Is generating social shares the new link development? A link works as a vote, social signals also works as a vote to your website. The search engines are serious about social signals. This is my presentation from SMX London 2012 about social shares becoming the new link building.

1. Social Shares
- the new link building
Lisa Myers
CEO, Verve Search
@LisaDMyers #SMXlondon

2. About Lisa Myers
• 11 years experience in Marketing, 7 in Search & Social
• Speaker at Search Conferences Worldwide (SES, SMX, A4U etc)
• Regular contributor to on and offline publications and author of several SEO Best
Practise Guides including eConsultancy and B2B Marketing
• Heavily involved in the global Search Community, founder of
SEO-chicks.com and co-founder of European search blog StateofSearch
Awards
• “Search Personality of the Year” UK Search Awards 2011 + “Best SEO
Campaign” for her agency Verve Search
• Management Today “35 women under 35” list 2009
• “Best Use of Technology woman under 30”
BlackBerry Woman & Technology Awards (2008)
• “B2B Marketing Newcomer of the Year” (2007)

3. What is a link?

4. It is in essence a “vote” from a
website to another

5. {some history

6. PageRank
Google developed PageRank to measure
importance of pages largely based on incoming
linking structure and quantity
@LisaDMyers #SMXlondon

7. {then came quality and
relevancy}

8. relevance + strength = quality
Site 2
link
/Page
Site 1
/Page
k
li n
 Not just about page 1 linking to your site,
Your Site
but about the overall SITE and it’s relevancy
 Also about Site 2 linking to SITE 1
@LisaDMyers #SMXlondon

9. latent semantic indexing
{ LSI }

10. Increased attention to anchor text relevance,
and the concept of link "neighbourhoods“. LSI
expanded Google's ability to understand
synonyms and took keyword analysis to the next
level.
@LisaDMyers #SMXlondon

11. FCUK
SEO

12. In 2012 the algorithm is
significantly more sophisticated,
but.....

13. {there are still weaknesses

14. A lot of spammy techniques still works
because the Search Engines aren’t
there ,YET. ....

15. INTENT

16. “In the beginning there were
robots” .....then they evolved...

17. “If your site is rather new and still unknown, a
good marketing technique is to get involved
in the community around your topic. Interact
and contribute on forums and blogs.”
Google webmaster central blog

19. evidence?

20. SEOmoz 2011 Study
Correlation between social signals and
higher rankings (this was pre G+)
Source: SEOmoz.org

21. Tasty Placement – Test 2012
Does Social Media boost
organic rankings. 6 websites
used in the test.
http://goo.gl/wxwPd
Source: TastyPlacement.com

22. but...

23. Boost in rankings from social shares is likely
to be restrained by time.

24. Is Google serious?

26. @LisaDMyers #SMXlondon

27. + My WORLD
@LisaDMyers #SMXlondon

28. Rel=author
@LisaDMyers #SMXlondon

29. }
Google + evidence
how serious
+ my World Google is about
Social signals
rel=author
@LisaDMyers #SMXlondon

30. subtle hint

31. WAKE UP

32. Not just an SEO but an Social SEO

33. Our job as SEOs is still the same. Creating
“votes” to a website.
Whether it is links or social votes.
@LisaDMyers #SMXlondon

34. Does not mean you need the concept of a
Meerkat campaign or the budget of Pepsi.

35. Just need CREATIVITY and the ability to
COMMUNICATE.
+ EXECUTION!!!!!!!
@LisaDMyers #SMXlondon

36. intelligent
provoking interesting
funny GREAT IDEA timing
competitions newsworthy
educational

37. examples

38. Day to Day Activity
• Research/White papers
• How to articles and blogposts
• Breaking industry news
• Infographics
• Competitions
• Interviews
@LisaDMyers #SMXlondon

40. Longer Term Social
• Creating a social community within your site
• Blog
• Hub for White papers, research etc
• Build up the social authority of people that
does work in your company
@LisaDMyers #SMXlondon

41. Thank You!
@LisaDMyers
Email: lisa@vervesearch.com
Web: www.vervesearch.com
@LisaDMyers #SMXlondon