Social Media Archives - Page 3 of 8

Social Media Sharing Policy To Put Your Best Foot Forward For Search

Since social media especially Twitter, Facebook, Google+ are now integrated in a big way in the search engines and have the offshoot benefit on rankings and search presence, its high time that there is a policy for what should be shared via the company and personal social media accounts.

Common examples of social media include blogs; social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and micro-blogging sites like Twitter; media-sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr; etc.

Social media signals can leverage the search presence of a web entity and add to the digital assets for web presence but at the same time it also has an equal and opposite potential of becoming a liability and also affect the search presence adversely.

Image credit: http://goo.gl/iAUDT

Google continuously works on improving the quality of search results and combating the spam on the web is the primary task of the web spam team at Google headed by @mattcutts . Google since last year has been working continuously working on the content spam and has been clearing the web of the content clutter by the series of Panda Updates and also has been working on eradicating the link spam on the web which gives wrong signals to search and manipulate search results.

In real life you are what your thoughts are, online you are what you share and publish.

Similarly, social signals in the long run have the same potential to pollute the web by spam if the companies do not follow a code of conduct for social sharing or do not formulate social media sharing policies.

Many times this task of optimization and social media management is outsourced to a third party so it is assumed that the third party is responsible for all the actions but after all it is the reputation of the company which is at stake. Hence, one can delegate the task but not the entire responsibility and answerability.

As the search and social signals integration is still at the initial stages and the search engines are themselves exploring and experimenting with the search and social data , it is the right time for companies having a corporate social media policy which should be followed to avoid the spam and have a good online reputation.

In online social networks, the lines between public and private, personal and professional are blurred the need for clarity of identity is vital. It is essential that when one shares on behalf of the company on social media he or she clearly states how they are connected with the company and own up for the content that one shares.

IMO Sooner or later Google will see through the social media spam too and start penalizing the accounts which may not be genuine or maybe sharing just to boost a certain listing.

Hence, a social media policy will help the company to avoid such disastrous outcomes.

Some of the points which the policy should include to avoid spammy behavior resulting in bad online reputation are:

Follow authority accounts and accounts which have quality posts related to your industry
Identify the purpose for the social media presence Read more about this on:
http://blog.webpro.in/2011/07/setting-purpose-of-your-social-media.html
Define your audience
Add value with each post and tweet
Be consistent
Share only if you like the content and want others to know about it not just because you know that person.
Do not keep sharing posts of some accounts only. Have a varied mix and see that you connect with more and more relevant accounts over a period of time.
The posts should gradually add to the trust and the authority factor of the company’s online presence.
The quantity does not matter hence do not buy likes or +1s, they will end up adversely affecting the social scene just like the paid links.
Let the friends, followers and the circles increase naturally due to quality postings.
Build the brand along with the online persona of the people who share on the social media.
Do not be boisterous by only saying what you want to say, listen, reply, engage.
Accept negative comments with grace and clarify if necessary
Build blog communities and discuss the posts from all perspectives. Do not end up just creating mutual admiration groups which in the long run deprive you of valuable UGC .
Do not take anything personally.
Just as you keep your personal and professional lives separate in the real world, following the same thumb rule will surely be the best way to balance both the worlds.

All these points are applicable if you want the social presence have a direct and positive correlation to your search presence. For personal accounts these may not matter as for personal and professional personas the rules maybe different.

This infographic from Seo Smarty provides a handy one-page resource as to how each of the major social networks defines spam, what sort of spam you can expect and their position therein.

social media spam infographic

Content + Connectivity = Branding. Is Your Content Contagious Enough To Create Or Promote Your Brand?

Author : Bharati Ahuja

The digital world has changed the way a brand image is created in the minds of the people. People today are creating an image about your company by going through the company website, reading the buzz on social media and reading what you post on your blog and the company social media profiles.

