marți, 6 noiembrie 2012

Your Guide to Social Signals for SEO

Your Guide to Social Signals for SEO


Your Guide to Social Signals for SEO

Posted: 05 Nov 2012 06:45 PM PST

Posted by Jayson DeMers

A brief history of social signals as a ranking factor

Almost two years ago, in December 2010, Danny Sullivan wrote an insightful piece on social signals and their influence on search engine rankings. The article explored the possibility of social signals affecting rankings, but was early for its time; scalable link building methods were all the rage (because they worked), and not much attention was paid to social signals across a large portion of the industry. Sullivan posed the question:

“…are either of the major search engines actually using those social signals to rank regular search results?”

He concluded that data from Facebook was largely unused by Google (due to not having access to personal wall data from Facebook), but that “retweets serve as a new form of link building. Get your page mentioned in tweets by authoritative people, and that can help your ranking in regular search results, to a degree.”

About two weeks later, Matt Cutts released a Webmaster video in which he confirmed that social signals do, in fact, play a role in organic SEO.

Today…

We’re still trying to figure out just how strong of a role social signals play in organic SEO rankings: multiple studies have been conducted to determine the exact correlation of social signals and SEO rankings, with varying results. However, it’s clear that the importance of social signals is increasing with time, and that begs several questions:

  • How and why do social signals improve rankings?
  • What’s the future of social signals with regard to SEO?
  • What steps should be taken right now to improve my website’s social signals?

My goal is to explore each of these questions to help readers develop a fundamental knowledge of the critical elements of social signals as they relate to not only SEO, but to the real goal of online marketing: increased website traffic and, ultimately, revenue.

How and why do social signals improve rankings?

While any answer to this question is highly debatable, I believe that social signals have both a direct and indirect impact on organic search rankings. Direct impact comes from:

  • Number of people that like your brand on Facebook
  • Number of Facebook shares
  • Number of Twitter followers
  • Number of tweets mentioning your brand name or including a link to your website
  • Number of people that “have you in their circles” (Google+)

From Searchmetrics:

Social signals ranking factors

Indirect impact comes from:

  • Increased inbound links and citations due to improved online visibility/brand awareness
  • Increased positive reviews (in Google Local , Yelp, etc.) due to happier customers
  • Decreased bounce rate, higher time on site, and more repeat visitors to your website

While the direct impacts are pretty straightforward, I’ll elaborate on the indirect impacts.

Increased inbound links and citations due to improved online visibility/brand awareness: The most powerful indirect impact of social media is its ability to generate new inbound links by improving brand awareness and overall online visibility.

If you’re able to be found, you’re able to be linked to, and links are still the most important and valuable ranking factor. In fact, while the debate heated up at the July 2012 SMX Advanced over whether social signals were catching up to links in terms of direct impact in the ranking algorithm, Danny Sullivan conducted an interview with Matt Cutts in which Cutts hinted that that links were still the most important criteria in comparison to social signals.

Cutts said, “So, there’s this perception that, yes, everything will go social, or links are completely obsolete, and I think it’s premature to reach that conclusion. I don’t doubt that in ten years things will be more social, and those will be more powerful signals, but I wouldn’t write the epitaph for links quite yet.”

Increased positive reviews (in Google Local, Yelp, etc.) due to happier customers: Social media is often being used these days as an extension of a company’s customer service department. Users can tweet to a company and expect their tweet to be answered. Likewise, customers can get support for a new product on a company’s Facebook page, saving them from annoying automated phone menus and unhelpful outsourced customer service departments.  

This easy access to a company helps users feel a closer, organic connection with the brand, increases customer loyalty, and builds consumer trust, all of which lead to more and better reviews on review sites like Google Local and Yelp. Participating in social media channels brings brands closer to customers and potential customers. A brand's social media "voice" defines its image and distinguishes it from a distant entity to a hip, trendy, brand. Think about what Apple did with its famous “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” commercials.

I'm a PC, I'm a Mac

 

According to Sam McRoberts, CEO of Vudu Marketing, the number of reviews and the positivity of those reviews are two of the three biggest factors in local search rankings. If that’s the case, then it’s not a stretch to believe that Google uses that information in its national rankings as well.

Decreased bounce rate, higher time on site, and more repeat visitors to your website: Consumers that are familiar with a particular brand via social media interaction are more likely to become repeat visitors of a website and spend more time there, increasing the average “time-on-site” metric.

While I’ve published my opinion that bounce rate doesn’t affect SEO rankings, I know there are many SEOs who still believe it does. With that said, a lower bounce rate is usually an indication of higher quality content, and lower bounce rate is generally considered to be better.

