How to Use Social Media to Influence SEO

How to Use Social Media to Influence SEOPatrick Powers

#mStonerSEO@patrickjpowers@mStonerInc

Our Mission✓Review how search engines work.

✓Acknowledge SEO in HigherEd.

✓Understand how social media impacts results.

✓Learn 20 tactics for improvement.

✓Discuss.

EBLSEOSERPH1 H2

Branded Searches

Non-Branded Searches

0% 25% 50% 75% 100%

39%

10%

11%

4%

15%

6%

35%

80%

First Position Second Position Third Position Everything Else

The Top Three

Are you an authority?Are you relevant?

Authority

links time .edu

http://www.flickr.cophotosm//yandle/4337747398 | http://flic.kr/p/5PdB3C | http://www.flickr.com/photos/ccacnorthlib/4131837946/

Relevant Content

URL Page Title Headline

Copy Images

Description

IRL

What a browser sees ...

21%

20%

19%

18%

11%

7%4%

Trust/AuthorityEngagement MetricsLink PopularityInbound AnchorKeyword UsageClick-through DataRegistration/Hosting

Ranking Signals

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2065492/The-Role-of-On-Page-SEO-Content-Relevance-Not-Rankings

So why do we care in higher education?

Academic Programs

Campus Location and Community

Cost and Financial Aid

10%

35%

38%

17%

45%

52%

Search Social

Best ways to learn?

http://omniupdate.com/_resources/pdfs/research/2012_eexpectations.pdf

58%42%

66%

34%

79%

21%

Yes No

Opportunity ExistsAre you investing in an SEO process to improve search results?

4-year private 4-year public 2-year colleges

http://omniupdate.com/_resources/pdfs/research/2012_eexpectations.pdf

What role does social media play in this?

Matt CuttsGoogle Engineer

“We do use Twitter and Facebook links and ranking, as we always have, in our websearch rankings. But in addition we are also trying to figure out a little bit about the reputation of an author or a creator on Twitter or Facebook.”

•Number of follows/likes/retweets/shares

•Authority of the people sharing

•Speed of sharing

Google Knows

“We do look at the social authority of a user. We look at how many people you follow, how many follow you, and this can add a little weight to a listing in regular search results.”

“Yes, we do use [tweeted links and RTs] as a signal. It is used as a signal in our organic and news rankings. We also use it to enhance our news universal by marking how many people shared an article.”

Social Signals RisingFacebook Shares

Number of Backlinks

Facebook Total

Facebook Comments

Facebook Likes

Tweets

% Backlinks rel=nofollow

Keyword in Domain Name

% Backlinks with Keyword

% Backlinks with Stopword

Image Count

Keyword in URL

Keyword in Description

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4

0.03

0.03

0.04

0.05

0.1

0.11

0.15

0.25

0.3

0.33

0.35

0.36

0.37

http://www.searchmetrics.com/en/searchmetrics/press/ranking-factors/

Takeaways20

Create awesome content.

1

Link to social accounts.

2

Make sharing easy.

3

Define objects/images.

4

Title

Description

<meta property=”og:image” content=”/mylogo.png” />

Conduct researh.

5

6

7

Complete your profile.

Brand your posts.

•Help Google.

•Rank high on you.

8

Claim your place.

9

10

Name your place.

11

12

Get on Google+.

Give authors credit.

“Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.”

- Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO

13

14

Geo-tag images.

Optimize file names.

Use closed-captions.

15

16

Tweet. Tweet. Tweet.

Cuts index time by

50%17

Identify influencers.

18

Chase the numbers.

1

0

25

50

75

100

2007

2008

2009

2010

19

Create awesome content.

20

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Patrick Powers