1) Integration between ppc, seo and social media
There is definitely and has been more of an integration between seo and social media last year.  From my personal experience with the panda update we did far more blogger outreach as a way of link building.  The social media team in my last agency doubled in size from mid 2010 until the end of 2011. SEO predictions for 2011

2) Local search
With the introduction of Google Places in September 2009 and then the merger of the local business centre in April last year, local search played a very important role in 2011.  A client at my last agency was keen to ensure for every store they had a Google Place.  Therefore we had to get all their stores whitelisted in order to automatically verify all the new shops.

 3) Mobile
Last year I said that people have been jumping on the mobile apps and mobile site bandwagon. I mentioned that mobile would be increasingly important in 2011 and it did.  For our clients, we had to have a mobile ppc strategy as well as a desktop strategy.  We had mobile ppc ads with our own ad groups and campaigns. 

So after reviewing 2011 predictions, we can now move onto 2012

1) Less spam

2011 we saw the Panda updates in an effort to crack down on the content farms on the web.  This will mean there will be less spam out from these content and article syndication sites and therefore they will be less important in terms of link building. Google will  continue to role out alogirthms to make sure users are getting quality search results, making sure that very low quality links to a site have no weight.

 2) SEO and Social will be one package

Link building through social media will be paramount to an seo strategy.  Blogger outreach where clients have content placed on third party authorative sites will have far more weight than using article sites.  An agency that offers seo without a social media strategy incorporated within it will find it harder to compete in the market place. Updates from Google such as Google + means seo needs to use social media if it wants to stay ahead as Google added Google+ brand pages in the search results  in December last year. 

3) Personlised and local seach

What is Google +1?

It was announced on 30th March, posted on the Google blog by product manager, Rob Spiro. Google basically is jumping on the social media bandwagon and many reference the +1 as similar to the Facebook like button. To recommend something, users will click the +1 on a webpage or ad. The +1s will start appearing in Google’s search results.

Google +1

So I bet you are all asking whether this will affect the natural search listings. The answer is yes. If you have two websites all with the same page rank, optimised pages, lots of link building and one site has more +1s than the other, then that site will rank higher. This means you still have to optimise your pages, this update reinforces how important seo is.

Here is a little bit of blurb for the search engine giants Google:

“So how do we know which +1’s to show you? Like social search, we use many signals to identify the most useful recommendations, including things like the people you are already connected to through Google (your chat buddies and contacts, for example). Soon we may also incorporate other signals, such as your connections on sites like Twitter, to ensure your recommendations are as relevant as possible. If you want to know who you’re connected to, and how, visit the “Social Circle and Content” section of the Google Dashboard.

To get started +1’ing the stuff you like, you’ll need to create a Google profile—or if you already have one, upgrade it. You can use your profile to see all of your +1’s in one place, and delete those you no longer want to recommend. To see +1’s in your Google search results you’ll need to be logged into your Google Account.”

When will it appear?
Google will slowly be rolling out +1’s, starting in English on Google.com. You can also see what it looks like before the launch be going to Google’s experimental search site. Initially, +1’s will appear alongside search results and ads, but in the weeks ahead they’ll appear in many more places (including other Google products and sites across the web). If you’re an advertiser and want to learn more about how the +1 button works on search ads and websites, visit our AdWords blog.

Google did say at the beginning of the year and at Search London – New Year Search Club that 2011 was the year for social, so keep a look out on the updates coming out this year.

Tweet

1) Integration between ppc, seo and social media
This has been discussed last year but 2011 is the year where people are going to sit up and take note of the positive effects you can get from combining all three as a digital strategy. Once a client has tracking on their website, it is possible to see the visits from paid and natural and social sites. Cost savings can be made on paid search if the site is ranking well for some of those key terms. Regarding social media, blogger outreach content can be optimised by the seo team, if the blogger is going to write about a particular product, they might as well include a couple of links back to that site

SEO predictions for 2011

2) Local search
With the introduction of Google Places in September 2009 and then the merger of the local business centre in April last year, local search is going to play an even more important role in 2011. If you do not already use places for your business, then you should start now.

