Tweets, Links and Organic Search Rankings, Oh My!

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.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Google Announces Social Search

newsflash

Earlier today in a post about Bing’s announcement of a deal with Twitter and Facebook I wrote, “Look for Google to introduce its own social network data integration soon.” Little did I know soon would be today.

According to Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of Search, a new Google Labs app called Social Search will launch in the next few weeks. Social Search will add relevant updates and posts from your social network friends to the bottom of your search results page. How will Google know what networks you belong to and who your friends are? It’s in your Google Profile. As long as you have added your social networks to your Google Profile. Don’t have a Google Profile yet? Get one here.

Ms. Mayer also announced that like Bing, Google has signed an agreement with Twitter to display its real-time tweets in its search results.

Based on the two companies’ announcements, it sounds like there will be some differences in how Google and Bing will handle social posts. Google’s Profile integration means that it pulls only from within your network. Bing however, will pull from all public posts. Google will pull from all social networks that you add to your Google Profile. Bing on the other hand will only pull from Twitter and Facebook. To know more, we’ll have to wait until Google and Bing launch their new features.

Meanwhile, make sure you have accounts set up on all the popular social networks, develop your connections on those networks, and keep your keyword list close by as you post, tweet, blog, microblog and whatever else you do on the social net.

Holy Social SEO Batman!

bing-starburst

Last month, I shared with you Bing’s plan to launch its Bing and Ping beta feature (Search Results to Go Social with bing), which allows for social sharing of select search results in bing, like movie times. The featue has since been released to beta users, extending at least some search results into the social networks.

Today, Microsoft announced it has signed an agreement with Facebook and Twitter to integrate status updates from these two social powerhouses’ users into its search results. Mashable has details and some screen shots in REVEALED: Details of Bing’s Twitter Search.

Ka-bang! Just like that social media’s status updates will contribute to search engine results. Soon companies who have resisted joining the social conversation will be compelled to join in…or risk losing control over valuable SERP real estate given to Twitter and Facebook status updates. Likewise, I expect more companies will more aggressively monitor social conversations with free tools like Google Alerts (website) or even subscriber applications.

To keep this in perspective, it is just bing…for now. Bing only represents about 9% of the searches conducted monthly on search engines. The trend for real-time search though is growing. Look for Google to introduce its own social network data integration soon. Then social media will officially be a viable search engine optimization technique for companies.