Does Social Sharing Impact Organic Rankings

& Cost Per Click ?

Featuring: Larry Kim & Steve Rayson

Steve Rayson@steverayson

steve@buzzsumo.com

Larry Kim@LarryKim

lkim@wordstream.com

Data Insights To Create Better Content

What do recent studies say about social sharing, CTRs and rankings?

Are there correlations between social sharing, organic rankings, views and CTRs?

Brian Deane lists 205 different ranking factors:• Some proven• Some speculation

They include factors such as:• Social shares• Dwell time• Click through rates

http://backlinko.com/google-ranking-factors

Searchmetrics 2015 study:Ranking Correlations:

CTR

Google +

Facebook

Twitter

Links

Time on site

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8

Moz 2015: Social Shares Ranking Correlations

Facebook Total

Google +

Facebook Shares

Facebook Likes

Facebook Comments

Twitter Shares

tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

Correlation not Causation

“Sites that tend to get high social engagement also tend to be sites that are so good that they also attract many other signals (such as links) that do actually contribute to search ranking.”

Matt Cutts

Social Sharing & Traffic“Social media accounts for 30% of the overall visits to web sites, which is higher than visits due to organic search results from search engines.”

https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01281190/document

Is there a relationship between social sharing and

factors such as dwell time and click through rates?

Looked at dataset 2.8 million shares and 9.6 million actual clicks to 59,088 unique url resources.

News sites: BBC, Fox, NY Times, Huffington Post and CNN.

https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01281190/document

Social Click Through Rates

“59% of the shared URLs are never clicked.” “90% of all clicks are distributed among URLs

shared 9 times and more.”

“People are more willing to share an article than read it.”

https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01281190/document

The article was shared 45,000+ times with tons of comments on social media.

Many rants about people commenting on articles without reading them.

The less time we spend reading an article the more likely we are to share it.

Source: Chartbeat

Dwell Time: Relationship With Social Shares

Chartbeat looked at behavior across 2 billion visits and found:

• Most people read 50% of an article, scroll depth higher if contains photos.

• 55% spent fewer than 15 seconds actively on a page. • 5% of readers don’t scroll at all, they just leave the page

without interacting. • Little correlation between Twitter shares and amount of

article consumed.

Source: Tony Haile, CEO of Chartbeat

Outbrain Study of CTRs (200 Publishers)

Similar to rankings: positive correlation but not causation.

http://www.outbrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/eyes-social-engagement-16.pdf

BuzzSumo Moz Study: Correlation Shares & Links

• Total shares : Referring Domain Links 0.021• Total shares : Sub-domain Links 0.020• Total shares : External Links 0.011

https://moz.com/blog/content-shares-and-links-insights-from-analyzing-1-million-articles

Sample 1m random posts

BuzzSumo Moz Study: Correlation Shares & Links

Highly shared posts had a higher correlation of shares and links.

https://moz.com/blog/content-shares-and-links-insights-from-analyzing-1-million-articles

“The pattern of clicks created from social media clearly favors a blockbuster model.”

100k Random Posts

50% articles had less than 8 shares

Distribution of B2B Content Shares (100 top Marketing/Technology sites)

Only 4% (4,500 of 114,000 posts) got more than 3,000 shares.

Likely to achieve much higher links and clicks.

Summary of the Research

No correlation between shares and reading or dwell time. But we do see positive correlations for:• Shares - Traffic• Shares – Rankings• Shares – CTRs

Summary of the Research

We see much higher correlations for blockbuster content. They are unicorns that win on everything eg shares, CTRs, views and links. We can observe some common content elements for these unicorns.(We will look at these later)

What are common elements of blockbuster posts?

Common Elements

List Posts

30% of all B2B posts with more than 3,000 shares were list posts.List posts beginning with 10 averaged 6,398 shares List posts beginning with 5 averaged 5,214 shares.

‘How To’ Posts

15% of posts with more than 3,000 shares were “how”, “how to” or “ways to”

Have You Witnessed

This Phenomenon

Before?

Exhibit 1: “catchy email subject lines”

Top Organic Listing!!

Nearly a Half-Million Visits from Organic

Traffic!

Blog post has 1352 shares!

Exhibit 2: “best free survey sites”

Top Organic Listings!!

Nearly a Quarter Million Visits from Organic

Traffic!

Blog post gets 1189 shares!

Exhibit 3: “develop presentation skills”

Top Organic Listings!!