3) Mobile
People have been jumping on the mobile apps and mobile site bandwagon. Mobile will be increasingly important in 2011. However, webmasters and marketeers will have a better understanding of a mobile app vs a mobile site and how to make these “seo” friendly. To me, it is making your site readable on a mobile device and when someone is looking for your store, they should find it on their handset, which ties back into the second point above, local search

Here are a few seo predictions from the industry experts like Rand Fishkin

#1: Someone Proves (or a Search Engine Confirms) that Clicks/Visits Influence Rankings

I’m taking a chance on this one, but I’ve been hearing from more and more SEOs that there’s some correlation between earning clicks and moving up in the rankings. In 2011, we’ll get confirmation, either through testing or an admission from an engine that click-through-rate from the SERPs, visit count outside of search (or diversity of sources), or other usage-based data is in the ranking algorithm (or a method they use to help ID spam).

#2: Google Local/Maps Adds Filters and Sorting

The big reason Yelp is so much better than Google Maps/Local for finding a good local “place” isn’t just the reviews (which Google aggregates from Yelp anyway). It’s the filters that let me sort by features/pricing/proximity/open status/etc. Google’s been playing the silly game of forcing users to choose search queries to enable rough, imperfect filtering, but 2011 is going to see the search engine shift to a model that allows at least some important filters/feature-selection.

#3: Social Search Will Rise

There’s power in social media search, and Google/Bing’s efforts to date have been lackluster at best. I suspect in 2011, we’ll see the nascent beginning of search that leverages Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn connections to find results from your friends. It’s possible this will start niche-based only (search articles your friends have shared, ala Trunk.ly), but it could also be broader – possibly something from Facebook or Twitter themselves.

I am looking forward to SES London next month, when some of these predictions will be reinforced by other key speakers and industry experts. No one knows for sure what will happen in 2011, but based on the results from last year, we know there will be more developments in search and the fight between Google and Bing will continue.

New organizer for the meetup

It is important to integrate, seo, social media and paid search and therefore I was pleased when the organizer position became available to demonstrate how these three areas can be integrated. I think it is hard to think of each separately in this digital age. There is so much cross over between the three.

Blogger outreach – social media seem to have taken control of this. However, when bloggers are contacted and write content about a product/service, the seo team should become involved. They should work with the social media team to put together optimised content the bloggers can post on their blog. Optimised content, simply means links on keywords back to the site that is building up rank and traffic.

Keywords – paid search data showing the impressions and number of clicks can feed into seo work. When a new page is built, the seo team carries out keyword research to see which words have the highest search volume. Google keyword is sometimes used to view the search volume for the terms but it is often inaccurate. This is when the paid search data can be used to see the words that have the highest click throughs. If paid search are using certain terms that are performing well, then these terms can also be used on the landing page for that campaign. This also helps to improve the quality score of the paid search advert.

Buzz - the social media team monitor the amount of buzz generated for a certain client. However, it is the seo team that monitors the traffic and sales to the site that this buzz has generated. The seo team also record the rankings for its key terms and should see rankings improve. It is important to be able to assign a ROI to the buzz, otherwise it is very easy to keep spending money on social media with out seeing a return on the investment.

Integration is not just a new word, it is here and now and going to stay. The more people pay attention to it instead of treating PPC, SMO and SEO separately, then the more we will be able to reap the awards.

Sign up to SEO, SMO and PPC meetup on meetup.com to network and meet like minded digital people.

This is the new buzz word in search and it is here to stay. Affiliates, paid search, seo and social media working independently will not get you to the top of the search results. Paid search and seo go hand in hand. They are a match made in digital heaven and should not be treated as separately.

How do they compliment one another?
Studies have shown that if users see both a paid search ad and the natural search results, they will click on the natural search listings which is free. You are not paying for that click and if that therefore generates sales, you are lowering your cost per acquisition.