Many times by the time your potential customer reaches your online store or real time shop to buy the product he already has a lot of information about you, your company, products and services. This information does not only come from the content that you post on the web but also from the content which others post about your company , products and services.

Armed with so much of info. and a platform to discuss about the brand openly the customer is more confident of taking a decision but at the same time has very high expectations depending on what impressions he has created about the brand in his mind.

In such a situation it is very important that the sales staff or the online buying procedure on the site clarifies each and every expectation realistically.

So, basically it is the content, which is creating the brand. Content in all forms images, text, videos, audio, news, PR Releases, etc. and also the content on social media which gets linked because of the connectivity and all this thus leads to a brand image.

Content + Connectivity = Brand

If your content is directly related to the image of the brand then having a content strategy is a must. Hence, it is not only about adding blogposts, videos and images to your website or go on a posting spree on the social media sites.

Having a content strategy is the first step. The strategy has to come before the technology you select to host and promote it.

A Content Strategy should define:

· The audience for whom the content is created

· What type of content is right for which type of message

· It has to be on a regular basis with the quality improving over time

· It should preferably in a continuous , engaging, interactive story form.

· It should encourage and make people add to the existing content via comments, social media posts and discussions
The ultimate goal of all this content creation should be the conversion of this digital content to a digital asset. As acquisition and maintenance of any asset requires investment, content creation and promotion also requires strategic investment and planning.

Hence, investing in a right team to create , correlate and promote content is one of the important online marketing decisions.

The following video puts forward this idea very creatively.

Coca Cola Content 2020 : We will move from creative excellence to content excellence. The purpose of content excellence is to create ideas so contagious that they cannot be controlled….

Is your content contagious enough to create or promote your brand?

SEO / Social Media - 03/29/2012

The Key Takeaways From Click Asia Summit 2012 ( Day 1 and 2 #CAS12) …

Author : Bharati Ahuja

This is the second year consecutively that I have attended the Click Asia Summit Conference. It is sort of becoming a habit now and am already looking forward to the 2013 summit. Its not because of the gloss, glamour, delicious food or the happiness I experience every time I have to go to Mumbai (The city where I was born and spent 23 years of my life) but because of the sharing of knowledge related to the digital marketing world .

This interaction is the best way to start the year with confidence and set the right direction especially for entrepreneurs like me who work with very small teams and limited budgets. Conferences like these are an energy booster and help to plan for the coming year.

I have attended many conferences across the globe but when such an event takes place in India and especially in Mumbai , it gives me a sense of pride and pleasure.

#CAS12 the 3 day digital conference and networking started off on the 15th of Jan. 2012 with with an evening full of networking, conversations, and of course, laughter at The Comedy Store!

Day 2 post lunch had many options of sessions to select from but the day started with everyone attending the Keynotes by

Dr. Shashi Tharoor ( Member of Parliament, India) who spoke about “The Impact of digital media on politics and India in general”

Dr Tharoor highlighted the impact of social media on news , politics and India in general. He has been one of the early adopters of social media and has influenced celebrities to follow suit . He said that freedom of speech is the mortar that binds the bricks of our democracy together but free speech in Sweden isn't the same as free speech in Surat . He went ahead to say that Unlike a newspaper, social network sites are like postmen who take the news to your door. He also added that one cannot sue the phone companies for sending a defamatory or obscene SMS, similarly a person who puts up something defamatory on FB should be prosecuted not FB itself.

He totally spoke pro social media and said that social media is inescapable and is here to stay. He also added that a message needs a medium it is the message which is important and not the medium.

Lucy McCabe from OgilvyOne Worldwide,Singapore spoke on “The Digital marketing 2.0: The big picture“

She spoke very effectively and highlighted the point that the people of the library era and the people of the Google era think differently. My vote for the best speaker for the day went to her because of the way this difference was presented in her presentation.

She said that the shift of the source of information from the traditional library has made Google the new norm.

