5 Simple but Effective SEO/Social Tactics
Search Engine Optimisation

5 Simple but Effective SEO/Social Tactics

1st November 2011

Happy All-Hallow’s Day State of Searchers! Or All Saints Day for those that prefer. Let’s start this post with a little ‘Did You Know’ fact just to ensure it is educational from top to bottom. So, did you know…

“In Western Christian theology, All Saints Day commemorates all those who have attained the beatific vision in Heaven.” (Thank you wikipedia). That sounds pretty special to me, a vision of happiness, perfection and clarity. One can dream eh.  But on that note, how about a little happiness and clarity closer to home? SEO heaven?

Yes that is my rather awkward seguing into the main event, some great examples of simple linkbait or visibility tactics that I’ve seen in the past few weeks. Rather than theorise or show amazing examples/ideas that are nearly impossible for the average company to implement, I thought I’d share some examples of marketing tactics that I’ve been impressed with recently simply because they were so very, well, simple.

1. The @ZWS tweets mug

I saw this after the recent Search Love conference in London and thought it was a great, cheap but effective way of getting noticed. There may not be a huge amount of direct linkbait opportunities it but for visibility, brand building and simplicity, it really was a great idea by a small, fairly unknown company – Zen Web Solutions. See below for an example, the mug sent to Will Critchlow, complete with QR code and word cloud.

Step 1. Send a mug as a small present to each of the speakers at the conference.

Step 2. Personalise said mug by including a word cloud of the phrases including in their 200 most recent tweets.

Step 3. Don’t say who it’s from or why you sent. Instead include a QR include directly on the mug that explains who you are.

Step 4. Get the speaker to tweet about how lovely their mug is and thank you for your generosity.

Step 5. Watch your name feature on twitter walls of a conference in front of hundreds of attendees and be remembered by some of the biggest names in the industry.

Not bad for the cost of a few personalised mugs and a little postage now is it?!

2. The SEO Fashion egobait

Another idea that I saw after the recent conference, joining up the rather unusual worlds of Streetstyle and SEO. Now sorry SEOs if I offend you, but it’s not too often you would put the two in the same bucket. However I thought this little blog post round up was a nice, and different, touch to getting some coverage for your site after attending a large SEO conference.  So props to Colin, over on the MintTwist blog.

Step 1. Attend any kind of industry event

Step 2. Take a camera

Step 3. Approach people à la Streetstyle, take a photo and ask them about their style.

Step 4. Blog about it and let those people know their photos are now on the world wide web because they are so very stylish.

Step 5. Watch the tweets and mentions roll in.

As a bonus, I’ve included a picture of my lovely colleague Steve who was chosen for his ‘bang on trend’ style.

3. The quick and easy infographic

I know we’re all sick to the back teeth of infographics but they do still work if done well and it really is amazing how easy it is to find the information you need to build one, especially around popular events such as Halloween. I took a few seconds to have a look around on the internet for facts, stats and figures that were freely available relating to Halloween and (in this time of financial crisis), the amount of money spent on it.

Tip: A go-to source for stats (USA only): National Retail Federation. It’s a goldmine.

A quick look around the site, a search for [Halloween Spend 2011] and we are rolling.  There are charts like this all over the place, results of an NRF survey. All you need to do is get a freelance designer for a couple of horus to add a few pictures of carefully sliced up pumpkins and some witches hats, there you have. Your very own infographic in no time at all, with freely available data. Here’s part of an example one that was made by local shopping site Milo using exactly this data which I found after a very quick search.

It doesn’t take much time and money to create this sort of thing, freelance designers who have experience in infographics are becoming increasingly common and it is a day of work for them. Finding the information is usually the difficult bit, so take advantage of big events like halloween and abuse that free data!

4. The offer-free-stuff-for-one-day campaign

This is the most recent example of a great brand building campaign, and it got me a free burrito for lunch so I have certainly been mollified more than enough to include it in this write-up. Benito’s Hat, a Mexican burrito restaurant, spent the day offering free burrito drops to offices in its local area who got the most members of staff to tweet a request for one with the hashtag #dayofthedead. Well you certainly didn’t have to ask us lot twice!

Step 1. Calendarise the year and decide when doing events like this would make the most sense for your business

Step 2. Be generous! There is no point in doing this unless the reward makes it worthwhile

Step 3. Tweet, FB, Shout, Blog – tell everybody everywhere

Step 4. Watch it go viral

Step 5. Be prepared to make a lot of free goods!

Step 6. See and hear your business name in all corners of social media, with a hugely positive spin.

One extra point that I think Benito’s Hat did so well is that they not only offered the free food, they also encouraged people to come directly to the shop by offering 50% to anyone who came in fancy dress or makeup. 50% off may be a huge cutback but it’s all adding to the buzz around the offer and gets the punters directly into your door. Good job Benito!

5.Come up with a brilliant idea for a site!

Ok that may be a bit much to ask, and to be honest I think I’ve given you some decent ideas to be getting on with IMMEDIATELY to boost visibility, brand

 recognition and link building anyway so I’m going for a curveball for the final choice.

This is really because I do genuinely think this new site is a great concept, that is not difficult or expensive to set up, and could definitely have legs. The bloggersphere reaction to it alone suggests I’m not the only one excited about it.

My Tab is a simple site that aims to encourage people to plan and save for a trip, while also encouraging friends and family to donate to it to help you achieve your goals, instead of getting physical presents. It is fully integrated with social platforms as well as secure financial platforms such as PayPal. The combination of social, reward, targets and security make it a winner for me. It has also been picked up by a number of big blogs including Mashable and Travolution.

Simple but novel ideas seem few and far between these days but easy mash-ups like this always restore my faith a little, just when you think everything has been thought of – there’s always more ideas out there!

That’s my round up for this start of the month, please do shout if you have other particularly novel or interesting tactics you’ve seen recently. I’m always keen to hear of more.

(Simple image courtesy of Simple Filters)

Tags

Written By
Originally from the UK via France and Malaysia, Annabel Hodges is a digital marketer with long experience in the industry now residing in Sydney. She heads up the Digital Marketing at Next Commerce, working across an array of products, channels and brands.
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.