iMedia
Trung Ngo, Red Door Interactive

The lines between SEO and social media are quickly diminishing as search engines begin to use links from Twitter and Facebook in their ranking algorithms. Recently, Google and Bing both confirmed that links from Twitter and Facebook carry some weight in determining a page’s rank in regular search results. To date, the effects of links in tweets and links in Facebook posts are still relatively small. However, SEO experts agree that search engines will likely increase their use of this data over time.

Measuring social influence
For marketers, perhaps what is more interesting than the engines’ use of the link data itself is how value gets attributed to a particular link shared through social channels. To help formalize this concept, Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan introduced the idea of “SocialRank,” defined as a user’s determined authority on Twitter or Facebook. How this authority is derived is still speculative; however, several experts predict that the following components likely influence such a ranking:

•Quantity of fans and followers
•Followers to following ratio
•Quality and importance of fans and followers

Social rank is important because it affects how much value search engines prescribe to a link within a user’s post. For example, a link in a tweet from Barack Obama will likely have more influence on rankings than a link in a tweet from an average personal Twitter account.

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Presented by: Charles Wiedenhoft – Director of Business Planning & Optimization

DATE: August 25, 2009
TIME: 11:20am PST / 12:20pm MST

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We’re in the midst of Summer, but online retailers who were able to secure budget for major site enhancements have preparations for the holiday shopping season well underway. Those merchants who are operating under budgeting and staff reductions aren’t as fortunate because cutbacks in consumer spending have put many large-scale projects on hold. Stagnant to moderate revenue growth through the holiday season could be a best case scenario; however, new research indicates that even modest gains are at risk.

A recent PayPal survey revealed that nearly half (45%) of online shoppers abandoned their carts multiple times in the first three weeks of June 2009 due to high shipping costs, security concerns and lack of convenience. Another report by Coremetrics shows shopping cart abandonment hovering at 66% in March 2009 with lower conversion percentages predicted through the remainder of the year. That’s an alarming prospect for retailers hoping to weather another tough holiday season.

This webinar will provide retailers tactics for reducing shopping cart and checkout abandonment with minimal investment in time and resources. We’ll also present recommendations on emerging tactics that should be prioritized for 2010 budget consideration.

Topics will include:

* Shopping cart and checkout abandonment trends
* Top reasons why shoppers don’t convert
* Top methods of reducing shopping cart abandonment
* Influencing conversion before the cart
* Analytics and research methods

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If you have any questions, please contact Morgan Witt at mwitt@reddoor.biz