For the people of the Google era digital is not about technology but it is just stuff which helps them with their homework and other day to day activities. In 5 years from now we will not be attending conferences on digital marketing because it will be just stuff. She then spoke about the social media impact and redefined the digital relationships between people and brands in a whole new way by saying that people did not come on FB to make friends with brands, 50% of people who use FB have never 'liked' a brand since that's not the reason they are on FB and digital is not about the clicks, its about the conversation. On this medium brands should ask "what can we give back" if they want time, money, advocacy and data as a digital exchange. Customers don't wake up and go "ooh, wonder what branded digital content I can interact with today"

Connect Me -> Be Useful -> Entertain Me. Three things people want from brands .

Finally she focused on the fact that The future of agency lies in solving problems with innovative ideas.

Cyriel Kortleven from New Shoes Today , Belgium spoke on “Get a creative boost... Break the curse of knowledge “

He started his keynote with wired 7 questions for triggering creativity . He said that our brains see something and make assumptions with almost everything we do . His digital marketing analogy with the human brain was quite interesting where he highlighted that the curse of knowledge is that we get stuck into thinking patterns and habits and we can break the borders of the box for thinking patterns and habits by not limiting our power with buts and ifs , but unleash the power of 'and' by asking and what else.

Post lunch the sessions were divided into 3 categories as follows:

TECHNOLOGY/MOBILITY TRACK
SOCIAL MEDIA TRACK
SEARCH & SOCIAL TRACK

My interest and inclination as usual is the social and search sessions hence I glued my attention to those sessions which were as follows.

The first session was by Mr. Sandeep Amar on Social media impact - An analytics overview .

For him social media meant only Facebook , the idea I just could not digest. He seemed to be pro FB and totally against Google which again was very annoying for me to sit through and listen to. The audience spoke more than him and he was unable to answer any questions satisfactorily.

He went ahead to say that Negative posts receive more comments and less Likes. This calls for marketers to delve into their Facebook Insights. The very thought of FB = Social Media which he put forward made me lose interest in the session.

Rajesh Sharma’s session was on “Beyond the initial hype – building sustainable and scalable digital businesses, the PE perspective ! “

He put forward the question – Will Ecommerce boom or burst in 2012?

As per his presentation the key points were:
There are more no. of enterprises coming up online
Technology is no longer a challenge anyone can get a website made but only the setting up of the ecommerce venture is easy sustaining it and making it grow is a challenge.
It is not necessary that the people who set up the business may be the right people to scale up the business . Hence we need experts for every specialized job.

For the success of the Ecommerce Business we need an EAT Model

E- Experiences
A – Aspirations
T – Transactions

The dotcom 2000 burst was because the T was missing then. Now people buy confidently online.

Mahesh Narayanan highlighted the urgency to go mobile ASAP and to Make sure to track and measure your reach,whether through your app or through your mobile site. He said that mCommerce will become big in the next couple of months in India and the consumers on the go should be focused.

Vivek Bhargava spoke on “How to use analytics and other technology tools to plan a content strategy for an Enterprise Business “

His mantra was to focus on the psychographics and the target audience and the most reliable strategy was to create videos and see that they go viral. He also highlighted that SEO is now all about web presence optimization and the content was the glue to conversations and If a user is engaged with your brand then the propensity to buy from that brand is much higher compared to others.

Manish Maheshwari spoke about Reaching internet-dark mobile users…in as less as 5 hours

This session was about how to use SMS to reach out to people who do not have internet access , what he spoke about was SMSing via http://textweb.com/ which has the internet on SMS .

He pointed out that :

SMS kills all others (Mobile web, apps) in terms of accessibility, reach
An average Indian Send 29 SMS a month
SMS, as advertising medium has 5% interaction rate
SMS is most used app on mobile phones, even on smartphones.

Chris George - Search and social : Digital marketing in the SME sector in India

He shared that:

76% of people think that companies lie in advertising
India has second highest base of #Linkedin users
41% of internet user trust information published on #Facebook
We are at the intersection of search and social
Aim of SMM should be - brand building and crowd sourcing...creating advocates
The selection of the social media medium depends on the message which needs to be sent across and the messenger matters.

