I was giving some thought to the idea of utilizing the occasional social networking platform, such as Digg, Technorati or Sphinn, to channel ‘unqualified’ traffic to your website in the hope of gleaning some percentage of untargeted interest. The following is a re-post of an entry I made on another blog to the same effect, Leveraging Social Media for SEO.
Leveraging Social Media for SEO
November 10th, 2007
Ah, networking. The social media blitz has taken the linear baby blue columns of familiar SERPs to a new level with exciting UIs that grab at our attention in ways more contributory to live interaction. We decide collectively what’s hot and what’s not by promoting based on our natural affinities. We don’t have to slog through pages of what we asked for. We are told in a heartbeat what’s best, relevant, unbelievable, and absolutely must see. What’s important to this median is targeted buzz and being able to channel traffic in a method that allows you to maximize the value of your website regardless if you are promoting a political candidate or selling prosthetic limbs. In the human network if you can capture interest, your peers will promote your pages for you. Mechanically you should carve out a predetermined path to funnel traffic through. Landing pages should be a baseboard. Exciting content is nothing more than a flash in the pan for a web surfer so developing quick paths to discourage bounce increases the odds that they will be lured to the reason you created the site in the first place; they may even find something compelling to link to.Think of your site holistically. If you were a salesman you wouldn’t just walk up to someone and say, “Buy my product!” You would need to have an introduction, build rapport and credibility, introduce the consumer to the options and finally offer a solution. Sometimes there are shortcuts and sometimes there are not.
The Will it Blend site by Blendtec is a brilliant example of leveraging social media for SEO. One of many targeted buzz bits is a hilarious Chuck Norris rip where Tom Dickson, who happens to be the Founder of Blendtec, appears in a short blending an assortment of rubber dolls in the likeness of thugs and our hero, Chuck Norris. My God you would never put these rock hard rubber figurines in a new blender, but he does! The industrial blender seems to pulverize the obviously stressful load with ease. After which Chuck emerges from the rubber dust unscathed. At the conclusion of the short, while they still have our attention, we are shown where to see more crazy stuff being blended (willitblend.com) and a listing of vendors where to obtain the blender. Below the clip there are a series of similar shorts blending everything from iPhones to tiki torches. To the left we see well placed navigation that allows us quick access to the company blog for more information, or a direct link to the product lineup if we’re ready to shop.
On a social media site like Digg we are captivated by buzzwords like ‘iPhone’ or ‘Chuck Norris’ connected with the radical thought of blending or destroying them! Diggers will promote on the basis of humor while incidentally encouraging links and traffic generation to a page with access to direct sales.
I would consider the Blendtec example a shortcut because it simultaneously satisfies rapport, credibility, an option, in the form of the model used, and you are a single click away from the full product offerings. Awesome!
Written by Nicholas Ramirez