Presentation at Road to Conductor C3 in Washington DC. Covers the why search & social should work together, the benefits, opportunities and returns, noting that content is the bridge between disciplines and the largest win/win of having search & social teams collaborating.

1. Search. Social. So What?
“Why can’t we all just get along?”

2. Grant Simmons
VP of Search Marketing, Homes.com
@simmonet

3. Grant Simmons
VP of Search Marketing, Homes.com
@simmonet

4. • Established 1993
• 4th Largest Real Estate
portal in US
• 20+M Visitors a Month
@simmonet

5. #RoadtoC3

6. #RoadtoC3

7. Social Experiment
#RoadtoC3

8. Instructions:
• Get your mobile device out
• Take a photo
• Post it on your preferred social channel
• Tag #RoadtoC3
Ready??
@simmonet

9. #DESum15#RoadtoC3
Me
Not me

10. What can’t we all just get along?
Search. Social. And Silos.
@simmonet

11. 3 Things to Learn
1. Search & Social need
to work together
2. There are lots of signals
to the algorithm
3. Everything is content
AWESOME content!

12. Introductions
#RoadtoC3
@simmonet

13. Meet Sally Search
• Search geek
• LOVES Star Trek TOS
• Reads Moz Blog
• Has poster of Rand on
her wall
• Never missed episode of
Game of Thrones. EVER.

14. Meet Sam Social
• Social butterfly!
• English major
• Tweets his meals
• Loves Starbucks
• Takes pictures of
misspelled names on
cups, and posts them
to Instagram

15. Sally and Sam
work in silos

16. @simmonet
But they’re much
happier together

17. @simmonet
Why?

18. Sam Read A Book…
“Social signals are correlated to
rankings, so *my* social efforts
are causing us to rank better.”
“In fact the search team should
be buying my lunch and daily
triple, venti, soy, no foam latte.”

19. @simmonet
Umm No. Google says…
…we don't currently
have any signals like
that in our web search
ranking algorithms.
~ Matt Cutts, Google

20. But… Social Can Help SEO
• Research / Testing
• Discovery / Visibility
• Branding / Authority
• Content

21. Social + Search
Research & Testing
@simmonet

22. Social Keywords / Research
Data mine conversations:
• Queries
• Industry terms
• Natural language
• Synonyms
• Semantically-related
@simmonet

23. Research Tools
• Semantic<>Link
• Omgili
• Topsy
• Keywordtool.io
• Buzzsumo
@simmonet

24. Social Testing for Search
• Headlines
• Images
• Engagement
Did it ‘click’?

26. Social Testing
There is a fine balance
between click bait and
search optimized titles.
Social gives ideas
& Social let’s you test.

27. Fun [Social] Fact
What % of
online adults
use social
networking
sites?

28. Fun [Social] Fact
And… YouTube now
reaches more U.S. adults
aged 18-34 than any
cable network.
~ Moz
72%

29. Social + Search
Discoverability / Visibility
@simmonet

30. Discovery / Visibility
Twitter Firehose
= Visibility in Google
@simmonet

31. Discovery / Visibility
Google+ is still relevant as an ID & connector
• Posts are indexed
• Visible to circles
• Signal to Google to look
Martin Shervington
http://www.agorapulse.com/blog/google-plus-social-seo
@simmonet

32. Discovery / Visibility
“If people are loving you, if you’re getting all
kinds of social support from people and they
love you, you know what, that’s a signal to us
that maybe we should be ranking you higher.”
~ Duane Forrester, Bing
@simmonet

33. your site

34. Social + Search
Branding / Authority
@simmonet

35. Social for Branding for Search
Google Loves Brands!
• Social signals can
help identify entities
as brands.
• Big data:
• Search volume / clicks
• Session relationships
• Virility
• Engagement

36. Brand Boost
Brands tend to rank higher in organic search or
get away with more issues, errors & ‘games’
“Brands are the exception
to many rules” ~ Marcus Tober
Rank Correlation Study
@simmonet

37. But Not Always…
Oops
@simmonet

38. Social vs. Display Advertising
Do social impressions have value?
Yes!

39. Social vs. Display Advertising
If you pay for branding campaigns…
… 19c CPM isn’t too bad J

40. Fun [Paid] Fact
What is the
average advertising
CPM in the Home
& Architecture
sector?
@simmonet

41. Fun [Paid] Fact
$3.68
That was the average
cost of a gallon of gas
on June 30th 2014
@simmonet

42. Social + Search
Content
@simmonet

43. Content Marketing
Content Marketing
Content Marketing
Content Marketing
Content Marketing
Content Marketing
Content Marketing
Content Marketing
Content Marketing
Content Marketing
Content Marketing
Content Marketing

44. Content Is King
@simmonet

45. Content Is
EVERYTHING!
@simmonet

46. Authority
Content
Social
Content
@simmonet

47. Social
Content
• Click / link bait
• Timely
• User inspired
• User inspiring
• User Generated
• “Fluff”
• Shareable
• Multi-media
@simmonet

48. Authority
Content
• Evergreen
• Informational
• Topic-focused
• Query-driven
• Optimized
• On crawl path
• Shareable
@simmonet

49. Authority Content is Not as Cool

50. Social for Traffic
Facebook is estimated at
1.8 to 3.6 billion referrals
Per Day!
@simmonet

51. Fun [Social] Fact
If you stacked 3.6
billion one dollar
bills, how high
would it reach?

52. Fun [Social] Fact
Approximately
200 miles high

53. 8x

54. Content in Search & Social
“We should be thinking about social and search
with… a unified approach, because the best
content should appeal to both channels and the
cross-over benefits / economies of scale are
potentially huge.”
~ Will Critchlow

55. There’s More…
Social Links
• Most nofollowed BUT they have
value… and they potentially drive
traffic… and are links!
Engagement
• Bing & Google both look at
engagement signals to understand
search click satisfaction!

56. So…
@simmonet

57. Social Does Help SEO
• Research / Testing
• Discovery / Visibility
• Branding / Authority
• Content for:
• Traffic
• Links
• Engagement Signals

58. As Search Marketers…
Do we like
social media
for what it can
do for search?
like

59. 3 Things Learned
1. Search & Social need
to work together

60. 3 Things Learned
1. Search & Social need
to work together
2. Social affects search
visibility & traffic

61. 3 Things Learned
1. Search & Social need
to work together
2. Social affects search
visibility & traffic
3. AWESOME content is
the bridge of social / search

62. 3 Things Learned
1. Search & Social need
to work together
2. Social affects search
visibility & traffic
3. AWESOME content is
the bridge of social / search

64. Search. Social. So What?

65. Thank you!

66. Questions?

67. Grant Simmons
VP of Search Marketing, Homes.com
@simmonet

68. Grant Simmons
VP of Search Marketing, Homes.com
@simmonet