This document summarizes a presentation on social media, PR, and SEO convergence given by Stephen James Lock. The presentation covered an overview of SEO benefits, the convergence of SEO and social media, blogging and microblogging as opportunities, and professional tips and advice. It discussed how social media has become fundamental to PR and how communication channels are shifting online. It also looked at the future of search and how social media signals may match or surpass links in importance within the next two years.

1. Social Media, PR & SEO Convergence
Digital Marketing London 2011
Stephen James Lock
@stevejlock

2. About Me
→ First exposure to SEO in 2003.
→ Worked with a number Internet start ups.
→ Part of the SEMPO Institute in the UK.
→ Worked with some of the World’s largest brands.
→ Currently SEO Product Marketing Manager for
Analytics SEO an enterprise SaaS platform.

3. Overview
→ SEO overview / benefits.
→ SEO / social media convergence / social ranking factors.
→ Social media, PR & SEO convergence.
→ Blogging & Microblogging: the sweet spots.
→ Professional tips and advice from the trenches.
→ The future of search.

4. A Tough Crowd
Source: KPA/Zuma/Rex Features

5. SEO Overview
Social media is
becoming
increasingly
important, no
longer a “nice to
have” Online promotion
of websites and
generating links
Selecting the right accounts for a large
keywords is often part of Google’s
the most important algorithm
part of digital
campaigns
Identifying
technical
barriers for the
search engine
spiders is
fundamental
Source: Rand Fishkin/SEOmoz.org

6. Benefits of SEO as a Channel
→ Highest ROI versus any other marketing activity (Forbes).
→ Direct benefits from campaign can recur for many years.
→ Organic traffic drives generally the highest quality visitors to
websites.
→ You can optimise for brand terms that are trademarked.

7. Benefits of SEO as a Channel
→ Users trust websites that rank well in major
search engines.
→ 46% of searches relate to products and
services.
→ Over 70% of visits on the web come via SEO.
→ Over 90% of Internet users research products
and services online.
Source: fancydressball.co.uk

8. Benefits of SEO as a Channel
Source: Marketing Sherpa

9. The Rise of The Smartphone
Source: Flurry Analytics

10. The Rise of The Smartphone
Source: Flurry Analytics

11. SEO & social media convergence

12. SEOmoz Ranking Factors
Source: SEOmoz.org

13. SEOmoz Ranking Factors
Source: SEOmoz.org

14. Tiger Blood + Social Media = #winning

15. PR’s evolution into digital
→ Brand communications “the conversation” has shifted online.
→ Communication channels are moving away from traditional media.
→ Social media has become a fundamental part of PR.
→ Economic pressure and the rise of blogging.

16. Social Media, PR & SEO Convergence

17. Social Media, PR & SEO Convergence
Blogging &
Microblogging a.k.a.
The Blogosphere

18. Blogging & Microblogging
→ Strong current themes across PR, SEO and social media.
→ Blogger outreach benefits all marketing channels.
→ Influential bloggers are often influential across multiple social media
platforms inc. Twitter.

19. Blogging & Microblogging
→ Blogger outreach often can be the highest value individual process in
a campaign.
→ Successful campaigns increase search engine visibility significantly.
→ Search Engine Reputation Management (SERM).

20. Pro Tips: Advanced Search Operators
Estimated
over 1.9
million
targets!
*Power Tip: Link Gopher for Firefox
*Power Tip: http://www.soloseo.com/tools/linkSearch.html

21. Pro Tips: Buzz & Real Time Analytics
→ Google Alerts for generic industry terms and competitor analysis.
→ Real time analytics such as Clicky & Woopra for SEO / SM.
→ Google Reader / RSS feeds.
→ Google Trends & Google Insights. “Piggyback” trends e.g. royal
wedding.

22. Pro Tip: Influencer Mapping
→ Google Blog Search & Google Profiles.
→ Twitter Search, Followerwonk.com, SocialMention.com &
Postrank.com.
→ Industry associations & leading brands.

23. Pro Tip: Influencer Mapping
→ Thought leaders / authors.
→ Competitors: SEOmoz, Majestic SEO, Link Diagnosis, YSE.
→ Influencer research: who do they follow? who follows them? what
do they write about? successful types of content?

24. Pro Tips: Blogger Outreach Process
*Power Tip: some campaigns may result in few links, yet key
relationships can still be built from the process.

25. Pro Tips: Blogger Outreach
→ Ego hooks are effective. Build relationships (most important).
→ Don’t immediately ask for links / favours.
→ Transactional offerings e.g. free products to review.
→ Business development works well.
→ Guest blog posts are a great way to build links and generate the
highest quality traffic.
*Power Tip: research and content creation can be outsourced, but
warning please don’t try to outsource anything mission critical!

26. Pro Tips: Blogger Outreach
→ Leverage Twitter / LinkedIn / blog
commenting.
→ Content that works: awards / interviews /
research / surveys / link bait e.g.
infographics, video, humour.
→ Read target blog recent posts to personalise
outreach.
→ Invest time and resources in the highest
value targets – 80/20 rule.
*Power Tip: research and content creation can be outsourced.
Source: garyfouse.blogspot.com

27. Pro Tips: Twitter
→ Focus on engagement and retweet / cite related content that is
editorially strong.
→ Syndication & automation. Tools inc. Tweetdeck, Hootsuite,
Followerwonk, Backtweets, FriendOrFollow, SocialOomph,
TwitterFeed, Paper.li, Summify, TwitterCounter & Formulists.
→ Constant testing: variables such as scheduling posts at different
times and tweeting the same tweets multiple times.
→ Build relationships, then ask the most influential people to follow
you! IT SOUNDS STUPID, BUT IT WORKS!
*Power Tip: retweeting influencers is a great way to build
relationships. DM requests also work a treat!

28. Pro Tips: Paid Services
→ SEOmoz
→ SEO Majestic
→ Analytics SEO
→ Hootsuite
→ PR Web
→ Paid social media advertising:,
Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon,
Delicious, LinkedIn, YouTube etc.

29. Pro Tips: The Future of Search
→ ICANN brand signals e.g. ipad.apple to become unbeatable for ipad.
→ Brand authentication to become more sophisticated e.g. LinkedIn.
→ XML “author” microformat and rich snippets – schema.org.
Source: scifiscoop.com

30. Pro Tips: The Future of Search
→ Anchor text to decrease in value, with
higher scrutiny.
→ Page loading speeds.
→ Data modelling / LDA & topic relevance to
combat web spam.
→ Exact match domains to be less valuable.
→ Social media signals – “SocialRank” to
match or overtake links within 24 months.
Source: slurmed.com

31. Thanks for listening…
Slides: www.slideshare.net/stevejlock
Twitter: @stevejlock / @analyticsseo
Please use voucher code “ASEO5499” to trial 5 sites for £99…