Excellent article. Explains very clearly which are tactics and which are goals. It's amazing how many people get these confused! We try (with our clients) to start with the goal and work backwards to keywords and strategy, and finally tactics.
Paula Dauncey
· 7 months ago
Excellent article and I couldn't agree more, SEO and social media should go hand in hand when promoting your website and content. It's like all marketing, there is never a single factor that delivers, it's a combination of a variety of well planned and executed tactics.
leeodden
· 7 months ago
Exactly! No silver bullets here.
Athlyn Green
· 7 months ago
Incredibly comprehensive overview, which, incidentally I Stumbled. Very impressive compilation of timely information.
Facebook User
· 7 months ago
Great article! I've been looking at balancing PR with SEO. You can read more thoughts here: http://bit.ly/4izzCe . I think social media and SEO also a good topic for thought, and potentially easier to achieve.
pixelpointpress
· 7 months ago
An excellent explanation of how and why to combine social media and SEO. But even better is what you teach about how to plan and draft a strategy - so many companies fail to grasp this and spend an awful lot of time and money on a smattering of outlets without a core objective or concrete goals.
Lorna Li
· 7 months ago
Another great post, Lee. I love it. Thanks!
TJ Kelly
· 7 months ago
The real point of SEO is to create conversions (whatever that means for you). Social media is just another form of exposure. If you ask me, it's the most important one.
This is a great article and it is so true. Has anyone heard of Centered Magazine. I ran across it yesterday and I thought there idea was quite interesting. They are going to be comparable to Facebook, Monster, and an online magazine integrated into one. I am very interested in how this will turn out. Check it out at www.centeredmag.com and let me know what you think.
Rafael Montilla
· 7 months ago
Very creative!
Srividya
· 7 months ago
Awesome article.. Thanks for sharing great information on benefits of combining SEO and Social media. Enjoyed reading it..
dominiq
· 7 months ago
Great article and great approach: strategy , game plan, tactics. I have a question so... I zoomed on the influencer list (a large version would be great)
Can you please tell me what audience, topic and community this list is about ?
I see green and auto blogs but also Engadget and blogs that come from the Personal Finance community like GetRichSlowly. I also see sites like Digg, Youtube, Autopia and AOL.
How did you build this list and how would you use such a list ?
I have the impression that you had a keywords focus too early in the process. (step 2). We offer a different approach to influencer identification. Here is an example of our influencer list for "social media" http://blog.ecairn.com/2009/02/09/top-150-socia... and we may be able to help you build a relevant list of influencers if you tell us more about the audience you want to reach.
Best Thanks
leeodden
· 7 months ago
Hi Dominiq, you have a very good eye! The influencer list was dynamically generated within Radian6 based on "fuel efficient cars" and related phrases. The way we'd use that list is to identify (according to adjustable criteria) which sources make sense to develop a relationship with.
It would be useful to know the criteria used for your top 150 list.
Dominique Lahaix
· 7 months ago
Thanks for your response.
Relative to the top 150, ranking is almost a no brainer, what's tough is to assemble a list of 1000's of relevant blogger for any given topic. This is an area we have some IP -patent pending - and process/expertise.
What I can tell you is that I don't believe one can map a community with a few related phrases. Defining the community you want to focus on needs is, strategic and needs more "intelligence" to be injected in the process to get to a result one can use. Best
leeodden
· 7 months ago
"no brainer" isn't much of an answer
Dominique Lahaix
· 7 months ago
Hello Lee,
Sorry for my wording. What I meant is that between relevance and influence, it's the first one that is the challenge.
This is really a great article which will be very helpful for the understanding SMO and SEO.
Pankaj J
· 7 months ago
Excellent article, not just for the quality of concent, depth, but also because it emphasises on the fact that any vertical in online domain, planning and stratergy is very important and how it can transform the whole response metrics..
Pankaj J
· 7 months ago
Excellent article, not just for the quality & depth in content, but also because it again emphasises on the fact that it is so very important to club stratergy with planning to change the whole response metrics..
Kevin Sandridge
· 7 months ago
Lee - one of the BEST process approach SEO articles I've read in recent past. Very nice job. I espeically like the point about creating a tactical mix. It is so easy to get lost in the SEO Fog! Your suggestion here drives home the need to plan your work and work your plan! :) Thanks!
leeodden
· 7 months ago
Exactly, thanks Kevin. Hopefully these gentle reminders help people get on the right track. :)
Bo Radley Seeger
· 7 months ago
Lee, Great article. Just as one needs to flesh out a robust linking campaign and not put all eggs into one basket, so it should be with social media and SEO. It's all about being thorough and diverse.
