Tagged with: seo
Jakob Nielsen — the world’s foremost authority in web usability and audience segmentation — recently published research that exploded several myths about marketing to college students. In his words, college students are, “enraptured by social media, but reserve it for private conversations and thus visit company sites from search engines.”
Wait a second. What is happening here? Aren’t today’s students all digital natives, comfortable with technology from their earliest years? Aren’t they the early adopters of everything new and shiny?
In a word (well, two words), not exactly.
Yes, college students are extremely comfortable with web technology. They know the online world very well. So, when they want information about any organization, they turn to search rather than a company-built fan page.
Why? Because students see search as an unbiased source of information. Nielsen calls it “Google Gullibility”, and his research shows that even the most educated people suffer it. In layman’s terms, if it’s on Google, then people trust it; and the top search results get the click, most of the time.
A Generation of Skeptics
In general, educated people tend to be more skeptical of any marketing message. The unnatural excess of one-sided marketing over the years created this skepticism, and it is strong.
So, for today’s college student, search is the avenue of choice to learn about any organization or product. Search allows them to “pull” in the information that they choose, rather than be interrupted by old school “push” messages.
There is no social without some SEO, and you’re really missing the boat if your SEO strategy does not include social media. Even so, SEO and Social Media practitioners rarely connect, and, as Ted says in his recent post to WebMasterWorld, “… many old time technical SEO people wish that Twitter would just go away.”
But that is all about to change.
Ted Ulle, our senior search strategist, recently described how SEO and social media are coming together on WebMasterWorld.
Ted has been referred to by some as the “Babe Ruth” of SEO, as he spends his nights pouring over new Google patents to glean insights into algorithmic changes. The SEO tribe follows his insights closely as he moderates webmasterworld, where he has posted over 20,000 times.
In this interview our Senior SEO Analyst Ted Ulle, otherwise known as “Tedster”, the Google forum moderator on WebmasterWorld, explains why your customer’s online conversations are a crucial component to a comprehensive search engine optimization strategy. Ted also discusses Converseon’s approach to Enterprise SEO and the need for organizational consulting, clearly explained by our Chief Strategist, Mike Moran, in his best selling book Search Engine Marketing, Inc. The interview took place at last years PubCon Search Marketing Conference in Las Vegas, where Ted is a regular speaker.
How is your social media listening impacting your SEO strategy? Share your experiences and advice below…