Time on site, however, can be used as a metric for organic search ranking. By timing how long it takes for a user to return to the search page after clicking a search result, then analyzing the new search query input by the user, Google can measure whether the visited site gave the user the answer or information they were looking for. Similarly, Google tracks repeat visits to the same website, often showing frequently visited websites highly in personalized search results (i.e. results shown to logged-in users).

So, we know Google tracks these metrics, but do they use them for ranking purposes? There’s no textbook answer, but I believe they do.

What’s the future of social signals with regard to SEO?

In two years, companies playing in competitive niches that don’t have a robust social strategy will be left in the dust by those that do; Social signals are becoming the new “link” in terms of overall importance in the ranking algorithm. While I don’t believe the value of links as a ranking signal will ever completely disappear, I do believe that direct and indirect impacts of social signals will eventually surpass links as the most valuable ranking factor.

Why? Several reasons:

  1. The world is becoming more social. Today’s kids are tomorrow’s consumers, and they are being raised communicating on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. As this generation ages, more consumers will spend more time on social media channels, likely causing an increase in social signals as those consumers interact with their favorite brands on the Web. People already spend more time on social networks than on search engines, and the gap will continue to grow.
  2. People are more likely to trust a website recommended personally by their friends than by a search engine. Websites with a strong social presence are more easily shareable and accessible, and thus easier to recommend. Search engines can also analyze these shares as recommendations, boosting the credibility (and rankings) of the website.
  3. Websites with a strong social presence have better conversion rates and brand loyalty, leading to more sales, more word-of-mouth referrals, and greater brand awareness, which all lead to more positive reviews and inbound links.

Aside from social signals eventually overtaking inbound links as the most valuable ranking signal, there’s a clear upward trend in the importance of AuthorRank as a ranking signal. The idea of associating content with an author, rather than the website on which it resides, is evident in Cutts’ December 2010 Webmaster video “Does Google use data from social sites in ranking?

Cutts says: “…We’re also trying to figure out a little bit about the reputation of an author or creator on Twitter or Facebook.”

Google expanded on this idea beyond just Twitter and Facebook by implementing Google Authorship, which allows Google to track authors across domains and assign authority and credibility to their content, allowing that content to not only rank higher in search engines for certain queries, but also pass more value to the outbound links contained within.

As Google gains more data on what authors are big players in each various industry/niche, I expect AuthorRank to play a more significant role in rankings. Strategic moves like Google+, Authorship tools, and AuthorRank indicate a careful and cautious approach towards “social search ranking.”

What steps should be taken right now to improve my website’s social signals?

Similar to SEO, there are two core elements to social media: onsite and offsite. In order to properly establish and grow a social media campaign, both elements must be present and refined.

Onsite elements include:

  • Share buttons (like, recommend, tweet, bookmark, etc.)
  • Connect buttons (Like a Facebook page, Follow on Twitter, Follow on LinkedIn, etc.)
  • A blog

Offsite elements include:

  • Facebook page
  • Twitter account
  • LinkedIn company page
  • Pinterest account
  • Youtube account
  • Guest blog posting
  • Other social media platforms

Here’s a quick step-by-step guide for launching your social media presence:

Step 1: Register your business at the social media channels listed above. Simply having a presence at each social channel creates inbound links and helps to establish credibility of your brand.

Step 2: Set up your company blog, if you don’t already have one. If you do, then start blogging at least once a week. Ideally, aim for at least once a day. Don’t just blog for the sake of blogging, though; make sure your articles contain useful, valuable, or original (qualified) insight. If you need help coming up with ideas on what to blog about, check out this article.

Step 3: Set up your onsite content engine. Whether you choose to do the blogging or you hire an expert writer to write for your blog, this step is crucial. Since I hired writers to write for my company blog a month ago, organic search traffic has jumped by 27.80% and is quickly trending upward. This is because every article published is liked dropping another hook in the water, to use a fishing metaphor. More content on a domain gives that domain more opportunities to rank for related search queries and accrue inbound links, which, in turn, strengthens the authority of the domain as a whole.

Organic search increase

Step 4: Set up your offsite content engine. If you don’t have time to participate on your Facebook page and Twitter account, then hire someone to do it for you. The title “Community Manager” is probably the fastest-growing job title right now due to the need for savvy social media marketers to manage a brand’s social presence. Don’t have budget for a full-time community manager? Hire a college intern. Most of today’s college students are very familiar with social media channels and how to effectively use them.

