Search Engine Ranking Is All About Social
Before it was important, now its critical.
Google loves awesome content, it’s always been a massive part of how their search algorithm works. Years ago, linking would be a massive part of whether your site appeared high in search rankings or not, it was critical. This was based on the simple automation premise that good content gets links back to other sites. That unfortunately was not always the case, as many SEO’s found out and exploited over a period of years. Google realised this (we all knew they would eventually).
They’re passionate about bringing the best possible results to you through search, they’ve invested bucket loads of cash and time into making search a better experience both in terms of quality of results and the whole user experience. Since Google+ there have been a lot of predictions into how google+ will integrate into search and vice versa. Will +1's count to a sites search position? Will google+ brand pages get placed ahead of facebook or twitter profiles?
Googles had a few issues with social network developers too — with the amount of content being restricted from google search results.
They’ve also been working on answering questions directly in search.
What might get a little scary for certain industry’s is when google start answering questions that people are bidding to answer…
This search question “Best Hotel In London” brings up the usual sponsored ads at the top and side, but then also a newer alternative just underneath.
On top of these changes, there have also been some early testing (beta was around June 2013) for Google Review Extensions. Review extensions allowed people to include one line reviews in the adwords that companies were paying for. Theres a more thorough blog post about this from SearchEngineLand here.
So, what has this all got to do with social and search being more important for each other? Well to answer that, lets first look at this image below:
You can see from the top 8 factors on this chart that social is important for 7, of the top 8 factors to appear in natural search.
This is a great reference point when reviewing an existing site you may have or thinking about building a new one. Obviously, setting up a Facebook Page or Pinterest Board alone is not enough. Google is already measuring forms of engagement here too with facebook comments, likes, shares and google +1's (which are all forms of engagement, even if some are just clicks). So don’t just create the profiles and think you’re done. Content calendars, tone of voice and a whole social media strategy needs to be created or adopted to make sure you are making the best of the content you’re creating to compliment your audience, social profiles and website.
It’s now got easier but a lot more difficult.
Well let me first tell you how its got easier..
Tracking.
It will be easier to track conversions now that you’re looking more seriously at social and your site together, rather than 2 separate entities.
Storytelling.
Easier, because you can update site and social together in unison and give people a more “together” experience rather than feeling that site and social are two different things. People should feel that your social profiles extend the story you are telling on your site and your site centres & concentrates on specifics of your story or business.
KPI’s Are Go
Social, SEO & Digital people should be more joined up in your business. Rather than thinking (and i’m not saying everyone does) that people that work in different digital specialties are from a different planet, with their own language, they should be able to work collaboratively together with a common goal and list, record, measure those achievements as a unified KPI.
More difficult..
Collaboration Can Be Hard.
New systems may need to be put in place, more meetings set up and additional costs getting all the right people in a room more often. But with every challenge comes an opportunity — and here it is about making your ‘digital talent’ more unified to achieve common goals together. Look into enterprise sharing and collaboration such as Huddle or Box. Think about the content thats being produced and how your mixture of social channels can tell the story in different ways. Each social network has its own nuances around eticat, messaging and general use. Each team needs to be an equal partner is this new relationship.
Leadership.
With this in place — who is the person to sign off the plan? The CEO? The CMO? The COO? unless its a digital agency or real digital business, chances are the people at the very top don’t know their meta tags from their asshole. Why should they? they are busy keeping their customers, suppliers, distribution and management happy. There needs to be an assigned leader to oversee this practice that can evaluate all the options from all of the parties and agree with the KPI’s being set.
My Industry Is Boring.
I hear this a lot. Especially in B2B — people just think the industry sector, whatever it is, lets say “office cleaning” is boring for people to include in social — even worse on their website. First, whats the common thread here? Well i’d expect to see stock images of happy people cleaning desks when I visit a site when I’m researching an office cleaning firm.
I’m really looking for recommendations and trust coming from real testimonials of people using the firm in a similar position to me. If people are involved in video testimonials, then i’d think they were even more trusted, as they’ve gone out of their way to say “these guys are awesome”. The creative solution is the answer here. For some inspiration — and a fairly boring industry (a florist) have a look at this.
So in summary having your social, SEO and content working together in unison with common goals and a clear content strategy — all defined with purpose against key KPI’s (views, social sharing, sales, repeat visits etc) will be the key pillars that your site and social presence will need to be successful. Moving forward in 2014 and beyond search and social will have to continue to merge, as google knows (Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman mentioned in a recent Bloomberg interview here that they underestimated social and won’t make those mistakes again) social is growing and search will only progress if it is totally emerged in this space too.
It’s time to book some flights and get those teams in a room.
