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Search and Social Media are Bros – SMX Conference Consensus

How does social media marketing affect your search engine optimization efforts? We gained some insight this morning from an expert panel at the 2012 SMX Social Media Marketing in Las Vegas. Our experts included Covario’s Dave Rohrer, Symantec’s Travis Wright, Search Mojo’s Sarah Lokitis, and RelayRide’s Mathew Guiver.  What’s the consensus?

First, the obvious: social media and SEO are closely related. As Travis Wright put it – they are “bros!”  Why?

SMX_social search

Social Signals

Search engines use social signals to rank your site. While the secret algorithms are… well, secret, there are still many social signals known to affect your rankings that you can strategically apply.  For example, likes, shares, pins, and the number of followers you have are taken into account. Blog comments and tweets that include your site’s URL are also incorporated. And the authority and influence of those sharing your content is a definitely factor.  Do you know the average Klout score of those RT’ing your content?  As these social signals are important to your search rankings, the wise SEO strategy takes social into account. On how Bing Ads can help, check out Arnie Kuenn's The New Future of Social Search with Bing.  

Keywords

Part of your existing SEO strategy is probably a set of keywords you are trying to target. You should incorporate these keywords into your social profiles and into your status updates. These keywords should be used as tags for blog posts – and in any content you are trying to get people to share.  For more information on keyword optimization and strategy, check out the following posts, or visit our page: About The Keyword Research Tool.

Sharing

Speaking of sharing, use open-graph tags to optimize how your content is shared on social networks. For example – when someone shares a link Facebook will automatically pull the meta-tag title and description along with an image from the page. But if use open-graph tags you can be in control of the exact content and image that gets shared.

SMX_FB post

The more of your content that gets shared, the higher you’ll rank on search engines – so you should consider creating content that is more likely to be shared.  But instead of another social media give-away, consider an original shareable marketing campaign that is unique to your brand. Write blogs posts about subjects that people want to tell their friends about. And remember, people love to share visual media such as pictures, videos, and info-graphics.

Shares matter, and so does the influence of the people who are sharing. Again, identify influencers and work with them to cross-share. Think about having guest authors on your blog, and connect with journalists.

Of course, SEO is not a one-and-done type of project – it’s on ongoing process that requires constant monitoring. Changes you make are not immediate – they take time. Stick to it and keep optimizing!  (For optimization information and resources with Bing Ads, see Search Advertising Ad Optimization).

Thanks for reading, and we hope you found this useful for your business. Stay tuned for more search advice on the Bing Business blog!

David