Lalit Bhagia The multi- tasking digital consumer

He focused on the point that The challenge today is to get the attention of the consumer's nonstop limited attention 87% of the people are on social media while watching TV . We are multi-tasking all the time, hence the content that we share or upload on aour site or Apps should have an overall appeal and should pull the visitors attention from all the other task that he is doing at that moment.

Cross-leveraging SEO & SEM Benedict Hayes (Moderator) Navneet Kaushal, Hareesh Tibrewala,Benjamin Gonsalves

The day ended with a panel discussion on how to cross-leverage SEO & SEM.

The focus on this session was that at the end of the day whatever SEO and SEM strategy that you have the campaigns are judged by the ROI they generate.

SEO Events / Social Media - 01/20/2012

Google+ As A Complete Blogging Platform Diverges To Converge And Converges TO Diverge

Author : Bharati Ahuja

Google+ is a platform with some great features for sharing content. Moreover, it does not have the limitation of characters like Twitter which is truly a micro blogging platform. With the trend moving towards content excellence and content marketing and Google+ profile becoming the most integrated identity for an online presence. As the circles concept of Google+ makes it very easy to reach out to different groups of people and share what you want to share to the selected circle. Google+ has the potential of becoming an excellent blogging platform for all purposes personal and professional.

We have been till now blogging on our blogs and then sharing the link on the social media platform but with Google+ the blog post content , comments and the link to be shared on other social media sites can be available on the same platform.

With social media signals being incorporated in search the need to have a quality social media presence which reflects the trust and authority factor of the brand is highly imperative. Hence we can see the SEO blogosphere filled with posts of how blogging and social media presence can help the SEO and online presence of any site.

I think all the clients who cannot maintain a separate blog for various reasons can start off their blogging journey via their Google+ business page which will not only associate and correlate valuable content to their social profiles but also pass of the necessary content correlation to the social signals for getting integrated to search. The content shared and the UGC content generated can be in the form of images, videos, text, links, etc. a whole plethora of content options available to correlate to the social profile.

I think from the users perspective also when you share your comment or views on the Google+ profile where the blogpost link has been shared you have a better chance of correlating that content to your social profile rather than commenting on the blog where the blog post is published.

Eventually all the Google+ data being accessible by Google is an overall added advantage . So, atleast from the search perspective currently Google+ has a win-win potential to become a complete blogging platform converging your overall web identity on a single platform .

(Google+) = Blogging (Personal + Professional) + Social Media + UGC + Location + (+1 Counts) + Image Albums + Videos + Recommended Links to integrate your overall web presence = Search Plus

Image As Shared on http://goo.gl/bTA5d

Google / SEO / Social Media - 01/09/2012

Google+ Business Pages – Build A Brand And A Voice For Your Company Locally And Globally

Author : Bharati Ahuja

Google just announced the introduction of Google+ Business Pages a collection of tools and products that help you grow your audience. At the core of this is Google+ Pages, your site’s identity on Google+.

You can create a Google+ Business Page on https://plus.google.com/pages/create. It’s not yet available for everyone, but will be “soon” according to Google. If it available for you then you will be given the following category options:

Local Business or Place
Product or Brand
Company, Institution or Organization
Arts, Entertainment or Sports
Other

Google+ pages interact in the Google+ world similar to the way that regular Google+ profile owners do - they can

add people to circles,
edit their profile,
share things in Google+,
+1 comments and photos, and
create and join Hangouts.

But Google+ pages and Google+ profiles are not entirely the same.

