Social Media and SEO: 5 Essential Steps to Success

by Lee Odden
CEO of TopRank Online Marketing and editor at Online Marketing Blog.

Now more than ever, company marketers are charged with improving performance with fewer resources and shifting marketing budgets from traditional to digital tactics like SEO and social media. There are significant benefits from combining search engine optimization and social media marketing tactics ranging from increased social network discovery via search to the ability to attract links for improved SEO.

Making the most out of combining SEO insights with social media marketing tactics can be accomplished with a roadmap that identifies the audience you’re after, the goals you’re trying to reach (and can measure) as well as a strategy that sets the stage for the tactics you’ll use to execute your game plan. Read on to get a better understanding of how SEO and social media complement each other and a step by step guide for creating a social media roadmap.

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The benefits of SEO and social media

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From a marketing standpoint, you can look at the benefits of SEO and social media two different ways.

First, implementing a social media marketing program without optimizing content is leaving money on the table. Useful social content (blog, video, images, audio) that cannot be discovered via search is a lost opportunity to reach an audience that is looking.

For example, The Student LoanDown, the popular blog about student loans and college financing from Wells Fargo, identifies 29 keywords in its Keyword Meta Tag and doesn’t rank in Google’s first page for 26 of them. Those that do rank are variations of the blog’s name.


While there is a generous amount of cross linking within posts, a basic blog template optimization effort leveraging keywords and other minor adjustments could improve search traffic for this site substantially – without any compromise in content quality or user experience.

Social interactions and media sharing amongst social network participants create the kind of content that can improve a brand’s visibility within search results through profiles, videos, blog posts, or other media. A good example is Stormhoek wines’ first page Google rankings including blogs, Facebook and Twitter.


On the flip side, implementing SEO programs without leveraging the content distribution and linking benefits of social web participation makes link building for SEO an uphill battle. The nature of the social web encourages participation: sharing, voting, commenting and linking. Popular social content gets exposure, traffic and can result in a substantial number of relevant inbound links.


The famous Blendtec iPhone video has attracted over 6,000 links resulting in a top ten ranking on Google for the word, “blender.”


Content + Links = Search Engine Success.

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Social media roadmap

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However you look at it, SEO and social media work well together as long as there is a framework for doing so. One way to build SEO and social media programs efficiently is to follow a social media roadmap:



1. Find the audience; understand their behaviors, preferences, methods of publishing, and sharing. Most companies that are involved with the social web in the channels where their customers spend time have a good sense of where to start. Many companies are ahead of the game by tracking their audience via social media monitoring software that identifies keywords, conversations and influencers such as those pictured in the Radian6 screen shot below.


2. Define your objectives. Objectives are often driven by marketing or sales, and SEO has long been directly accountable to substantial improvements in web sales. Social media is not direct marketing though, so different objectives and measurements apply. The role of SEO in a social media effort is to directly influence discovery of social communities or content via search. Do a search for Zappos on Google, for example, and you’ll easily find more than shoes: Twitter, Blog and a YouTube channel are all on the first page of search results.


Indirectly, social content can boost links to website content, improving search traffic and online sales.

3. Establish a game plan. The game plan for reaching objectives in a combined SEO and social media effort will often focus on content and interaction, since it is content that people discover and share. Whether a keyword-focused strategy for reaching goals means publishing new content or creating an opportunity for consumer-generated content, it must involve proactive promotion and easy sharing amongst members of the community.

4. Create a tactical mix. The tactical mix for a social media marketing effort is based on doing the homework of finding where the desired audience spends its time interacting with and sharing content. Whatever the tactical mix is, it’s an investment in time and relationships – not a short term “link dump” to promote optimized link bait. Much of the content creation and promotion for a social media marketing effort happens within the tactical mix and, of course, that means optimizing content for keywords.



Whether content is created by marketers as part of a social destination like a niche community or a promotion vehicle such as an interactive ad, keyword glossaries become useful for writing headlines, deciding on anchor text for links and outreach activities like blogger relations.

5. Measure your goals. Goals measurement should roll up to the specific objectives, both direct and indirect. Leveraging both social media monitoring services as well as web analytics can provide marketers with the insight to improve results. Radian6 and Webtrends have recently announced a partnership that will bring web analytics and social media analytics together all in one interface. In the meantime, marketers can use specific measurement tools to monitor the effect of their social web participation as well as the search engine performance of SEO efforts.

