Many marketers disparage social networks’ conversion power, but it’s no wonder when nearly half of it’s potential is wasted by some of the Web’s biggest retail brands. Make sure your site doesn’t squander Pinterest and other link opportunities with one of 4 better ways to handle sold out product pages.

Redirect to Home page

Dumping visitors on the home page is the most popular redirection. Not surprisingly, site owners and marketers often assume everyone is as enthralled by their home page as they are — they’re not. The only way you could further remove the visitor from the context of their visit is to throw up a 404 page.

That said, it’s 1,000 time better than a 404 page (however clever), and at least recoups some SEO link benefit so long as the redirect is a 301 permanent redirect.

Redirect to Category page

Think about the mindset of the visitor. If she’s referred from Pinterest, she’s seen a yummy image and hungry to find a close up, more information, to own it, or find out who is the purveyor of such fine merchandise. If you must pull the product page, redirecting to a category page at least could result in some engagement with similar products.

Redirecting to a category page can also help SEO (depending on how search engines are valuing such links these days).

Keep URL, ask for opt-in

The best choice for usability is to keep the product page live, and allow the visitor to see the product and read the description. Nobody really wants to land on a surprise page, even if the product is sold out.

If there’s hope of your product’s resurrection, let the visitor opt-in to being contacted by you when it’s back.

While you’re at it, ask the user to opt-in to your regular email program and follow in social networks. Seize the click!

Keep URL, suggest close alternatives

Showing cross-sells on a product page is a start, optimizing their placement will go further. Etsy does a fantastic job suggesting similar products based on seller-generated categorization and keyword tags.

These cross-sells are only displayed across the top when the user hits a product page that’s no longer active. All other pages are merchandised along the bottom.

Showing a smaller set of suggestions likely has a higher click through rate than sending the user to an entire category page of alternatives. The tighter you can tie the products (by keyword, brand, category, social affinity or combination of these), the better.

A creative approach is to suggest connecting with a “fashion advisor” or an expert from your customer service team.

This call to action can be combined with prominently displayed, smart cross-sells is a one-two punch for avoiding abandonment.

While this tactic isn’t a magic bullet for converting all social traffic, minimizing any leaks from unavailable products can have a positive impact on your reported conversion rates from sites like Pinterest (or Google Images).

Mark Zuckerberg hinted at this functionality at TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference last fall:

Search is interesting. We do on the order of 1 billion queries a day and we’re basically not even trying. Today with search, the vast majority of it is people trying to find people, but there’s also a meaningful portion of queries where people are trying to find Pages, brand Pages, other business Pages — so there’s a bunch of that that actually does link to commercial behavior, and I think there’s a big opportunity there and we just need to go do that…

Though the initial rollout is not necessarily commercaily-focused, let’s look at the potential for ecommerce marketing.

Boosting word of mouth

Someone who wants to buy a gift for their teenage niece who may search “What brands do friends of Jacqueline like?” for ideas where to shop.

Merchandising and persona research

An ecommerce marketer could discover what people who like [brand, product, etc] also like, to merchandise emails and home pages, brainstorm cross-sell associations or develop marketing personas.

Facebook advertising strategies

Facebook ads let you target by interest keyword. Discover keywords by searching “Brands that people who like [your brand]” also like,” and target your ads to users who like those brands (or interests, music, TV shows).

HR recruiting

Elastic Path’s HR manager could search “friends of friends who work at Elastic Path that like Java.”

Facebook Graph Search Optimization

The best way to optimize for Graph Search is to simply get as much of your content in the social graph. Beyond adding Like buttons to your home page and product pages, update your fan page frequently with posts that provoke sharing (see our post on Facebook News Feed Optimization for ideas). Explore non-product page content marketing (stay tuned for an upcoming post on content marketing for ecommerce). The point is, get site visitors to share the heck out of your content if you want a chance to be found.

Potential derivative products for businesses

Going back to Zuckerberg’s comment on commercial queries, future updates to Graph Search could potentially include the ability for Business Page administrators to query the social graph of users who’ve liked their Page.

Facebook could also explore native advertising options like promoted search results. For example, if your brand appears in search results, you could pay to have it highlighted or ranked higher (with disclosure, of course).

Advanced fan marketing could enable a business Page administrator to query which fans like a certain TV show or event and send permission-based Facebook Messages to these users with offers (e.g. Coachella style offers, or pre-order Halo 5).

There’s a lot of potential for consumers and marketers, but the big question is, do Facebook users care about Graph Search, or is this just Facebook’s attempt to do something search-y that fizzles out?

The article mentioned that Google would likely release a disavow tool through which webmasters could report sources of questionable backlinks that webmasters don’t want to be associated with.

Well, that tool is now here.

if you’d like the details from Google’s Matt Cutts’ mouth, here’s the video announcement:

Remember, most folks don’t need to use this tool (Dr. Pete from SEOmoz has a good explanation on this). If you believe you’ve been the target of “negative SEO” by a competitor or have hired a sketchy SEO in the past and your rankings appear to have been affected by recent Google updates, the disavow tool is a way you can signal to Google you reject these links pointing to you.

Tips

1. Try to work with the webmaster first. This is a directive, not a way to force Google into disavowing the links. Google has an override if it believes the links should be counted. (This may work in your favor if Google believes these are “good” links). Working with webmasters will get you a faster and more guaranteed result. Failing that, use the disavow tool.