Differences between Google+ Pages and Google+ Profiles

Pages are extremely similar to profiles, but they have some key differences:
Pages can’t add people to circles until the page is added first or mentioned. Learn more.
Pages can be made for a variety of different entities whereas profiles can only be made for people.
The default privacy setting for elements on your page profile is public.
Pages have the +1 button.
Pages can’t +1 other pages, nor can they +1 stuff on the Web.
Pages can’t play games.
Pages don’t have the option to share to ‘Extended circles’.
Pages don’t receive notifications via email, text, or in the Google bar.
Pages can’t hangout on a mobile device.
Local pages have special fields that help people find the business’ physical location. Learn more about local pages.

Some of the organization business pages already available are

All American Rejects
Anderson Cooper 360
Angry Birds
Barcelona Football Club
Burberry
Dallas Cowboys
Good Morning America
H&M
Macy's
Modelland
The Muppets*
Pepsi
Phoenix Suns
Save the Children
Special Report with Bret Baier
Toyota
Train
WWE
X Games
Zen Bikes

We too just created our page on WebPro Technologies

Google has also uploaded a video regarding business pages:

Its always great to have a clear identity about your business and personal profiles on social media . These kind of demarcations also draw a clear line between social media marketing and social media optimization . As having a social media presence for any business is essential but setting the purpose for using the social media platform wisely to attain maximum reach and benefit is also essential.

Our blog post on http://blog.webpro.in/2011/07/setting-purpose-of-your-social-media.html has more information about it.

Google / Social Media - 11/08/2011

SMX East 2011 – Part 2

Day 1 at SMX East ended with an evening forum with Danny Sullivan which had an overall focus on search and social.

Some of the statements made by Danny Sullivan and which were shared on Twitter were:

It’s a Google’s world. We just rank in it. Or not.
The 4 Cs Of SEO Success: Code, Content, Connections (links) & Conversation (social).
Link Earning instead of Link Building
Is link building dead? Great question asked by audience member. Audience & @dannysullivan say no!
Social media is the new link building
Reminder to all: .Co is fine, .Com is always good, & .Co.CC was the pure evil that got obliterated.
You rock as a brand if the CPC for your brand is pennies on the dollar and you have 8 sitelinks.
Is there a way to know when you have arrived as brand? - Yes, when you have a Google ad rep
If people leave the site because their info need was fulfilled it's not a bounce
"If you have no Panda problems, don't fix things"

On Day 2 - 14th Sept. 2011 My Focus was on the Technical SEO Track Sessions. They were as follows: Duplication, Aggregation, Syndication, Affiliates, Scraping, and Information Architecture Presented By: · Brian Cosgrove, TPG · Vanessa Fox, Search Engine Land · Matt Heist, High Gear Media

Too much syndicated content dilutes the value of the original content.
THE CHALLENGES - Feeds from suppliers, Too many categories, Items are too similar
Writing unique content is the cost-of-entry for SEO
TOOLSET FOR SUCCESS - SEO Strategy, Keyword Mapping, Content Strategy,Work flow,Style Guide,Content Calendar, Creative Brief
If you have too many sites and the content is distributed and thin then it is not good
Have fewer but content rich sites with clear audience segments
Content resonates in search AND social.
With the evolution of Social (joining Search from a distribution perspective), premium content that is authoritative AND fresh will flourish

Schema.org, Rel=Author & Meta Tagging For 2012 Presented By: · Janet Driscoll Miller, Search Mojo · Topher Kohan, CNN · Jack Menzel, Google

Semantic (Structured Code) The semantic web is a “man made woven web of data” that facilitates machines to understand the semantics .
TYPES OF STRUCTURED DATA FOR SEO - Rich Snippets, Rel=Author, Schema.org
TYPES OF RICH SNIPPETS Reviews , People, Products, Businesses & Organizations, Recipes, Events, Music
REL=AUTHOR RESTRICTIONS - Doesn’t support multiple author blogs , Only works on same site (i.e. won’t work yet for syndicated content), Only works on self-hosted sites
SCHEMA.ORG - Created by Google, Bing and Yahoo! - Launched June 2, 2011 - Way for engines to easily identify types of content
Some Problems - Schema is a “New” mark-up, Standards not in place, Not a big ROI right now
But, it is the right time to implement as these are in all probability to be given importance by the search engine. Hence, when they will become a priority the site which already has these snippets and microformats in place will have a probability to be ahead .
Best Time to Implement is when - Moving to a new CMS, Launching new templates, Launching a new site, Site redesign, Down dev cycles
Some of our related blog posts on this topic are:

http://www.webpro.in/what-is-hcard-integration/ http://www.webpro.in/authorship-markup-and-the-rel-attribute Real Answers For Technical SEO Problems Presented By: · Vanessa Fox, Search Engine Land· Todd Nemet, Nine By Blue The main discussion was on - How To Evaluate Site Architecture For Technical SEO Without Launching A Browser?

Look at things like… Network, Web access logs, HTTP response codes, HTTP response headers and talk to the network admins/developers
Checking load balancing
Checking server latency
Checking network latency
Checking for duplicate sites
Web access log analysis
Monitor and check crawling inefficiency
Identify Duplicate Content Problems
Have a proper error handling page
Make the site Cache friendly

Making Data From Google Webmaster Central & Bing Webmaster Tools Actionable

Presented By: · Duane Forrester, Bing· Vanessa Fox, Search Engine Land· Tiffany Oberoi, Google· Myron Rosmarin, Rosmarin Search Marketing, Inc.

Stop Running Reports. Start Providing Analysis.
Reporting is Pulling data and plugging it into a spreadsheet - Analysis is: Making sense of data, providing insights for improvement and providing explanations
The Webmaster Tools are valuable sources of “Diagnostic Data”that enable you to provide a more thorough analysis of problems your site may have so you can take action toward improvement
Numbers without something to compare to don’t mean much.
Everything is Relative
Pull data at appropriate time intervals

Eventually everyone has to accept the fact as Danny Sullivan said that it’s a Google’s world and we rank in it or not… The presentation’s last slide said: :)

God, grant me the serenity to accept

the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.

Day 3 Sept. 15th 2011 The conference on the third day was only for half a day till 3:00 p.m Link Building: Why You're Doing It Wrong

Presented By

· Jenny Halasz, Nine by Blue· Byrne Hobart, Digital Due Diligence · Rae Hoffman-Dolan, Sugarrae SEO Firm

Link building is important. But,

Try to build natural links. Go for quality over quantity
Guest Post = Your Inbound Link Value
When you write guest posts see that you put few links and make the post as informative as possible
When you write a guest post or any blog post on any general topic try to correlate it with your niche industry so that it has a probability of going viral in both the fields

According to Rae Hoffman-Dolan Points to consider…

Check for existing writer guidelines before contacting
Send personal and individual emails
Use names whenever possible
Prove you’re not a bot
Ask a genuine question
Never assume they know who you are
Include a potential topic idea and example post
DO NOT MENTION LINKS (but do mention edits)

Beyond Rankings: Actionable SEO Reports Your Boss Will Love

Presented By: · Vanessa Fox, Search Engine Land· Max Thomas, Thunder SEO· Marty Weintraub, aimClear

Rankings as a metric is easy to understand hence the popularity but, Only looking at rankings does not give an idea about indexing and crawling
Measure the impact of changes made on the site
Monitor Errors Over time alongwith Google Page Not found errors

According to Vanessa Fox : Do not look at keyWords look at people use searcher personas to connect SEO to conversion Personas > related pages for those personas > Keywords for those pages > Rankings for those pages

Cluster by category impressions, clicks, CTR, Avg. Position
Organic impressions = Technical SEO + Sematic SEO
The Title tags the main tag responsible for high CTR
If you have high rankings and If your CTR is bad then your title tags are probably bad.
People don’t pay for what they don’t understand.
Empower Your Primary Client
Make it easy for them to convey easily what’s happening Don’t wait for them to tell you. Figure it out. Ask questions.