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Extend the value of your investment

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By involving SEO insight in a social media marketing effort and vice versa, marketers, public relations professionals and advertisers can extend the value of their investment. Well optimized social media content marketing efforts can attract new network participants via search. News content that experiences distribution via social news and bookmarking channels can facilitate links to company website content directly and indirectly. Advertisers that fund social media campaigns can continue to realize the traffic benefit from keyword-optimized interactive content long after the campaign has ended.

Facebook May Be Traffic Driver, but Won't Reap Search Dollars

Why Social Media Is Complementary to SEM

Posted by Peter Hershberg

I'm a big believer in the notion that search marketing and social-media marketing go hand in hand with one another. I've seen firsthand how they interact on search results pages and how insights from one channel can have an impact on the marketing efforts for both. What does seem odd to me is that some marketers and observers seem to view search and social media as oppositional either-or propositions.

Now, knowing the growing impact of social media, it was only a matter of time until we started seeing headlines like the recent Ad Age article titled "Facebook Sending More Traffic Than Google to Some Sites." It's an interesting article and well worth reading, but what really got my attention right off the bat was this sub-headline, "Will Search-Marketing Dollars Also Shift to Social Media?"

The answer to that question is no, they will not -- at least in the short term. However, SEO may become a bigger factor in maximizing social media's impact in a search environment as the channel begins to mature and find a way to successful monetization through marketing.

Granted, the massive number of consumers using social media platforms presents a huge opportunity for marketers. The problem right now, however, is that most social networks currently offer advertising programs that do little, if anything, to align the interests of consumers, advertisers and the platforms themselves.

Social networks do drive huge amounts of traffic, but the campaigns we -- and many other marketers -- run typically don't involve paying a site money, largely because the paid ad programs they have offer no real incremental benefit to our clients (through data, targeting, etc.) above and beyond what we'd get for reaching out to people in a more direct fashion.

It's a phenomenon that can be seen in the latest Forrester Research report on social media. Forrester found that social media marketing budgets are currently incremental at best (though they are expected to increase substantially.) The real spend on social media occurs in places that can't be measured by looking at money coming into social platforms. Rather, it's in budget that's used to optimize brand profiles, initiate and monitor conversations, and to spread access to other assets like television ads on sites like YouTube.

To see just what I mean, I think it's illustrative to add context that tells us why some sites are benefiting from visibility on Facebook in comparison to Google. The specific sites the article highlights are PerezHilton.com, Dlisted, CafeMom, Evite and video site Tagged.com. As the article notes, there are a variety of reasons why Facebook has turned into a big traffic-driver for each of them compared to Google.

CafeMom has a Facebook fan page, which undoubtedly drives traffic back to its site. As for Evite, it seems fairly obvious that people don't typically visit a search engine like Google or Yahoo to see what events they've been invited to. More likely, Facebook is being used to bring a group of people together around a single event (there are currently 413 of them that show up when doing a search for "Evite" on Facebook events) and then clicking-through from Facebook to an Evite page to RSVP after they've learned about the event. Lastly, Tagged.com benefits from the popularity of video clip posting and sharing within Facebook – many of those users ultimately end up visiting the site where the original video was posted.

I suspect Perez Hilton and Dlisted appear on this list for similar reasons. People who are fanatical about celebrity gossip know what sites they're going to visit every day (or many times a day) for the latest news. And when they see something of interest, they're undoubtedly sharing links across Facebook, which ultimately drives some of the people they're connected to back the original site to read the full story.

In comparison, when it comes to generating organic search traffic, gossip sites suffer from the same problem as other news tabloids do -- specifically, witty headlines that resonate with users (e.g. "Life's a Beach" headline for a post about Paris Hilton and some guy named Doug Reinhardt on the beach), but mean nothing to search engines trying to determine relevant content. As a result, these stories typically struggle to rank well organically on sites like Google which in turn does not send significant volumes of visitors to these sites.

With all that in mind, if you agree that the Facebook traffic the article is referencing was primarily driven by shared links, then Facebook isn't benefiting from it in any way. There is no paid media component to talk about and therefore, no dollars currently being spent in search that could possibly go towards this effort in social media. Outside of fees that could have been paid to an agency, it's basically free traffic. I don't believe that Perez Hilton, for instance, is making media buys on Facebook, but people share links to his stories like crazy and significant traffic is being driven to his site as a result.