Step 5: Integrate your onsite and offsite content engines. Whenever a new blog post is published, announce it via your social channels. Similarly, encourage blog readers to join your social channels with social media “connect” buttons that enable readers to easily follow you on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+. Add social media “share” buttons so your blog content can easily be tweeted, shared on Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn. Always use images in your blog posts so Pinterest users can pin your images.

Conclusion

Social signals have come a long way in terms of their impact on SEO over the course of the last two years. We’ve gone from asking whether or not social signals play a role in organic rankings, to conducting numerous scientific studies in an attempt to determine the exact correlation between each type of social signal.

While we still don’t know the true impact of social signals (which, admittedly, is probably a moving target depending on many factors), we do know that social signals are increasing in importance with regard to the ranking algorithm, and will continue to do so.

Danny Sullivan’s insight into a correlation between social signals and organic search rankings marked the beginning of a new era in SEO: social search. Brands that have embraced social media not only enjoy the ranking benefits due to the impact of social signals, but also increased conversion rates, brand loyalty, and word-of-mouth referrals.


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Helping Small Businesses through Sandy

The White House Your Daily Snapshot for
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
 
Helping Small Businesses through Sandy

Was your small business, or the small business of someone you know, affected by Hurricane Sandy? As Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Karen G. Mills explains, "Getting businesses and communities up and running after a disaster is our highest priority at SBA," which is why the Small Business Administration has resources to help you rebuild your business or your home.

Get more information about SBA's resources, or forward to someone you know who's been affected.

Helping Small Businesses through Sandy

In Case You Missed It

Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog:

President Obama Gets Update on Storm Relief at FEMA
Following a briefing with FEMA leaders and Cabinet officers on Saturday in Washington DC, President Obama stressed the importance of making sure all those who have been impacted by Hurricane Sandy know that help is available for them.

Weekly Address: Recovering and Rebuilding After the Storm
In this week’s address, President Obama thanks the brave first responders and National Guardsmen for their tireless work following one of the worst storms in our nation’s history.

How to Help the Survivors of Hurricane Sandy
As recovery and cleanup in the wake of Hurricane Sandy starts along much of the East Coast, people across the country are asking what they can do to offer aid to their fellow Americans.

Today's Schedule

All times are Eastern Standard Time (EST).

2:15 PM: The Vice President Dr. Biden arrive Chicago, Illinois

TBD: The President delivers remarks at a campaign event; The Vice President, the First Family, and Dr. Biden also attend

Get Updates


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Seth's Blog : The whiner's room

 

The whiner's room

When my friend Elly taught in a middle school, he never hung out in the teacher's room. He told me he couldn't bear the badmouthing of students, the whining and the blaming.

Of course, not all teachers are like this. In fact, most of them aren't. And of course, trolling isn't reserved to the teacher's room. Just about every organization, every online service, every product and every element of our culture now has chat rooms and forums devoted to a few people looking for something to complain about. Some of them even do it on television.

The fascinating truth is this: the people in these forums aren't doing their best work. They rarely identify useful feedback or pinpoint elements that can be changed productively either. In fact, if you solved whatever problem they're whining about, they wouldn't suddenly become enthusiastic contributors. No, they're just wallowing in the negative ions, enjoying the support of a few others as they dish about what's holding them back.

It pays no dividends to go looking for useful insight from these folks. Go make something great instead.



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luni, 5 noiembrie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


Romney Still Ahead in Gallup Poll But Edge Drops to 1% from 5%

Posted: 05 Nov 2012 03:59 PM PST

In the latest Gallup national poll, Romney's edge has dropped to 1% (49% to 48%) with 3% undecided. In mid-October, Romney has as high as a 5% edge.
Romney's Debate-Period Surge May Have Run Its Course

Current voting preferences mark a return to the status of the race from Oct. 1-7, when Obama and Romney were tied at 48% among likely voters. After that, Romney moved ahead in mid-October during the presidential debate period, holding a three- to five-point lead in Gallup Daily tracking shortly before superstorm Sandy devastated many areas on the East Coast Oct. 29-30. Romney's and Obama's current close positioning in the Nov. 1-4 poll was measured as the Northeast continued to recover from superstorm Sandy, and after Obama's highly visible visit to the region.

Between Oct. 22-28 and Nov. 1-4, voter support for Obama increased by six points in the East, to 58% from 52%, while it held largely steady in the three other regions. This provides further support for the possibility that Obama's support grew as a result of his response to the storm.

