Social Media Marketing for SEO Earning links, tweets + shares from social media to influence search engine rankings Rand Fishkin, CEO & Co-founder, SEOmoz April 2011
May 13, 2015
Social Media Marketing for SEOEarning links, tweets + shares from social media to influence
search engine rankings
Rand Fishkin, CEO & Co-founder, SEOmoz
April 2011
Rand Fishkin, CEO & Co-founder, SEOmoz | April 2011
Download at http://bit.ly/socialseosydney
Social Media Marketing for SEOEarning links, tweets + shares from social media to influence
search engine rankings
At SEOmoz, we make SOFTWARE!! We don’t offer any consulting.
Social is so much more than
Twitter + Facebook
Big Opportunities in Social Come
from Being an Early Adopter +
Valuable Contributor
5 Major Ways Social Can Contribute to
SEO, Links & Overall Inbound Marketing
#1: Discover the Right Content to Create
#2: Share your Content with an Audience that will Spread it
#3: Build Relationships with the Right Influencers
#4: Acquire Direct Links and Co-Citation References
#5: Conduct Indirect Brand Building Leading to Positive, 2nd-Order Effects
Discover the
Right Content to Create
At the very least, I’d recommend checking out http://quora.com, http://stackexchange.com, http://linkedin.com/answers, http://formspring.me, and http://answers.yahoo.com.
Q+A Sites are Awesome Content
Inspiration Sources
I should write a blog post about that!
Searches like “anyone know,” “need help finding,” “where can I,” etc. combined with keywords/topics will often reveal needs. Once you have that content, you can tweet back
Searching Twitter + Facebook for Relevant
Keywords Works Too
Not many people are doing this yet, but it’s an awesome way to get roundups and content that others (especially those you’ve curated) are likely to share.
Finding + Curating Contributions from
Experts Can Be a Huge Traffic/Link Draw
Enterpreneur magazine online does a segment on “Five to Follow” in dozens of topical areas - http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/fivetofollow/. Naturally, they get tons of tweets + traffic.
Top X Lists of Influencers in a Space is Like
Cheating for Link/Social Sharing Acquisitions
I like http://news.ycombinator.com because it’s relevant to stuff I do, but you can find news sources + social sites in virtually every field (or follow key Twitter accounts in those).
Timing Matters w/ Topical Content. Social is
the Best Way to Stay Ahead of the Crowds.
When I want to find good stuff to tweet (and earn more follows/RTs), I click “New.” I find something good
almost every time.
An easy place to start for inspiration is http://popurls.com – you want to find those types of aggregators in your niche (often, “most read” lists from news/content sites work very well)
Raw Curation of Top Sources in an Industry
Can Quickly Generate 1000s of Followers
Note the short, punchy, well written (but many
times rewritten) headlines used before the link, followed by relevant hashtags.
Share Your Content with an
Audience Likely to Spread it
I wrote a post about how to do this here - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/calculating-and-improving-your-twitter-clickthroughrate
Use Bit.ly or Goo.gl to Measure + Test Your
CTR and Ability to Earn Retweets/Shares
My shorter tweets have higher CTR
Check this feature out in action on http://blog.okcupid.com/ (OKCupid’s blog is brilliant, BTW)
Ask for the Action at the Right Time,
in the Right Place
This box with the link + Facebook like button drops down using CSS once you reach the end of the article, making it
impossible to miss. Brilliant!
It also helps to separately reply and comment on the tweet/link or even ask a smart question to help build engagement and awareness as you’re being generous.
Be generous. Retweet, share, link to
and spread the content of others.
These retweets help spread the message, but the original tweeter will
rarely see them.
This retweet gets seen in @ replies
and search.
A tool like Mailchimp (http://www.mailchimp.com) can be very good for this, and the first 2,000 subscribers to a list are free.
Build a private, industry group for
content sharing + feedback
Build Relationships with the Right
Influencers
Line of text
Find influencers using FollowerWonk
It really is that easy to find highly followed
influencers in any niche.
Anyone who attends or speaks at events as part of their marketing role needs to start using http://lanyrd.com. It’s amazing how easy it makes it to find events that have the right audience.
Use Lanyrd to Attend the Right Events
The same thing works on LinkedIn, DMs through Twitter and… even email!
Send Personal LinkedIn/FB/Twitter Requests
There’s a very high chance the contact will see this message, click through and share it (if they like it)
This not only gets these people to your pages, but if you have a company profile page on Facebook, it gets them “liking” your page, too
Take Photos. Upload to Facebook + Flickr. Tag. Repeat.
Testimonials Build Lasting Relationships
BTW – http://trunk.ly is a genius tool that everyone doing social media should be using.
Giving a testimonial or posting one is a fantastic way to build a shared
marketing relationship. Both parties feel invested in one another.
Acquire Direct Links and
Co-Citation References
You Should Have a Profile on Every One of these
Social Sites (and probably at least a dozen more)
Facebook Company Page
Twitter Profile
LinkedIn Company Page
YouTube Account
Crunchbase Page
Crunchbase Page
Quora Profile
About.me Page
Scribd Profile
SlideShare Profile
Reddit Account
StumbleUpon Account
StackExchange Account
Wikipedia Profile
Google Profile
This is my top list of social sites to register with, but there’s likely more that are relevant to your niche.
Follow this Formula with Each Social Site:
Step #1: Setup
Step #2: Contribute
Step #3: Measure
Step #4: Repeat
Build your profile out completely. Connect w/ friends + content on the site.
Contribute 2-5 hours of time participating in the community, sharing content, etc.
Use your web analytics to track primary + second-order impact
Throw out low ROI projects; repeat high ROI ones.
I often upload decks to Slideshare, Tweet to them (which connect to my FB and LinkedIn updates, too), then embed them on the blog and link to them in Quora answers or blog comments.
Share Good Content EVERYWHERE!
13,308 views for a deck I initially presented to only 300 people!
BTW – If you haven’t filled out your https://profiles.google.com yet, you should!
Make Your Profiles + Social Content
Useful for Search Engine Co-Citation
I use words/phrases that I want connected with my name through Google search (and do the
same with “SEOmoz” and “SEO Software”
Tweeting links to a Google SERP also increases branded search volume and CTR on your listing
Double+Triple Share Content. To Make it More
Unique, Share Links to SERPs or Different Locations
One Bio to rule them all! I recommend changing this up every 6-9 months to be fresh and get more variance in your link profile.
Use Your Profile/Bio to Get Great
Anchor Text to the Right URLs
Conduct Indirect Brand Building,
Leading to Positive, 2nd-Order Effects
Via http://techmeme.com
Content Advertising on Social/Content
Sites Works Wonders.
Smart advertising from Microsoft
Via http://www.seomoz.org/blog/recommendations-blog-commenting-marketing-strategy
Blog Commenting + Answer Posting
Accrues Social Karma
Via http://www.facebook.com/redbull
When Possible, Own + Brand Your
Social Channels Visually
http://www.subreddits.org/ is a good resource for this
Don’t Forget Reddit; It’s the New Digg
Be “Authentic” = OK Advice.
Be “The Best Part of Yourself” = Better.
Misusing/Abusing Social is a Terrible
Idea.
Black Hat SEO Gets You Banned.
Black Hat Social Costs You Friends.
Q+A
Rand on the Web
• Twitter: @randfish
• Blog: www.seomoz.org/blog
• Email: [email protected]
You can now try SEOmoz PRO Free!http://www.seomoz.org/freetrial
Download at http://bit.ly/socialseosydney