SES Live: Social Media Signals in Search

Aug 18, 2011 - 1:40 pm 0 by

Below is live coverage of the Social Media Signals in Search panel from the SES San Francisco 2011 conference. This coverage is provided by Shanon Woodruff at RankSmart.

Disclaimer: The coverage is brought to you in real time, using a custom live blogging tool. Feel free to ask questions or leave comments for inclusion into the live coverage. During the live event, live notes will auto-scroll with newest entries at top. After the session is complete the archive version will have the oldest entries at the top. We ask you to please excuse any typos, as these are live notes.

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Shanon Woodruff: 9:50:53 am
Social Media Signals in Search : SES San Fran 2011 Live Coverage

The winds of change are blowing. Both Google and Bing are making rapid moves to integrate social elements into their search results. Bing has a strong deal in place with Facebook and is leveraging that as much as it can. Google has launched its +1 button for web sites and is likely to make more significant moves. The social sites themselves are making rapid changes. Facebook offers Like buttons, Send buttons and Share buttons. Twitter has now launched their Follow button. How are all these changes going to affect you as a publisher? This can't miss session will give you insight into what is happening and how it affects your web site publishing strategy.

Moderator:
Richard Zwicky, Independent Consultant,
Speakers:
Eric Enge, President, Stone Temple Consulting
Duane Forrester, Senior Program Manager, Bing
Shanon Woodruff: 9:54:55 am
First up: Eric Enge, President, Stone Temple Consulting

He will be covering both the mechanics and a case study

How ranking used to work:

24% Trust/Authority
22% Link Popularity of Page
20% InBound Anchor Text
15% Key Word Usage
7% Traffic / Click Through Data
6% Social Graph Metrics
5 % registration / Hosting

What it might look like Now:

20% Trust / Authority of Domain
18% Trust / Authority of Page
16% Inbound Anchor Text
12% Engagement Signals
11% Key word usage
10% Content
9% Social
4% Registration
Shanon Woodruff: 9:59:50 am
Bing has a much heavier weighting in their search results.

Bing will also change the ranking for you based on things that your friends have liked, confirmed by Stephan White of Bing.

Location focused searches - Bing will leverage the Facebook feed

Bing uses the wisdom of the crowd to show how many people in your network likes what content. For example, Search "New York Post" and it will show you how many of your friends have "Liked" articles on that site.
Shanon Woodruff: 10:05:14 am
Now on to Google: Searches are starting to become influenced by Facebook lines and Google plus ones.

Anything that demonstrates interest in your site or content will be used in your ranking.

Twitter Authority:

-Number of relevant follower
-CTR of links you share by relevant followers
-Ration of followers to followed
-RT by relevant followers
-Age of account

Koult.com is a great way to measure your influence

Shanon Woodruff: 10:11:35 am
Case Study:

-Blog was semi-dormant
-8 posts between Sept. 2010 - May 2011
-Hey, I was busy
-Started back up in May 2011
-Wrote a great blog post
-Was RTed by an influential user
-Did not promote in any other way
-Rank 4th in key search term for the article


What is necessary for success in for social in search:

-Good Content
-Social Connection
-Leverage Important Influencers

Shanon Woodruff: 10:23:10 am
Duane Forrester, Sr. Product Manager, Bing

Socializing Search

Why is search moving in the direction of social?

What is missing in search? Emotion

Search can be very technical, and really has not taken much emotion into consideration. But things are beginning to change.

Why? Because people put more trust in those individuals that they know.

For example:

90% of people seek advice from family and friends before making a decision

80% of people delay making a purchase online before talking to someone

So what does this mean? Opinion Matters!


The Case for Social: The increase in the creation of content

Example: 25 Billion Tweets sent on Twitter in 2010









Shanon Woodruff: 10:24:53 am
He is now discussing the inter-connectivity of people through social media.
Shanon Woodruff: 10:27:28 am
But when we want to tap that info -

We Use: Trusted Friends; Collective IQ; Enabling Conversation


Shanon Woodruff: 10:34:01 am
What's the New Search Experience Mean for Publishers?

People Share > Content gets processed > Public Information comes to Bing, real time > Content processing and indexing > Ranking Annotation > User Experience

Reputation = More than Followers:

Users' Attributes: Friends, Followers, Follows

Users' Actions: Retweets, Replies, Others that share the some link, Likes

You have to be organic!

Social Spam?

Reciprocal friending is no more beneficial than reciprocal linking

Social Spam Behavior:

Spammy communities are highly visible - don't be a part of one
Shanon Woodruff: 10:40:41 am
Links help determine Quality -

Tweets and Posts = Quality Links

When optimizing your site for search, you invest in these major ares:

-Quality
-Trust
-Popularity
-Timeliness


Manage your social media, or social media will manage you!

Shanon Woodruff: 10:43:07 am
Three major components in search:

-Content
-Social
-Links

Think about how to build better websites. Future-proof your website.
Shanon Woodruff: 11:06:03 am
Q&A:

Q: Site has 10-13 different areas, can you talk about changing FB meta tags.

A: What is the best answer to a query. You should focus on what is being queried, what are people looking for. Make it as easy as possible. Search engines focus on the speed to the answer.

Q: Does size matter in follower size?

A: No, you have to realize that social can bring people through the door. It is all abut becoming personally involved. In social media it's quality over quantity. Build your trust base. Links, quality, targeting - become an authority.


Shanon Woodruff: 11:11:44 am
The End - Social Media Signals in Search : SES San Fran 2011 Live Coverage
 

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