20/10/2010

3 SEO Reasons To Get Involved In Social Media

It’s only over the last few years that organic search engine optimisation has been taken really seriously by mainstream businesses. It’s understandable, as  many people and businesses have been burnt by various Internet fads and made poor investments. Like buying MySpace.

There’s a lot of mixed feelings about “social media” (I don’t even think it’s a particularly great term, but it’s what we’re running with so…) If you’ve been keeping the social side of your online campaigns at arm’s reach, then here’s 3 ways how social media can have an impact on your search marketing campaign:

25% of major brand search results are user-generated content

You can’t control the mob

Whether you like it or not, you can’t control every single SERP. People are going to talk about you and these results are going to appear for your brand name or related service/product searches. If you’re not involved in these conversations, you will have absolutely no influence on what people say about you. Complaints left unattended tend to grow; especially online.

Social signals are blended into search

Search results are constantly evolving

Blended search results (such as local listing, Google Products or Maps) are commonplace now. These results directly include ratings and reviews of your company, your product and your service. These are powerful signals to new customers when they are making their decision to interact with you. If your SEO campaign does not take these blended results and their interaction with main search results into account, you may have a #1 ranking – but you may not like what it says.

Social will have a direct impact on rankings

The rules of SEO are changing fast

Social media signals are being integrated into pure search results. It’s very likely that even with blended and third party results aside, actual “pure” rankings will likely be impacted by social signals.

Are you confident about your social media strategy? Further are taking part in a free event, talking about social media at Bedford College in collaboration with the British Computer Society this Thursday. Why not pop along, or if you can’t make it – have a chat with us about your social media strategy.