Reports Should Demonstrate:

What’s working
What’s not
Where to focus resources
Connection of SEO/SMM to sales (or conversions)
How to explain to key decision makers so they understand

Don’t highlight their LACK of digital knowledge. Instead chalk out the difference between goals and metrics very clearly in a layman’s language. Do not use digital jargon while conveying the importance of goals or explaining the metrics to the client. One size Report does not fit all. Reporting should be done as per the client’s understanding.

SEO / Social Media - 09/20/2011

SMX East 2011 – Part 1

SMX East 2011 conducted from the 13th of Sept. to 15th of Sept. in New York had the agenda focusing on the following categorized topics Day-wise:

Day 1– 13th Sept. 2011	Day 2 – 14th Sept. 2011	Day 3– 15th Sept. 2011
SMX Boot Camp	Social And Vertical Search	SEO
The Big Picture	The Big Picture	Analytics & Conversions
Enterprise & In-House	Technical SEO	SoLoMo
Best Of SMX Advanced	Paid Search	Paid Search
Sponsors And Partners	Sponsors & Partners and Site Clinics	Site Clinics

The complete agenda can be viewed on http://searchmarketingexpo.com/east/agenda

My main area of interest was organic search hence I attended the sessions focused on SEO.

An SEO conference is a platform for multiple sessions and it is very difficult to make a choice of what to attend but the main highlights and takeaways of what sessions I attended are as follows:

Day 1 – 13th Sept. 2011

The Big Picture Track - The Great Correlation vs. Causation Debate Presented by:

· Eric Enge, Stone Temple Consulting

· Micah Fisher-Kirshner, Become, Inc

· Mitul Gandhi, seoClarity

· Kristine Schachinger, SitesWithoutWalls.com

· Tony Wright, WrightIMC

Correlation is: A mutual relation between two or more things where one has a measurable effect on the other.
Causation is: A relationship in which one action or event is the direct consequence of another.
In every Causal relationship there is a Correlative One, but there is not a causal effect in every correlative one
We sometimes perceive something to have an effect but it may not have an effect as that can be a misperception.
The only way to eliminate false positives are is to measure test everything over a period of time with a wide array of data.
Almost everything in SEO is correlative not causative.
In causal relationships, you can directly measure that A does CAUSE B
In correlative relationships, you can only measure the STRENGTH of the effect of A on B
Correlations are a place to start not an end. Have a sanity check and and question its sensibility before coming to conclusions.
Before testing be sure of what is the return on your investment to collect and test this data?
Make sure that you are considering all important variables in time and do not rely only on snapshots in a short time span.
Be sure you have enough data and factors to run a linear regression
SEO is on a time line on a linear position. A single trend is not a pattern or a causal relationship.

The Big Picture Track

Panda-Proofing Your Content
Presented By:

· Justin Briggs, Distilled

· Horst Joepen, Searchmetrics

· Heather Lloyd-Martin, SuccessWorks Search Marketing

· Chris Silver Smith, KeyRelevance

Only 12% of websites in Google index were affected by Panda update – Matt Cutts
We are content marketers if we have a blog or a site.
“Panda isn’t simply an algorithm update. It’s a platform for new ways to understand the web and understand user experience.” (Vanessa Fox)
“It’s not a new algorithm – it’s a new factor.” (Danny Sullivan)
“It is easier to reliably detect social spam than link spam.” (Stefan Weitz and Maile Ohye)
Combination of automated metrics and human factors;
It’s a method for modelling webpages and websites which have certain usage profile combinations, scoring those combos, then using the scores to rank pages. (Chris Silver Smith)
When you produce cheap content then it is not meeting any goal
Create Quality content – Search Engines do not pay your bills your customers do.
Stop asking what Google wants. Find out what your users want.
Evaluate your content assets
Plan the Repurpose of content
Develop an editorial calendar
Watchdog the quality
Leverage it when properly planned and evaluate
Get everyone on the same page about SEO content. This could be a quick discussion - or an in-house training. Consider what works best for your team

Enterprise & In House Track

In-House SEO Operations: How Things Get Done

Presented By:

· Laura Callow, intuit

· Simon Heseltine, AOL Inc.