I would also bet that there is some percentage of traffic that was ultimately driven by Facebook, but actually originated from a search engine. In other words, someone went to Google, found a link to a Facebook profile, and then clicked on a posted link and ultimately through to a company's website. In this instance, search and social media are complimentary, not competitive.

Ultimately social media properties like Facebook and Twitter will be indexed by the major search engines on a more regular basis, filling the need for "real-time" search and offering more relevant content. As this happens, the traffic these sites drive across the web will be much, much greater than what we've seen to date. In the short term, I don't believe that will ultimately equate to media dollars being reallocated from search to social-media properties, but you could make a case that it leads to a greater investment in initiatives like SEO to tie these together in an more meaningful way.

In the long term, all of this might change as social media platforms discover ways to monetize that brings marketers and users together to the benefit of all of the parties involved.

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Peter Hershberg is managing partner at Reprise Media @hershberg on Twitter)

10 High-Impact, Low-Budget Ideas for Marketing in a Down Economy (Part 1)

by Jonathan Kranz

When the going gets tough, the tough get... cheap. Today, a good marketing idea has to be as inexpensive as it is clever. In part 1 of a two-part series, I offer five inexpensive suggestions that can lead to productive results.

1. Use all of the buffalo

The buffalo was more than a source of meat. Hides became clothing and shelter; bones became tools; sinews became bow strings.

Think like a Plains Indian and get the most use out of every marketing effort possible. One case study, for example, can serve as

Spider-food on your website that boosts SEO and provides meaningful content:

A direct mail insert in lieu of the traditional product brochure

A tradeshow handout to jump start conversations

A leave-behind for sales calls

Bonus
Exploit the public relations potential of a big project such as a whitepaper or e-book. If the content is genuinely valuable (not merely promotional swill), you may be able to pick up good press on the cheap.

One of my clients got a half-page article in the leading trade magazine for its industry—and scored a seat at the executive leadership table in the industry's dominant professional association as a result of the great press.

Target appropriate editors/bloggers/reporters with your content and include a quick note explaining its relevance to their audiences.

2. Choose your social-media weapons carefully

What's that background hum? Oh, it's the swarm of expert wannabes chattering endlessly about Web 2.0, social media, the death of print, etc. No matter what the technology or medium—whether blogs or mobile devices, Facebook or Twitter—the message is always the same: You gotta be there—or you're a dumb-dumb... or worse, a dodo.

Look, no doubt some of these may have real value for your business. But the hard truth is that you can't do ALL of them well. Nor should you. Concentrate your resources on the ones that:

Are likely to be used or welcomed by your target markets

You can excel in

You can sustain on a regular basis

Don't impose unrealistic burdens on your resources or budgets

Bonus
A client of mine leveraged social media to help a branch of the armed services meet its recruiting targets. But instead of chasing the latest social media fads, they focused their efforts by doing two key things: listening to the online conversations already in progress and creating open content that their target audiences could freely share. Result? They've hit their recruiting numbers every month.

3. Go organic

Place greater emphasis on your organic SEO rather than simply dumping money into Google AdWords. It's not only cheaper, it can be more productive; I've read various analyses on the Web suggesting that natural listings attract 60% or 70% of clicks as opposed to 40% or 30% for paid listings.

Successful organic SEO requires

Aggressive identification of keywords that should be optimized for each significant page on your site

Development of deep content that feeds search engine spiders and attracts incoming links

Constant monitoring of your site statistics to track trends and progress

Bonus
Don't neglect your titles and meta descriptions. "Titles" are the words that appear at the top of the visitor's Web browser. Search engine spiders take titles seriously, so be sure yours include keywords. The "meta description" in your HTML is what the search engines use to describe your site when it appears as a response to search query; write yours to appeal to potential customers.

4. Play to your strengths

Many years ago, as I was starting my copywriting career, I met a businesswoman who shared what she described as the best advice she ever got at a motivational seminar: Don't try to improve your weaknesses; just concentrate on developing your strengths.

I think that's wise. For us, it means focusing our business operations on our most productive, profitable areas and focusing our marketing efforts on those strategies or tactics at which we most excel.

It's not a matter of what works, but what works for you. If, for example, cold-calling simply isn't effective, drop it. If you're good at networking, plan on investing more of your time and money on networking opportunities this year.

Bonus
So many of my clients get hung up on this so-called "elevator speech" thing—that 30-second pitchoid that each of us is supposed to have at the ready. The problem with these things is that they sound every bit as contrived and unnatural as they really are. So forget about them. Instead, think about questions, things you can ask new prospects that can jump-start conversations and lead to a natural introduction of your products or services.