Catherine Cantieri, Sorted
· 7 months ago
So much good info in this post! I've saved it to delicious so I can use it as a to-do list. :)
angieweeks
· 7 months ago
Thanks Lee! You always write great SEO and SMO advice that's easy, efficient, and effective! Keep up the great work :)
leeodden
· 7 months ago
Thanks Angie - glad you find it useful. Hopefully I'll be contributing here again in the future.
Briddick
· 7 months ago
excellent article that I think any person with a business should read. What I find so interesting is how little of the general public actually knows about SEO and social media as a means to market.
onecaseman
· 7 months ago
"For example, The Student LoanDown, the popular blog about student loans and college financing from Wells Fargo, identifies 29 keywords in its Keyword Meta Tag and doesn’t rank in Google’s first page for 26 of them. Those that do rank are variations of the blog’s name."
I don't understand this sentence. Didn't Google stop looking at the keywords meta tag years ago? If you wanted to test how a blog's meta keyword usage affected its rankings, you would need to look at their Yahoo rankings, because I believe they still value meta keywords slightly. Perhaps I'm missing the point.
Unrelated, Mashable's Share This icons are some of the best I've seen. Very clean.
leeodden
· 7 months ago
Hi Casey, yes you're right. Keyword meta tags are almost certainly not used for ranking web pages. The statement had nothing to do the meta keyword tag as a ranking factor.
The reason I mentioned it was that publishing keywords in a keyword meta tag is a pretty strong indication of what a web site is trying to rank for, even though the actual meta tag does nothing.
There are many other efforts on the site to show search engines what keywords they wanted to rank for - unsuccessfully.
onecaseman
· 7 months ago
Cool. Thanks for the clarification. I've seen you speak before and probably learned some stuff like that from you, so I knew something wasn't right with what I was reading. I think just the way it was worded made me think you were running an SEO test using meta keywords.
I guess looking at the meta keywords tag is probably the best way to figure out what a page is trying to rank for (or trying to get ads for if they use AdSense). I should probably do that with my competition. Thanks again for the clarification and keep up with the posts!
Mark Essel
· 7 months ago
Great resource/reference page. Consider it bookmarked Mr. Odden.
leeodden
· 7 months ago
Thanks Mark!
Tom Bathgate
· 7 months ago
This is a great article. I have to admit as someone who doesn't know a lot of a seo and social bookmarking, this is a really well written article. Glad I found this! I imagine if you are using these carefully and going where your potential clients are it's a great chance to build up customer relations.
Another Blogger
· 7 months ago
Great article, I just wonder how to use this article to my blog :)
Website Optimization
· 7 months ago
Good information. Yes social media helps to list your site on top rank.
saferdates
· 7 months ago
Thanks for the great post! I love the clear direction and focus in what sometimes is an overwhelming project.
solexy
· 7 months ago
good article
ccduarte
· 7 months ago
Excellent help! I started recently as Online Manager for a sw company and unfortunately sometimes we don't have time to stop and plan, we have more then a 1000 ideas and we keep looking for ways to organize and successfully implement them.
SEO Tampa
· 7 months ago
A good and Excellent article For Every one who want to learn SEO.
Rod Claar
· 6 months ago
Great post. These are also good steps for individuals wanting to increase their online reputation to improve their job search effectiveness.
This article brings to light what I have believed in for quite a while. Social media and SEO go hand in hand and are interconnected to each other. There is no going around it and if there is an SEO "expert" who believes otherwise then they should have a better look at current trends of what people are using to communicate, share, explore, connect, laugh and discover new things that further enrich out life. For the successful company to be noticed out there, they don't have to have an SEO specialist on site but they need someone who is an SEO/Social Media expert handling their web site marketing.
Lauren
· 6 months ago
Great article, Lee - you hammer home some really important points. And Dror, I really agree with your comment. Even if site owners don't evolve into social media superstars, it's essential to, at the very least, understand what it is, why it's important, and the impact it has on your target demographic. It's crucial to have content that's well-received by search engines, but it's equally crucial to know where your audience is, what they're saying, and what they want. Hand in hand, indeed!
-Lauren (@beebow)
administrator
· 6 months ago
you can check to see if your search engine optimization is paying off here ... http://www.thebitbot.com
Paul Cinnamon
· 5 months ago
Very informative - and frightening at the same time
Paul Cinnamon
· 5 months ago
Very informative - and frightening at the same time!
Katy_Designers
· 4 months ago
I appreciate this article! I have been trying to get all of the tips I can.