· Erika Mamber, Demand Media

· Ulli Muenker , Bloomberg

Use SEO as one of the fundamental building blocks in everything you do on your website.
Ensure SEO is a part of the DNA of your organization.
Build buzz and cultivate mindshare.
Tailor the buzz for the relevant audience and add your spin
Make it actionable
Be seen, be heard, be involved
Educate, Elaborate, Excite, Empower, Evangelize
Share the SEO why behind the what, because understanding builds a sense of ownership
If opportunity cost > available resources + cost of vendors Then hire vendors Else don’t hire vendors
Ensure your team works according to an accountable system for delivery. Boil up to meet company / business objectives and vision

SEO / Social Media - 09/19/2011

Social Media Engagement Is Much More Than The Count Of Followers, Klout Score, likes, Shares & Google+1s

Author : Bharati Ahuja

Since Google started focusing on social and real time search results, the search marketers are on a spree to shout out the importance of social media presence to their clients especially for SEO campaigns.

But, the main questions here are:

What is the purpose of the presence ?
What kind of presence will boost the social persona which will have a direct positive correlation and will leverage the search presence and visibility?

Google says, that their main objective is to give relevant search results to the users . For that they keep on working on the search algorithms and keep working on the prioritization of the ranking factors. They introduced the PageRank concept to improve the quality of search results which gave origin to the link spam on the web. To improve upon this when the social media sites got inhabited by users and people started sharing online Google started taking these signals to improve the quality of search results. The main reason being that if people recommend a certain product or appreciate a certain link then it will act like a vote just like an inbound link does. Moreover this kind of recommendation would not only be a vote but a personal preference and a choice too.

Hence if at all a social media presence wants to boost the search visibility then the social media engagement and interaction has to be a quality interaction rather than a voluminous number. Just as in case of inbound links it is the quality links and natural links which Google wants to reward . Similarly if your social media signals convey the message that you share about a certain topic in your niche your identity gets associated with it.

Social persona is all about trust, authority, great content on links which you share and which get shared further via shares and retweets . If the time and effort that you are spending on social media is not creating this kind of persona then you are probably wasting time. Your grandparents are also probably having a facebook presence but their objective is not to pass the social signal juice to Google but maybe its just to keep in touch with you.

Hence to develop the right base to create a right social persona and aura which will generate the right signals to the search engines :

Develop trust by having a regular presence and a genuine complete bio description with links to your site and blog.
Share knowledge by asking and answering questions and thereby prove your authority in your field.
Share links from your site share valuable content and links from other sites to appreciate efforts made by others in the same field or niche that you want to focus on .
As a high conversion rate is more important than more traffic in numbers, a good WOM developed by the social media presence is more important than more no. of followers.
Do not narrow down your circle to only those with whom you are comfortable interacting with widen your circle , follow more and more people to know more about your industry and reach out to more.
Trust cannot be built in a day, work patiently , honestly and genuinely keeping your ego in check so that people feel comfortable to interact and share the industry trends with you but in case things do not go as per your principle you always have the unfollow and block option.
Do not fake a personality. Don’t just try to be a natural but simply be one. In the social world it is not necessary to agree to everyone and please everyone and neither it is true vice versa hence voice your opinions and raise objections when necessary. Have a right avatar pic which reflects your true personality.

Your Klout score, no. of followers, no. of likes, shares, +1s, etc. will all be meaningless if you do not meet the above quality criteria as Google will leverage your search presence and visibility when people trust you, consider you as an authority in your field or atleast as an active participant in the discussions related to your niche who has personal opinions to share and has a genuine identity.

Social Media - 09/06/2011