5. Profile your best customers

Consider this reverse-engineering for marketing. Think of your best customers. What do they have in common? Is it an industry or role? A similar problem or challenge? A quality of temperament, habit, or attitude? The answers form a profile of the kind of prospects you should pursue.

Then think about how you attracted your top customers. Did they come to your Web site first? Or respond to a direct mail campaign? Or meet you at a conference? Again, whatever worked, do more of. And consider trimming back the rest.

Bonus
Be prepared for surprises. You may have started your business with the intent of serving one kind of customer with one kind of need, but in retrospect you may find that your best business comes from an entirely different kind of client with a different need.

I work with a company, for example, that started out in the business of providing inexpensive security for PDF documents. But, over time, it found that the real interest lay in offering PDF analytics—and they've shifted their efforts accordingly.

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Seven Words That Will Make Your Web Site Worth Viewing

Seven. A number like any other. But it does seem to come up on a fairly regular basis: the Seven Wonders of the World, the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Seven Dwarfs: Happy, Sneezy, Sleepy, Bashful, Doc, Dopey, and (my favorite) Grumpy.
Phone numbers have seven digits. And may say the optimum brand name should be no more than seven letters long. Seven, it seems, is a magical number, because the human brain can grasp only seven things at a time (on average).
So I've been thinking, What are the seven most important words associated with Web-marketing? I'll give you a hint: Search, engine, and optimization don't make the cut.

So what words do make the list? What are the seven words that will make your Web site worth viewing?


Words Can Move You

By someone's count there are 171,476 entries in the Oxford English Dictionary, plus another 47,156 words that have fallen out of favor, but not counting the 9,500 additional permutations that don't deserve their own special attention.

Half of these words are nouns, one-fourth are adjectives, and 14.285% are verbs; the rest consist of all those other things the purpose of which most of us long ago forgot.

Others may find fault with these numbers, but no matter what the total, it's a lot of words.

Of the tens of thousands of words to choose from, most people recognize less than ten percent, while teenagers seem to only be able to handle about half that amount; of course, that doesn't count slang, instant-messaging jargon, or the ever-popular four-letter variety.

Why the heck are there so many words if we all refuse to use them? I mean, why waste all those perfectly good words on English teachers and college professors?

Here's the thing: Words have meaning and impact, and they provide the emotional context of our communications; and we add subtlety and nuance by how we deliver them, using tone, cadence, and gesture.

That is, as important as words are... the way they are delivered is even more important.

What Web Site Design Is Really About

The other day I was listening to a local all-news radio station. It is mostly rip-and-read wire-service stuff that they repeat over and over like some kind of psychological torture, but they do provide traffic reports on a nauseatingly regular basis. You have to wait only 10 minutes until they repeat everything. So if you want to hear what traffic snafus to avoid, just wait a few minutes. But here's the problem: The announcers talk so fast that no matter how hard you concentrate, you can never quite get the particular information you need; and if you're driving, you have other things to consider, like the idiot in the Hummer who just cut you off.
None of these guys ever uses a period, let alone a semicolon or comma. Either they have very small bladders and are under pressure to finish quickly, or they're late for their afternoon pilates class. They seem so intent on rushing to the commercials that they never deliver the content in an appropriate manner.
Your Web site just might have the same problem.

Too much information is as bad as not enough. Information overkill leads to information anxiety, buyer's remorse, reduced satisfaction, unattainable expectations, and purchase-decision paralysis.

Web site owners have been told that visitors won't wait for anything, that they are impatient, and you've got to get to the point fast, make the pitch, and close the deal. Well, that approach just isn't going to work with any sophisticated product or service.

Your Web site presentation needs to slow people down so they hear what you have to say, and you have to say something worth hearing.
Web site design is about more than layout, markup language, and technical wizardry. Web site design is about communication; it's about turning advertising into content, and content into an experience that viewers will remember.
Seven Words to Remember

1. Communication

People are always asking us what's wrong with their Web sites, and the answer in the vast majority of cases can be summed-up in a quote from the movie Cool Hand Luke (1967): "What we have here is a failure to communicate." Communication is the key to success, and that doesn't just apply to your Web site—it applies to almost everything you do both inside and outside your business life.
If your Web site isn't communicating on both a rational and an emotional level, if it doesn't provide the psychological and emotional context of your marketing message, then exactly what is it doing?