Nearly a 100k Visits from Organic Traffic!

Blog post gets 956 shares!

3 Random Facts About Larry

1. Obsessed About Quality Score

2. Originally From Winnipeg

Live in Harvard Square Cambridge, MA

WordStream’s Headquarters

2008

2016

3. Have a 2-year old Kid (#ppckid)

Organic Ranking vs. Social Shares: What We Know

• Social Shares ~ Traffic• Shares ~ Organic Rankings• Shares ~ CTR

(a) What’s causing correlations(b) Why aren’t they stronger?

Google: “No”.

What’s the Difference?

Social Shares

Social Engagement

Ratesvs.

Social Engagement Rates

= (Total Unique People Who Engaged With Your Post) / (Total

Unique People Who Saw Your Post)

Social Shares Don’tEqual Engagement Rates

Greater Paid/Organic Social Promotion = More Shares!

Larry’s Idea: Compare Social

Engagement Rates vs. Organic CTRs

Download Facebook Post Engagement Data from FB Insights

Download Query Data From Google Search Console

Relative Organic CTR vs. Facebook Post Engagement Rate

Higher Post Engagement = Higher Organic CTR!

Summary: Two Key Findings

Organic CTR vs. Social Engagement Rates

1. Same emotions that make people share things cause high search CTR

2. Partially true for headlines with unusually high CTRS

Above Average Organic CTR = Better Rankings

+/- 3% Increase inPost Engagement

+/- 1 Spot in Organic Position

The Old Theory

High Social Shares = High Organic Rankings

The New Theory

High Social Shares = High Social Engagement Rates = Above Average Organic CTRs =

High Organic Rankings

7.4% Engagement Rate When Shared on

FB!

8.5% Engagement Rate when

Shared on FB

7.1% Engagement Rate When

Shared on FB

What Does all it Mean?

Click Through Rate Matters (a Great Deal!)

Unicorn CTR = Lots of Social Shares =

Great Organic Rankings … AND …

Higher CTRs = Higher Conversion Rates

Higher CTRs = Higher Quality Scores

Higher Quality Scores = Higher Impression Share!

Social Media: More Shares!Organic Search: Better Rankings!Paid Search/Social: +Impressions, -CPC, +Conversion Rates

Virtuous Cycle of Unicorn CTRs:

Larry Knows Too Much...

Soon They Will All Know the Truth

3 Unicorn CTR Hacks

Unicorn CTR Hack #1: Audition More Headlines

The Top 9 Emotions That Make People Click Like Crazy:

• Laughter• Amusement• Curiosity• Awe• Anger

• Fear• Joy• Empathy• Sadness

Step 1: Leverage These Emotional Triggers

The Bearerof Bad News

The Hero/Villain

The Comedian The FeelGood Friend

Step 2: Write Headline Copy From Perspective of One of These Personas

FormatList post, quiz,

Infographic

Emotional Hook

Emotional word or superlative

Content TypeImages, quotes, pictures,

facts

TopicLove, cats, dogs, fitness,

health, Donald Trump

4 AWESOME SEO STRATEGIES TO DEFEAT RANKBRAIN

Step 3: Use This Title Template Commonly Employed By ‘Viral’ Articles

So Test 10 Different Headlines

Unicorn Headlines = Top 10% Odds of Finding Unicorn = 1:10

How to Spot the Unicorn?

You Need 10 *Different* Headlines!

Use AdWords to Test Headlines

Unicorn CTR Hack #2: Advertise!

How Advertising REALLY WorksSTEP 1: Promote Inspirational / Memorable Content about Your Brand to your Target

Market

STEP 2: People See The Ad, But Don’t Necessarily Take Action Right Away. (But Become Biased)

STEP 3: Later when the Need Arises, People either:

Do a Branded Search for Your Stuff

Do Un-Branded Search but Biased Towards Clicking & Buying From

You.

Interests Targeting

Demographic Targeting

Behavioral Targeting

Unicorn CTR Hack #3: Remarket!

Returning Visitors:1. Existing Customers2. 1-Day Remarketing

Audience3. 7, 30, 180-day

Remarketing Audiences

New Visitors:1. Lookalike Audiences2. Interest, Behavior &

Demographic-Based Audiences.

Larry’s Ad Targeting Stack

Conversion Rates Increase With More Ad

Impressions

Weird Thing About Remarketing

Summary: Just Say No to Donkey CTRs!

Special Offers!

Thanks!