial

social

topical

actions

interests

context

SEARCHthe consumer

gateway to the cloud

Reorganize the Web for Task Completion


Not just browser, but devices, services and social networks

Not just mouse and keyboard, but also voice, touch, gesture & vision

Creation of new information via social graph and geospatial index

Information Architecture

Interaction Model

Entry Points

Reinventing Search Across 3 Dimensions


Mobile will continue to influence social

The ultimate “PC”

Not just phones

9B today

25B by 2021


Search continues to evolve

New devices demand different search experiences other than links

The ability for these devices to feed in real time signals help us handle intent better and therefore can provide a more tailored experience

Its not just mobile phones or tablets and its not just text entry. Anything could be a search – voice, a picture, a gesture, sound – anything. We are building the universal interface for search.


The Secret to Success

The Basics

• Build social followers & fans organically

• Wall posts/tweets with links are perceived as more credible and useful

• Get the basics of SEO covered, then focus on content

• Its worth repeating: unique, compelling content still works


Encourage more Sharing

• So you want more shares for your content, do you? Try these ideas.

• Create lists: people love to consume content in list-form. Its quick, easy and simple.

• Use hooks: ego, humor, anger, contrarian – be careful with them, but when used well, they are highly effective.

• Participate in communities: when you are valued member of a community, the community supports you.

• Share others’ information: people love when what they share gets shared itself. Share from trusted sources.

• Ask questions: your followers will love the interaction and it’ll grow your following as others engage.


The Digital Universe is Expanding…

2 Billion Facebook updates per day

300 MillionFacebook photos per day

150 MillionSnapchat photos per day

400 MillionTweets per day

5 MillionFoursquare check-ins per day


…and so are our Tools

UsersRising Expectations

DevicesConstraints, Opportunities


GEOSPATIAL AND CONTEXT

Different Web, Different SearchBuilding an “intelligent fabric”

people places things

ENTITIES AND ACTIONS NUI


Entities and Actions

Bing has 6 billion facts, 28 billion entities

People1.2 Billion Profiles, Connections, Interests

Places 1.1 million US restaurants alone

MoviesOver 800,000 entities

Schema.org and Other Languages


Geospatial Knowledge and Context

Contextual Awareness & “Predictivity”

153 raw Petabytes of storage on 59,820 hard drivesProcess 28,800 DVDs worth of information every day

8.5M km2 of overhead imagery at 8cm

250,000 user-submitted 3D recreations


Natural User Interfaces

Search box outmoded

Enhances intent derivation along with Entities and Context

Imbue machines with human-like traits for better HCI


Streamlining Content creation

• Moving forward, how to provide value and grow an asset?

• People want relevant information• People have little time to sort &

sift• They want a trusted, reliable

source• Picked a niche; started the plan


Trusted RSS feeds

new

slett

er

Copy & Paste

AUTOMATED

AU

TO

MATED

MANUAL

Tools to get the work done

• Useful tools• Bing Webmaster Tools – www.bing.com/webmaster (SEO reporting, link development)• For Twitter• Hootsuite – www.hootsuite.com $9.99/month for PRO (recommended)• Tweetbot - tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/ • Echfon - www.echofon.com/

• For Instagram• Statigram - statigr.am/ (stats for IG)• Instafriends - inst.me/ (manage friends at Instagram)

• For Pinterest• Curalate - www.curalate.com/ (Analytics & Marketing)

• Evernote – www.evernote.com (Data collection point)• IFTTT – www.ifttt.com (connector of dots)• Trackur - www.trackur.com (social media analytics)• Social Management Platforms• Sprinklr - www.sprinklr.com/ (enterprise level gear) • Visible - www.visibletechnologies.com/ (SM monitoring, analytics & engagement)

• Social Mention – www.socialmention.com – cool search engine to see stats on queries• For Windows Phone - mehdoh.com/


http://www.bing.com/webmaster

http://www.hootsuite.com/

http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/



http://www.echofon.com/

http://statigr.am/

http://inst.me/

http://www.curalate.com/

http://www.evernote.com/

http://www.ifttt.com/

http://www.trackur.com/

http://www.sprinklr.com/

http://www.visibletechnologies.com/

http://www.socialmention.com/

http://mehdoh.com/

6 seconds to start a relationship

• Vine – you know it, but are you using it?• Lowes, Kate Spade, Urban Outfitters,

GE, A&W, Mailchimp and more• Using Vine to share knowledge, entice

engagement, entertain and offer behind the scene glimpses

• 6 second becomes many minutes of engagement

• http://socialmediatoday.com/julie-blakley/1516266/7-brands-getting-creative-vine


http://socialmediatoday.com/julie-blakley/1516266/7-brands-getting-creative-vine



Other Cool Tools

Some competitors of IFTTT: http://elastic.io/about.html

• https://zapier.com/#

• Zapier is more user friendly than IFTTT, though IFTTT has better channel choices.


http://elastic.io/about.html



https://zapier.com/

18 Social Media Management ToolsAlexa.comBoard ReaderSysomos Facebook InsightsFollower WonkGoogle InsightsHow Sociable Ice Rocket trends Buffer

Klout

Peerindex

Kred

Mention Map

Social Mention

Statigram

Twitter Counter

Tweetreach

Visual.ly


http://www.alexa.com/

http://boardreader.com/

http://www.sysomos.com/

http://www.facebook.com/help/search/?q=insights

http://followerwonk.com/

http://www.google.com/insights/search/

http://www.howsociable.com/

http://www.howsociable.com/

http://trend.icerocket.com/

http://trend.icerocket.com/

http://bufferapp.com/

http://www.klout.com/

http://www.peerindex.net/

http://www.kred.com/

http://www.mentionmapp.com/

http://www.socialmention.com/

http://statigr.am/

http://twittercounter.com/

http://www.tweetreach.com/

http://visual.ly/

Roll Your Own

APIs exist for so much data todayBing Search API

Use a search engine to power your searchBing Maps API

Use Maps to underlay behind data to build rich geo-targeted scenarios

Webmaster Tools APIGet almost all data we know about your site via an API for portability and integration

And these are just ours – so many more exist


Wrapping up

• Social media requires time• It requires forethought• It requires honesty• Don’t try for shortcuts• Be accessible• Share, share, share

…and use the tools provided.

Thanks for your time!Duane Forrester

Sr. Product Manager - Bing

@duaneforrester


Education

Search, Social and the Future (OMCap/Berlin)