2. Audience

I can't think of too many people who actually like being sold to. In fact, sometimes customers get so irritated by sales tactics that they end up not buying the thing they came specifically to your Web site to buy.
Solving the problem is merely a question of altering your perspective. The average buyer is predisposed to dismiss and ignore high-pressure tactics and meaningless sales pitches. So instead of treating customers like customers, try treating them like an audience. Audiences want to be engaged, enlightened, and entertained. And that is the most effective way to make a sales impact.

3. Focus

All too often, Web sites inundate their Web audiences with facts, figures, statistics, and an endless list of features, benefits, options, and whatever else the sales department can think of throwing in. But all that stuff just confuses people.

Focus your message on the most important elements of what you have to say. If your Web site can embed that single idea in an audience's mind, then it has done its job.

4. Language

The words used, and how they are put together, provide meaning; they inform personality; they provide mental sound bites; and they turn whatever you are saying into something worth remembering.
Language is one of the critical elements of "voice," the ability to convey personality. Writing that doesn't have "voice" is instantly forgettable.

5. Performance

Even the most articulate prose can be lost in befuddled delivery. Communication is more than words; it's a combination of language, style, personality, and performance.

Things are rarely what they seem. Even our memories are a stylized versions of what we've actually experienced. Creating a memorable impression is about managing the viewer experience and providing the right verbal and non-verbal cues that make what is being said memorable.

6. Personality

Every business has a personality. The first problem is that few midsize companies ever attempt to manage that persona, and as a consequence the buying public forms its own opinion. And that opinion is often not the way you want to be regarded.
The second problem is that companies either don't have a firm grasp of who they really are or, if they know, they are afraid to promote it. If your company's identity isn't worth promoting, it is time to think why that is... and change it.
The bottom line is that a company without a personality is a company without an image, and that makes you instantly forgettable.

7. Psychology
The most important feature you can offer your audience is psychological fulfillment, not deep discounts, fast service, or more bells and whistles.
The real reason people buy stuff is that it makes them feel something. Cosmetics make women feel attractive or sexy, while cars make men feel they've achieved some level of status. Even services make people feel important, as in "I've got a guy who does that for me."

Finding the psychological hotspot in your marketing, and promoting the hell out of it consistently and continually, should be your primary marketing goal. All those features and benefits are merely the excuse for a purchase, not the reason.

The Web Is Fast Becoming a Video Environment

Web sites are not just marketing collateral; they are not just digital brochures. They are a new presentation medium that requires specialized communication skills, and knowledge of how best to use the medium.

You may be a great salesperson and nobody knows your business like you do... and you may even be skilled at delivering speeches at conventions and seminars... but performing effectively in front of a camera is a whole different ball game. And for most people it's way out of their comfort zone, let alone their skill level.
The same old methods that used to work won't work any more. You're no longer competing with just the company down the street; you're competing with the entire world.

Web-based businesses may never actually meet their customers face to face or even talk to them on the phone, so it is imperative that they use marketing presentation methods that deliver an experience worth remembering.


by Jerry Bader
Published on February 10, 2009

What Not to Say on Twitter

What Not to Say On Twitter

Importance of Key Words in SEO Writing

Having a good website is not a guarantee that people will visit your website. One of the primary reasons why your website will not be noticed is because nobody can find it in the first place.

Note that there are about 80 million websites that people who go online to shop will not really find your site unless it is ranked among the top ten search results. In most cases, people who are reaching for something will not really go to the next page of the search result so there is a slim chance for you to be noticed if you do not make it to the first page of the search result.

Use Powerful Triggers

People who search for something online use keywords and key phrases to find what they want. In most cases, the keywords and key phrases used in the search are those words that are closely related to their field of interest. To drive traffic to your website, you should put SEO articles in your website using powerful triggers that could put your website on the top search results.

To be able to write good SEO articles, you should learn the language of your trade well. When writing your article, use keywords and key phrases that would most likely be used by people who are looking for products and services in your area of expertise. The placement of the keywords and the key phrases in your article is very important.

It is not enough that you put in the keywords and key phrases; you should also make sure that everything make sense so that the search engine will pick up your article and rank you higher than the others.

When placing keywords or key phrases in your article, use these words on the title of your article and then use the same keywords a few more times on the body of the article.

Source: SEO Copyrighting Blog

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