Social Media SEO GuidelinesBrandon Waselnuk

Content• SEO Basics and Overview• SEO Optimization for:

• Facebook Posts• Twitter• Video

• Extra Tools to help guide you

SEO Basics• Fundamental rule: People share content that is

Awesome• Increase ‘searchability’ in your power by:

• Linking in posts• Using tags effectively• Use a Site Tree for ‘crawling’• Use Keyword (Google trends will help you!)• Use keywords in Page Titles and URL links• Use phrases and words people will search for

• Outside your power (sort of):• Do trusted external sites link to you?• Is it run by a local person to where the site is hosted?• Are you a publicly trusted authority? (via links, shares and other

factors)

Google Trends Example

  

• Corel = Blue Line• WinZip = Red Line• Flags represent major media events

SEO in Facebook Posts• How do Facebook Posts get SEO?

• The more a post is shared (if you link a website or video and a user clicks ‘share’ via the ‘selfish sharing’ factor)

• The more comments a post receives • The more ‘Likes’ a post gets

• How do I increase the odds of feedback?• Increase the ‘awesome’ better content means more

feedback, not frequency• It’s always a good idea to ask questions of your

community, give them a reason to engage (Don’t answer the question yourself! And end the statements with the question)

SEO in Twitter• Key Factors:

• The more @replys you get to a tweet the higher your SEO• The more retweets you get the higher your SEO• Make your bio count, Google indexes it! (use keywords in the bio if

necessary)

• How to create success:• Allow for Quote retweeting, try to keep tweets to 120 characters to

allow for them• Use Link shorteners such as Hootsuite and Bit.ly for metric tracking

and to reduce character spend• Above all be ‘real’ twitter is a giant conversation so be

conversational, you wouldn’t want a dude on the street wearing a sandwich board to offer you a flier with coupons? So don’t do it in Twitter

• Use appropriate hashtags (#awesome) for reach expansion, but don’t get crazy with them!

SEO in Twitter• How to create success:

• Get out and help others, retweet them, respond to them, they’ll pay it back

• Try to spread tweets out over the day, often tweet just never ‘bulk tweet’ (5 posts at the same time)

• Promote Blog sites as it’s an easy glide path for twitter users, from short conversations to longer opinions where they can still comment and engage

• Build ‘Followers’, links and PageRank• Twitter internally links your followers to your profile,

therefore higher PageRank followers give your page a boost as well.

SEO in Video Origination• How do videos get more SEO?

• Make tags relevant and use lots• Use consistent tagging (across all videos, helps aggregators) and

adjectives in those tags• Match titles and descriptions to tags and use tags that describe

categories• Don’t use natural language in tags (don’t waste space on words like

‘such, and, or, to’

• Technological Considerations:• Always make sure you create metadata for files, and use a cleaner to

remove noise created by content creation and publication tools with CastFire

• Leverage starting point URL and RSS feeds if asked for at all times• In-Format Tagging – Depending on the tools used you can input

metadata into the video content file itself as tags, much like id3 tags in mp3 music, in-format metadata tags are readable to any index engine

SEO in Video Origination Cont• Amateur Sites to use:

• YouTube, Google Video, MySpace Video, Yahoo! Video, AOL UnCut, MSN Soapbox, DailyMotion, MetaCafe, Revver – Giant cheat sheet here

• Submission to Video Searching sites:• AOL Video http://video.aol.com/ and

http://www.truveo.com/• Or you can use a MRSS feed to submit content hosted

elsewhere(link on Corel.com)

• Blinkx – Use this form to ask for submission to the database

• AltaVista – Use this form for submission• Yahoo! – Use this form for submission

SEO in Video Origination YouTube• Keyword Research:

• This is the foundation step for optimizing your video on YouTube. Use Google Adwords along with YouTube Keyword research tool to get insights into various suitable keywords for your video.

• Title Tag/ Description/Tags: • Once you have zeroed in on your keyword list, use them in your title tag,

description and tags. Remember that search algorithms cannot read videos. The only way your YouTube video will come up in related search would be through the keywords you have used to optimize it. Also consider dropping your URL (Home /Landing Page) in the description to get backlinks.

• Video Transcripts: • Spiders cannot read Flash files. Feed the spider by giving a transcript of your entire

video.

• Thumbnails: • YouTube gives you the choice of choosing a thumbnail for your video. Make a wise

choice as this would determine if your video is clicked or not.

SEO in Video Origination YouTube• Allow comments:

• Allow comments and feedbacks on your video. The more people talk about your video, the better. If you choose to moderate the comments that are displayed be cautious as it sometimes angers readers.

• Embed the video in your web site: • Place a link on your site pointing to your YouTube video. If your site gets

enough traffic, it would help in getting more traffic and more page views for your video.

• Connect with other videos: • Link to other related videos on YouTube by dropping a link of your video in their

comment section. However avoid spamming.

• Share your video on social channel: • Share your videos on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. The more the buzz, the

better!

Extra ToolsAppendices

Periodic Table of SEO

SEO Challenges in 2011

• Movie is embedded, play slide show to view!• Source:

http://myseopandit.com/blog/seo-challenges-2011

Sources• http://searchengineland.com/introducing-the-perio

dic-table-of-seo-ranking-factors-77181 – Period Table

• http://www.google.com/trends?q=Corel%2C+Winzip&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all – Google Trends

• http://searchengineland.com/seotable/social-media-ranking-search-results – Social Media & Search Rankings

• http://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389 – Social Signals Search uses

• http://adage.com/article/web-video-report-howto-articles/maximize-search-engine-optimization-web-video/128956/ – Video SEO Tips & Tricks

Sources Cont• http://

www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=112147 – Video sharing sites list

• http://www.searchenginejournal.com/twitter-seo-4-simple-tips-to-help-your-twitter-profile-rank/10981/ – Twitter SEO tips

• http://www.toprankblog.com/2011/06/ses-toronto-killer-facebook-targeting-tactics/ – Killer Facebook Targeting Tactics

• http://www.searchenginejournal.com/10-tips-improve-your-seo-using-twitter/28790/ – Twitter top 10 for SEO