Social media has changed the expectations of searchers. Searchers want fresher content, they want to see what their friends and contacts have to say, and they want access to experts and authority figures and their thoughts on timely events and news. Search engines have no recourse but to respond.”

1. Internet Summit 2011 Raleigh, NC
November 16, 2011
Next Level SEO: Social
Media Integration
Bill Slawski
SEO by the Sea
http://www.seobythesea.com

2. “Social media has changed the expectations
of searchers.
Searchers want fresher content, they want to
see what their friends and contacts have to
say, and they want access to experts and
authority figures and their thoughts on
timely events and news.
Search engines have no recourse
but to respond.”

3. As searchers and search engines
change, so does SEO

4. “Fail fast, fail smart.”

5. • Original Choice of name “Eden.com” not available
• Inexplicably popular in Brazil???????
• Sloooooooooooooooooooow

6. • Mobile Friend Location Service
• Under Supported by Google
• One original founder left to start Foursquare

7. • Micro-blogging service acquired by Google in 2007
• Open sourced by Google in 2009
• Filled with spam, more spam, and even more spam
• To be closed in early 2012

8. • First Google Q&A site, Google Questions and Answers
lasted 24 hours
• Knowledge Market with $ bounties/tips for answers
• Closed in 2006 though Google code named
“Confucius” Q&A sites remain in 68 countries

9. • Google developed APIs to be used by many social
sites (but Facebook stayed away)
• Originally part of a larger social network initiative
from Google

10. • Attracted Google’s attention with the publication of
“Anatomy of a Large-Scale Social Search Engine”
• Social Search Integrated into Gmail
• Abandoned with Google’s “More Wood behind Fewer
Arrows” movement

11. • Social Local Recommendation Service
• Confusion over name (hot spot?)
• Integrated into Google Places

12. • Search Annotation Service
• Share and rate comments left on web pages
• Victim of “More Wood behind Fewer Arrows”

13. • Confusing social communication and collaboration
tool
• Support as a standalone product ended in August
2010
• Parts of Wave now part of Google Plus

14. • Tool for social networking, micro-blogging and
messaging within Gmail
• Buzz about Gmail contacts being added by default
became a privacy nightmare Buzz never recovered
from

15. Socially Transformed Search Results

16. Old School Social Networking
Looking New
Before there were social networks,
there was social networking on forums,
Q&A sites, blogs, and more…

17. Forum Listings in Search Results
• Shows relevant snippet
• Lists number of posts and authors
• Shows date of last post
• Includes links to additional results
• Don’t need to be logged in to Google

18. Q & A Listings in Search Results
• Shows Question
• Shows number of answers
• Shows a snippet of the best answer
• Shows the date the question was asked
• Includes related questions

19. Real Time Results (on hiatus)
• Google Deal w/Twitter expired
• Google has pledged to reintroduce w/Google Plus
• Results very timely, covering recency sensitive queries
• Didn’t need to be logged into Google

20. Should I tweet about the earthquake first?
Or run outside really really really fast?

21. Real Time Search
• Address recency-sensitive
queries [earthquake]
• Avoid zero recall problem
(no relevant search results)
• Present novel, interesting,
relevant results
• Hard to use an “authority
rank” when social sites not
controlled by search engine
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/relevance-meets-real-time-web.html

22. Social Search Results
• Need to be logged into Google Account
• Known social connections +1’ed the page are shown
• A number of unknown others are also listed
• Will show when contacts shared posts on Google Plus

23. Social Search
• Search Results based upon intimacy and trust
• Includes social sites such as Twitter and Flickr
(Need to connect these to your Google Account)
• Now showing +1 activity and Google Plus Sharing
• Results based upon relevance, and perhaps a
User Rank
• Number of contacts = number of people who
may see you in social search results
http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=165228

24. Google Plus in Search Results
• Author profile picture
• Link to Google Plus Profile
• Listing of number of circles author is within
• Link to Google Plus post w/number of comments listed
• Everyone sees profile picture, number of circles, links to profile
• and thread, without being logged in
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=1408986

25. Authorship Markup
• Must follow steps to connect Google Account
to authored content
• All Blogspot and Youtube contributions
automatically incorporate authorship markup
• Some threshold contribution score in place
may determine whether profile picture and
other information appear in search results.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/06/authorship-markup-and-web-search.html

26. User Rank and Confucius
http://infolab.stanford.edu/~echang/Confucius-VLDB10.pdf

27. http://infolab.stanford.edu/~echang/CIKM-keynote.pdf

28. http://infolab.stanford.edu/~echang/CIKM-keynote.pdf

29. User Ranks and Credential Scores
An Authority score would be based
upon an analysis of the quality of
responses that someone makes on a
social networking site and the
contributiveness scores of the people
who posted that content.
Contributiveness scores would be based
upon the quality of something that you
post or upload to a social network and
the authority scores of people who
respond to that content.
http://www.seobythesea.com/2011/07/how-google-might-rank-user-generated-web-content-in-google-and-other-social-networks/

30. Why Google Plus > Twitter + Facebook
• Google has more access to collateral data about
social network interactions on Google Plus
• Google can create a credential score or User Rank
based upon meaningful contributions and
interactions
• Google authorship markup assigns a digital
signature to content you create inside and
outside of Google Plus which impacts search
display and likely rankings (especially with
recency sensitive queries)

31. SEO and Social Networking
• Promote your business and yourself through
both SEO and Social Networking
• Learn how best to use both together
• Develop best practices and strategies for
clients
• Teach and coach clients on how to social
network instead of networking for them
• Use Social to build meaningful and interactive
relationships rather than buying followers

32. Thank You!
Bill Slawski
SEO by the Sea
http://www.seobythesea.com