How can you integrate the two?
Communication is the key. Have regular meetings with the paid and natural search team. In this way both teams are aware of the campaigns and seo work on optimising the key landing pages the site wants to rank for making it appear higher in the search results.

Report back as one
When you are analysing the results, make sure you record how seo and ppc have complimented one another on a campaign by campaign level and then how this has led to a decrease in paid search costs overall. This way you can show to senior management and those in control of the purse strings the positive effect of integration while drilling down to the detail of the campaigns and can tweak these even further for next time.

Do you have any case studies where you have delivered an integrated search strategy that has worked well? Or perhaps you are still in the middle of working on it. Let me know, all comments welcome.

Photo is from Flickr

I work closely with social media who produce monitor the amount of online mentions or “buzz” for a particular brand. The seo guys use these buzz reports to see which bloggers and twitters are talking about the brands. The social media team contacts the bloggers but the seo team people give them the optimised content. This means that when the bloggers write about a particular product we have asked them to review they are linking back to our destinated web page on our key terms.

Facebook ties in with social media, but it also has an impact on seo. If your client wants to have a facebook page then they need to make sure it is optimised for seo. They must make sure that their key terms and links are on the facebook page and that they have an optimised URL.

Paid search and seo go hand in hand. By monitoring paid search adverts, we can see the number of impressions and click throughs for certain campaigns. If there is a high number of clicks on key terms and then we see through tracking that there is a high bounce rate, it may be that the landing page does not have enough content or that people cannot find what they are looking for. A new landing page will need to be created and the keywords that generated the highest CTR will be used in the page title, meta description and on page copy.

Another example of working together is when there is a brief for a new landing page to be built. Paid search will carry out keyword research to check the volumes around particular terms. This research can also feed into the seo recommendations.

The next time a client asks you just to do their paid search for them, look at their site and see if they have optimised it for seo. If they have not, show them the great opportunities there are with the integrated search strategy.

Integration is the key to unlocking traffic and high rankings.

It is important to understand the difference between the two which can be broken down into

Traffic

Display

Cost

Implementation

1. Traffic

With PPC you can increase the amount of traffic to your site much faster than with organic search.  You can set up campaigns easily through google analytics or msn or yahoo.

However, if you have built your site to be seo friendly, then you will see people click on your organic search listing in google.  Studies have shown people are more likely to click on the organic listings than the paid listings.

This brings us on the point 2.

2. Display

The paid ads are located in the top ad sections on a search result and in the right hand column where it says sponsored links.

The organic listings are below the sponsored link section. Most people only view the first page, so it is very important for your ad to appear on page 1.  Anything lower down may not be seen,

3.Cost

PPC stands for pay per click, everytime someone clicks on your ad, it costs you. The cost per click is dependent on the compeittion for the keywords you have bid for. The trick is to bid for the keywords that have the highest search volume but the lowest competition.  Easier said than done, I know.  With PPC you need to monitor your keywords closely, as competition for the words can change, one day it could be 25p a click and the next it could be 75p.

SEO costs in terms of time.  You need to build your site to be seo friendly from day one, which means including the meta data, increasing links to your site.  If you do not have this, then yes it may cost you a lot to implement it.  But if you start off from day one with SEO in mind then you will not have to encur expensive seo consultant fees.

This leads us on to the fourth and final difference.

4.Implementation

With PPC you can get to a high ranking quite quickly.  Simply open up an account with a search engine such as google adwords and bid for the keywords you want to use in your ad.  You may need to pay a lot for your ad especially if there is a lot of competition, but then you will get a lot more traffic to your site.

SEO on the other hand, takes a lot longer.  As I mentioned, you should build the site with SEO in mind from day one. Using all the meta data, submitting site map to google, updating the site with rich and dynamic content, maybe even having a blog. This way you will be able to create traffic to your site from day 1 and if you want to increase traffic for specific periods like Christmas or summer sales you could also use PPC.