The poll also shows Americans giving Obama high marks for the way he dealt with the storm: 68% of likely voters approve of the way he handled "the response to Superstorm Sandy," by far his highest approval rating on any of four issues Gallup asked about in the final poll. Obama's approval rating among likely voters on the other three issues ranges from 46% on foreign affairs to 42% on the economy, and 39% on handling the situation in Libya.
Sandy and Momentum

The election will be decided at the state level of course, but the wide inconsistency between the Gallup national poll and various state polls gave pause for thought, until now.

This morning in 90% Chance of Obama Win; Three Things Romney Needs to Win; Election Night Coverage With Mish on National Syndicated Radio I suggested momentum had shifted to Obama and hurricane Sandy provided a reason.

The Gallup poll which arrived in my in-box at 3:30 PM suggests the same thing.

Gallup split the remaining 3% of undecideds in a roughly equal manner giving Romney a 50-49% edge. That would indeed be too close to call, except other national polls have Obama in the lead, and most show the same shift.

The Gallup Poll was taken November 1-4 but there is no reason to believe the shift towards Obama stopped then.

Last minute voters tend to break one way or another in discernible blocks and momentum suggests the break will be towards Obama.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com


90% Chance of Obama Win; Three Things Romney Needs to Win; Election Night Coverage With Mish on National Syndicated Radio

Posted: 05 Nov 2012 10:02 AM PST

This election is all over but the final tally. I expect the winner to be announced soon after the West coast voting is closed.

The networks would all have you believe the election is a toss-up. For example, the Wall Street Journal just today reports Obama and Romney Deadlocked, Polls Show.
President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney crisscrossed the country Sunday to energize supporters in key states, as new polls forecast a down-to-the-wire election and both sides claimed they had the momentum to win.

The Romney camp, combing through surveys taken in the waning days of the campaign, pointed to strength among independent voters, anxiety over the economy and greater enthusiasm among conservatives as signs that the Republican would win, potentially with victories in states such as Pennsylvania and Minnesota that a GOP presidential candidate hasn't carried for decades.

Obama aides exuded similar confidence, citing polls showing the president remains resilient in potentially decisive states such as Ohio and Virginia.
Wall Street Journal Tossup Map

The Wall Street Journal depicts an election map that looks like this.



Quite frankly that map is complete nonsense. The idea that Obama can carry North Carolina or Indiana is as silly as the idea Romney can win Pennsylvania or Minnesota.

Spotlight Ohio

To help understand why Obama's chances are much greater than people think, simply look at the latest polls for Ohio.



The Real Clear Politics average projection is that Obama will carry Ohio by 2.8 percentage points. That is within the margin of error of the polls so the media calls Ohio a tossup.

By the same reasoning, the Wall Street Journal called Indiana, North Carolina and a grab bag of other states a tossup.

Well they are not. I was on Coast-to-Coast live national radio last night and told George Noory the odds of an Obama win were about 90%.

The reason is while every one of those polls may have a sampling error of say 3% the odds that all of the polls having a sampling error (in the same direction) of 3% is very small.

Only one poll out of 12 calls the election a tossup. The election is only a tossup if you think that is the one and only poll worth watching.

Similar analysis shows that Indiana and North Carolina are not in play either. This thought process should be easy enough to understand, on a state by state basis.

National Polls

National polls show the election to be very close. And on that score it is. Moreover, one thing Romney had in his favor recently was a consistent lead in national polls.

This lent hope to Romney Supporters for the idea the state polls were wrong and overly biased for Obama.

Well that changed in the last couple days. I believe it has to do with Obama's handling of hurricane Sandy couple with some really inept ads by Romney that were factually incorrect and auto-makers called him on it.

Whatever the reason, Obama is now ahead nationally.

Virginia

I wrote about Virginia five days ago in Governor Chris Christie Strongly Praises Obama's Response to Sandy; Could Christie's Comments Tip the Election?
Will Christie's Comments Tip the Election?

New Jersey, Christie's home state is solidly in the Obama column. However, storm-damaged Virginia is in a virtual dead heat. Praise from Governor Christie certainly cannot hurt Obama's election chances.

Mathematically, I do not believe Romney can win if he loses either Ohio or Virginia. Romney certainly cannot win if he loses both of them.

Here is question of the day: Is this genuine praise or is Christie looking to run for president in four years? I suggest both.

Regardless, widespread perception that Obama is doing a good job in response to Sandy, fueled by gushing praise from Christie may be enough to tip Virginia into the Obama column, and the election right with it.

In email exchanges with several readers who said I was off my rocker, I privately predicted Obama would carry Virginia.

Indeed, the latest polls now show Obama to be slightly ahead in Virginia.

