How Social Media Affects SEO

Guest speakers at #OMSummit – CatFish of BusinessSol.com. Part 2 of How Social Media Affects SEO.

Blog posts are new pages of content that can be focused on new keyword opportunities or reinforce existing targtes
Blog posts topics are not constrained by current site architechture
Blog posts provide excellent internal link opportunities
New blog posts create new pages that slightly increase Page Rank
Too many blogs are under-utilized for internal linking purposes. This should be leveraged more (ie: If you mention dog food, link back to your dog food page on your site)
Make sure you include your main navigation template on all your pages – if you have 1000 – 2000 blog posts of pages of content and you don’t have your global navigation in place, you could be missing out on TONS of SEO opportunity.

YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.
Include the essential keywords in the title of your video and link back to them from your main site
Top listings in YouTube can drive considerable traffic
YouTube thumbnails also appear in regular Google / Bing search results
Number of views you have, number of embeds you have will impact how well they rank

Facebook Open Graph Search is the new searching functionality that allows you to search Facebook profiles / pages.
Currently focused on people and places
Facebook Meta Tags for Open Graph can be implemented.
How usage varies from regular Google / Bing search remains to be seen
Facebook Open Graph search is still in Beta.
Incorporate these into your search strategy.

Most links found in social networks are rel=nofollw and o not boost regular search rankings
Occasionally profile links will be counted
Social media networks attract links by marketing good content to target audiences
The more friends and followers you have that share an interest in the content you are producing, the more potential links your content will receive when it’s shared through those channels.
It’s not about the quantity, it’s about the QUALITY of these links and posts that count.
Focus on the people and opening communications, building relationships with individuals – this will have more impact than anything else.
The more relationships you have with people in your space, the better. Take an avid interest in what people in your space are doing. Offer thoughtful feedback and responses on their blog posts. Give them something of value to them.
The value of the bloggers is not just based on the content they write, it’s in the relationships and networks of people they influence in the space.

Bloggers have a high propensity to link to 3rd party sites – web masters do not
Blog posts are typically more timely in nature and are focused on current events
Bloggers typically have personal relationships with other bloggers which increase the propensity to receive a link
The more personal relationships a blogger has with authoritative authors in their industry, the greater chance of receiving a meaningful link for any piece of content
Blog post are most effective from an SEO perspective when they have keyword focused internal links to relevant pages that taget high priority keywords
Guest blogging is one of the most effective link building exercises that also benefits your brand and authority.

1. Ensure Blogging teams understand what pages target high priority keywords

2. Consistently imbed relvant preferred landing pages for your site into blog posts

3. Use your standard site navigation template for all blog pages

4. Ensure that blogs post are optimized for SEO, especially page titles

5. Make sure you have a link to your blog in your global navigation template

6. Train bloggers on SEO best practices so they can optimize content as it is created

7. Make back links a metric that bloggers are rewarded for

8. Add compelling info- graphics to important blog posts

9. Ensure that bloggers spend some time each week reading and commenting on target blogs to establish relationships

10. Ensure your bloggers spend time each week cultivating relationships with prominent bloggers

11. Create blog posts that offer an opinion or point of view on popular blog posts from other authors.