Rand Fishkin's presentation from the May 26th Wappow social media meetup. on why search engines need social data and how the two are merging together to create exciting opportunities for marketers.

1. Why Search Needs SocialAnd how marketers can gain a competitive advantage in bothDownload: http://bit.ly/mozsearchsocial Rand Fishkin, CEO & Co-founder, SEOmoz May 2011

2. A Little Google Algo History Maps + Local Results WebSpam Team Caffeine (Freshness + Speed) Sandbox 2004 2001 2007 2009-10 1998 2003 2005 2009 2011 Vince (Brands) Panda/Farmer PageRank Nofollow Florida Update Google’s had many other big shifts over the years, but I wanted to call out these specifically. See http://www.toddnemet.com/timeline/ for more.

3. What is Google Trying to Do?

4. Make Better Results I’m actually looking for a good grill for this summer. Google’s not very helpful. Unfortunately, none of these are comprehensive or accurate enough to fulfill what I’m looking for (and many use affiliate links, calling into question their motives.)

5. Why Social?

6. These results are quite good; mostly because I’m connected to people who share useful, interesting stuff in this niche. I need to find some grilling experts. Social signals – Facebook Likes, Shares, Comments; Twitter tweets; LinkedIn Status Updates; even references from smaller social platforms (Quora, StumbleUpon, Flickr, Blogs, etc.) can help Google gain more relevancy by showing what users really enjoy and share!

7. Let’s explore how search and social are merging and talk about some cool tactical wins for marketers, too.

8. Google’s Accounts Deliver Social Integration You can see and connect your own social accounts to your Google profile via https://profiles.google.com/connectedaccounts

9. Now When I Search… Geraldine’s blog is awesome, but it would never rank on page #1 for this query without the power of the social connection. You can see and connect your own social accounts to your Google profile via https://profiles.google.com/connectedaccounts

10. Bing Does this Too (at least with Facebook) More info on the Bing/Facebook integration: http://searchengineland.com/bing-now-with-extra-facebook-see-what-your-friends-like-52848

11. Wait… Doesn’t that mean?

12. Bigger Social Network + More Social Sharing = More Search Traffic & Better Rankings

13. That’s Not All…

14. Social Signals are Likely to Be Directly Influential, Too Controlling for links, social metrics are well correlated with higher rankings in Google. This strongly suggests a direct influence. More http://www.seomoz.org/blog/facebook-twitters-influence-google-search-rankings

15. Let’s Expand Our Network!

16. Using the query string parameter for profiles, you can find people to connect with across networks who will then see your shares in Google, e.g. http://www.google.com/search?tbs=prfl:e&q=seattle+blogger

17. FollowerWonk makes it easy to find and connect with Twitter users in the same fashion: http://followerwonk.com

18. Using http://bit.ly for tracking can help us see when/where we’re effective with shared content and track clicks that Analytics can’t. BTW – You can use + with goog.gl or bit.ly to see other people’s shared links, too, e.g. http://goo.gl/BMIGz+

19. Analytics on Socially Shared Links Matters By aggregating your metrics from bit.ly (and twitter/facebook/etc), you can see patterns that can suggest better ways to share content. More here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/calculating-and-improving-your-twitter-clickthroughrate

20. Facebook Offers Direct Insights Speaking of analytics, Facebook’s Insights widget can be installed on your site to see data about your visitors who are logged into FB: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/4-facebook-marketing-tactics-you-might-not-know-about

21. Newer Networks Offer Outsized Returns Namesake is an emerging discussion network that looks very promising: http://namesake.com/

22. Newer Networks Offer Outsized Returns Answering a few questions on http://www.quora.com send us several hundred visits a month already

23. Tools like http://trunk.ly and http://summify.com can help you discover great content to share + spread, as well as learn what types of content performs well in your niche.

24. OKCupid has this awesome drop-over box after you finish reading, encouraging you to share. Ian Lurie’s blog uses a subtle, single message that “likes” his whole site’s profile, so that anything he shares in the future appears in your search results. Check out http://blog.okcupid.com/ and http://www.conversationmarketing.com to see these in action.

25. The Possibilities for Social + Search Synergies Have Never Been Better.

27. Blog: www.seomoz.org/blog

28. Email: rand@seomoz.orgTry SEOmoz PRO free!http://www.seomoz.org/gopro