Media Bias

Media has a clear and persistent bias, not necessarily for one candidate or the other (although some networks are clearly biased one way and others a different way). Rather, the bias I am taking about is a bias to keep you interested.

Regardless of who you are for, or who they are for, they all want you to tune in on election night and watch. The best way to do that is to pretend the election is a tossup when it's not.

It's like watching a football game where your team is down by 3 touchdowns with 5 minutes to go and the announcers pretend there is a reasonable chance of a comeback.

Assessing the Odds

This is all easy enough to see, provided of course you have an open mind on such things. The simple fact of the matter is most people do not have an open mind.

In general, people believe because they want to believe. They get mad at you when you say their candidate will lose, no matter how unrealistic the odds.

I am not a pollster, nor do I have a good way of assessing the odds. On my own accord I would have rated the odds about 2-1 last week and I would have them at 3-1 now?

So where does 90% come from?

The answer is a slight adjustment to the analysis by Nate Silver in his Five Thirty Eight Political Calculus Blog for the New York Times.

On November 3, Nate wrote For Romney to Win, State Polls Must Be Statistically Biased.

President Obama is now better than a 4-in-5 favorite to win the Electoral College, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast. His chances of winning it increased to 83.7 percent on Friday, his highest figure since the Denver debate and improved from 80.8 percent on Thursday.

Although the fact that Mr. Obama held the lead in so many polls is partly coincidental — there weren't any polls of North Carolina on Friday, for instance, which is Mr. Romney's strongest battleground state — they nevertheless represent powerful evidence against the idea that the race is a "tossup." A tossup race isn't likely to produce 19 leads for one candidate and one for the other — any more than a fair coin is likely to come up heads 19 times and tails just once in 20 tosses. (The probability of a fair coin doing so is about 1 chance in 50,000.)

Instead, Mr. Romney will have to hope that the coin isn't fair, and instead has been weighted to Mr. Obama's advantage. In other words, he'll have to hope that the polls have been biased in Mr. Obama's favor. (I recognize that 'bias' is a loaded term in political contexts. I'll explain what I mean by it in a moment.)
Momentum

I encourage you to read that article because Nate discusses sampling error, margins of error, time-frames and models.

Nate concluded But the state polls may not be right. They could be biased. Based on the historical reliability of polls, we put the chance that they will be biased enough to elect Mr. Romney at 16 percent.

Nate had the odds at 84-16. I used that as my starting point and asked the question "which way is momentum going?"

Right after the first debate and for two weeks following momentum unmistakably shifted to Romney. I was not reading Five Thirty Eight at the time but I thought the presidents chances dipped to 60% and he would lose if he messed up another debate. He didn't mess up another debate, and momentum to Romney stalled.

Momentum changed back to the president with Hurricane Sandy. There is a possibility that Sandy was just a coincidence and the momentum towards Romney simply played its course and shifted.

Nonetheless, and regardless of reason, four news polls show Obama in the lead in Virginia, and it is now conceivable Obama could lose Ohio and still win the election by picking up smaller states like Nevada, Iowa, and New Hampshire (states the president is actually favored to win).

Romney's only hope right now rests on three factors, all of which much be true for him to win the election.

Three Things Romney Needs to Win

  1. The state polls are wrong
  2. The national polls are wrong
  3. Momentum did not shift to Obama

With a tip of the hat to Nate Silver, I rate the odds of that parlay for Romney to be 10%.

Election Night Coverage With Mish on National Radio

Regardless of the outcome, I will be on Coast-to-Coast national syndicated radio with George Noory to discuss the election results and the impact on the stock market and jobs.

The broadcast starts at midnight Central, 10 PM Pacific.

Click here for a station in your area, many of which have an internet broadcast feed, even if none are close by.

Please tune in. And by the way, don't blame me regardless of who wins, I am just the messenger (and I am not voting for either of them).

"Wine Country" Economic Conference Hosted By Mish
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Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com


Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics


Most Unusual Road Signs of Leh-Manali Highway

Posted: 05 Nov 2012 03:09 PM PST

Leh–Manali highway in Northern India probably has the most unusual road signs in the world.




























Hot Hooters Girls

Posted: 05 Nov 2012 11:22 AM PST

Selection of hot Hooters girls photos.
















































































Obama vs. Romney: Where They Stand on the Issues [Infographic]

Posted: 05 Nov 2012 10:38 AM PST

Obama vs. Romney, who is better overall for the mortgage and real-estate industry? Success and failures by Obama and what Romney promisses if he gets elected.

Click on Image to Enlarge.
Via mortgagerefinance