Jerry
· 4 months ago
Lee,
You are right on about the need for integration in your marketing attack.
Jerry
· 4 months ago
Lee,
I have started a blog on my site because of advice you gave in an earlier article. It looks like I am going to have to tweet, etc, now.
Sort of late reading this but great informative article
Vickie Smith-Siculiano, PMP
· 4 months ago
SEO and Social Media have to be highly integrated for a successful campaign and building brand awareness - for business OR job seekers. I completely agree, and like the breakdown to five tips. I just did a post yesterday on SEO and social media on my blog, with six tips - we share thoughts similarly - Much success to you - let's stay connected!
Great article! I think the five step process is very effective. I didn't really think about the news being a form of social media. This article really explain how SEO and Social Media is a great combination.
Background Checks Interna
· 3 months ago
One of the best article i guess. Really great information here!! Awesome explanation of steps. Dividing things in five steps is really cool. Well done boss..
joel
· 3 months ago
Great article Lee.Even i was so confused with all these factors once.SEO and SMM work far better for websites when they go hand in hand.SEO can attract visitors thereby increasing the website traffic but only SMM can grab the attention of those visitors towards that site because SMM is the basis for creating quality links. Thanks for sharing great information.
Samster
· 3 months ago
thanx a ton for sharing such nice and informative view about social media promotion..it is really great one..!!
aronaharonoff
· 2 months ago
Thanks for giving this valuable information.
carloslorenzo
· 2 months ago
This an interesting approach. It is common to take care of SEO from the individuality of ones' blog or web while leaving the incredible opportunity social media offers aside. This post clears up the way to better understand the way both activities interact and the steps to be taken to get the best results in your way to success.
All Comments
Great article, Mashable. I recently wrote about using Twitter for SEO: http://www.tjkwebdesign.com/2009/04/using-twitt... Check it out!
Thanks for sharing great information on benefits of combining SEO and Social media.
Enjoyed reading it..
I have a question so... I zoomed on the influencer list (a large version would be great)
Can you please tell me what audience, topic and community this list is about ?
I see green and auto blogs but also Engadget and blogs that come from the Personal Finance community like GetRichSlowly. I also see sites like Digg, Youtube, Autopia and AOL.
How did you build this list and how would you use such a list ?
I have the impression that you had a keywords focus too early in the process. (step 2).
We offer a different approach to influencer identification. Here is an example of our influencer list for "social media" http://blog.ecairn.com/2009/02/09/top-150-socia... and we may be able to help you build a relevant list of influencers if you tell us more about the audience you want to reach.
Best
Thanks
It would be useful to know the criteria used for your top 150 list.
Relative to the top 150, ranking is almost a no brainer, what's tough is to assemble a list of 1000's of relevant blogger for any given topic. This is an area we have some IP -patent pending - and process/expertise.
What I can tell you is that I don't believe one can map a community with a few related phrases. Defining the community you want to focus on needs is, strategic and needs more "intelligence" to be injected in the process to get to a result one can use.
Best
Sorry for my wording. What I meant is that between relevance and influence, it's the first one that is the challenge.
Here is an article we wrote detailing our algo/approach. http://blog.ecairn.com/2008/11/11/answering-you...
Hope this helps.
Best
It's all about being thorough and diverse.
I don't understand this sentence. Didn't Google stop looking at the keywords meta tag years ago? If you wanted to test how a blog's meta keyword usage affected its rankings, you would need to look at their Yahoo rankings, because I believe they still value meta keywords slightly. Perhaps I'm missing the point.
Unrelated, Mashable's Share This icons are some of the best I've seen. Very clean.
The reason I mentioned it was that publishing keywords in a keyword meta tag is a pretty strong indication of what a web site is trying to rank for, even though the actual meta tag does nothing.
There are many other efforts on the site to show search engines what keywords they wanted to rank for - unsuccessfully.
I guess looking at the meta keywords tag is probably the best way to figure out what a page is trying to rank for (or trying to get ads for if they use AdSense). I should probably do that with my competition. Thanks again for the clarification and keep up with the posts!
Rod Claar
http://www.ProfessionalRecognition.com
For the successful company to be noticed out there, they don't have to have an SEO specialist on site but they need someone who is an SEO/Social Media expert handling their web site marketing.
-Lauren (@beebow)
You are right on about the need for integration in your marketing attack.
I have started a blog on my site because of advice you gave in an earlier article. It looks like I am going to have to tweet, etc, now.
Thanks
TILE MASTER - Atlanta Professional Bathroom remodeling and tile installation.
Vickie
http://www.VickieSmith.com
Thanks for sharing great information.