rankings

QUESTION: What’s more effective for organic search rankings — traditional inbound links or social media links?

ANSWER: No one knows for sure but Google.

Okay, it was a trick question. But SEOmoz is running an experiment to see how tweets effect search rankings and they need your help.

Here is how SEOmoz has set up the experiment.

“In order to test these two ranking factors (traditional links and social media citations), we are going to need to promote two nearly identical pages using one promotion method for one and the other promotional method for the other while targeting the same keyword phrase. We can then see which page performs better in both the short term (my guess is the the tweet driven page) and the long term (my guess is the link driven page).

These two test pages will need to be targeting the same keyword phrase and on the same domain. I could do this on my own domain but doing so would be disingenuous (Hey everyone, send links and tweets my way! It is for an “experiment” ;-p You wouldn’t be fooled for a second and my apartment would get TPed… again)

Instead, the two test pages will be on a local charity’s website and target the phrase “Hunger in Sierra Leone”. The local charity, SeeYourImpact, is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that sends 100% of donations to the charity of a donation makers choice. The non-profit then photographs the results and sends the photo and a story of how the donation made an impact on an actual person to the donation maker so they can ‘see the impact’ (thus the name) of their donation. There is absolutely no financial affiliation with SEOmoz and SeeYourImpact although we do do consulting for them on a pro bono basis. In short, we think they are doing a great service but no money is being exchanged between the two organizations.”

Where you come in.

Below are two link options. The first is text with a link for Twitter. The second is code for a traditional link for your website. Pick one or both, but any links that you provide will help in this experiment.

Tweet this:

Help end hunger in Sierra Leone and meet the life you change http://bit.ly/hpsMJq

Follow the Yellow Brick Road.

I’ll post SEOmoz’s results here or you can follow the SEOblog to see results as they come in.

Search engine optimization is a lot like the culinary profession. There are experts in the field, with a growing reputation and a following for their art. There are five-star SEO’s, one-star SEO’s, and everything in between.

Just as famous chefs create spectacular meals, unmatched by the average cook, SEO’s work their magic on websites, rocketing pages to the top of search results.

The fact that you haven’t been a sous-chef in Paris doesn’t stop you from cooking a nice meal. Likewise, you shouldn’t be intimidated to tackle search engine optimization. Aspiring chefs like you turn to cookbooks for recipes, advice, and tips. Luckily, SEO has its very own “Joy of Cooking.” It’s Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. A very concise, non-technical manual that walks you through 13 things you can do to optimize your web pages, including best practices for each:

Create unique, accurate page titles
Make use of the “description” meta tag
Improve the structure of your URLs
Make your site easier to navigate
Offer quality content and services
Write better anchor text
Use heading tags appropriately
Optimize your use of images
Make effective use of robots.txt
Be aware of rel=”nofollow” for links
Promote your website in the right ways
Make use of free webmaster tools
Take advantage of web analytics services

The full Guide is available here on Google’s website. Download it, read it, and get cooking with these SEO techniques on your own web pages. You won’t be an instant search engine optimization expert, but you will enjoy the results.

Bon SEO!