2. Understand it will take several weeks for changes to be in effect. So make sure you submit the domains you want to submit in your file – ammendments will put you further back in the queue.

3. If you haven’t already, double up your disavow efforts with Bing, as submitting to Google does not affect Bing.

Ever chasing shady link building tactics, Google has changed the way its valued links many times over the years through search engine algorithm updates. Perhaps no update has ruffled as many feathers as Penguin in April, 2012. Not only did some sites’ rankings hit an iceberg, thousands of webmasters found warning in their Google Webmaster consoles of suspect “unnatural links” (spam and/or paid links) in their link graphs, with a recommendation to go after and remove them.

Naturally, that spread panic through the search blogs and forums. Google webspam lead Matt Cutts assures us that the warnings were sent out to improve transparency, and receiving a warning does not mean your site has been penalized. Unless you’ve experienced a dramatic drop in traffic (that hasn’t rebounded since the update indicating it could have been some other factor responsible), you’re likely okay. You can determine this from your Webmaster Tools account or web analytics. (Hint, rankings would tank across your keyword profile, not just individual words). Remember, the update occurred in February, 2012, but “aftershocks” have been and will continue to be felt as the algorithm is tweaked further.

How to take action on link removal

Whether or not you’ve been slapped by Penguin, there are a few tools that can help you organize a “link teardown campaign:”

SEOGadget

Download your link profile from Webmaster Tools and upload it to SEOGadget, and for the price tag of zero dollars, the tool will flag low quality links and even attempt to find contact information for each linking site so you can follow up with a removal request.

Remoove’em and Rmoov

Despite the dreadfully difficult to spell and remember branding (and confusing as Removem is a video game), these services can help automate the campaign for you, creating and sending email, following up with reminders to contacts, and reporting on results. Though they are paid tools, the time you save and errors you spare make them worth it. (You don’t want to risk copy-and-paste errors so common with manual PR and link building campaigns).

Other options are LinkDelete.com and DeleteBacklinks.com.

In the future, Google may adopt a “disavow” feature, similar to Bing, which allows you to flag links from domains you don’t support linking to you. Matt Cutts mentioned at a recent conference that it’s something his team is considering.

If you’re on the receiving end of these removal requests

I’ve been receiving a lot of requests from sites who, in the past, have spammed Get Elastic‘s blog comments, and slipped through moderation (years ago, we did not pre-moderate blog posts, as we grew we had to stop it before they got through, don’t want spam links live for any amount of time.

If like us, you’re a blog or website receiving these requests – it’s the TYPE of link, not your site, that’s the problem. The blog comment spam is the tactic getting in trouble, it doesn’t mean your blog or site is not trusted by Google. Don’t be offended! Though you may be annoyed at the demands of spammers, think of it as helping you find spam you missed in moderation.

How to build good links to ecommerce sites

If you missed it, we have a number of ideas in our Guide to Link Building for Ecommerce.

Our friends at SEOmoz have created an excellent infographic on the topic that outlines the history of, how-tos, benefits and potential future of rich snippets.

Visual Guide to Rich Snippets on SEOmoz created by BlueGlass Interactive.

How this is different than every other search engine update intended to do the same thing, I’m not sure. But it’s got the SEO community buzzing, as anything that proceeds from Cutts’ lips will do, because we should be grabbing on to any hints the search engines give us about how they score and reward web content.

They told us not to buy links, how to speed up our sites, and hinted that bounce rates can influence SEO (also reiterated in the SXSW session).

Recently, Google’s Webmaster Central Blog posted a video containing 5 common SEO mistakes.

Mistake #1: No Value Prop

I want to hone in on the first mistake: “no value prop.” For years on Get Elastic, we’ve talked about the need for solid value propositions, not just on your home page and landing pages, but all the way to (and especially on) to your shopping cart, subscription and registration pages.

But value props belong off your site as well — in email marketing, paid search and even organic search.

Google gives the following examples as value propositions in search (to attract higher click through, a ranking factor):

But are these examples of great value propositions?

Taking your value propositions from good to great

• You’re not the best. Claiming you are the top, best, number one, greatest, most efficient, fastest, favorite or any other glowing adjective could actually hurt your persuasion if it’s not backed up by real support. Everyone says they are the best. Like too many antibiotics, today’s post-modern customer has become immune to the effects of puffery. Only toot your own horn if you can provide references.

• Numbers help. Numbers have a psychological impact. They draw the eye and suggest something quantifiable.

It’s unclear if CanadaFlowers is Canada’s “top” florist because of selection, sales or customer satisfaction, but “1000+ flowers” may be the reason. Supporting your claim with numbers strengthens the credibility and impact of your value prop. (Keep in mind large selection is not necessarily a strong motivator, as more choice means more difficulty making a choice).

• Free [blank]? Free bicycle repair estimate, free quote, free demo, free consultation, free trial etc. are not necessarily strong value props. Unless you’re in a complex B2B sales situation involving millions of dollars, who expects to pay for an estimate? These free activities are table stakes for most customers, and it’s very easy for competitors to offer the same. PPC ads and search engine snippets are short – fill the space with something more compelling.

This doesn’t mean you can’t promote “free.” If you offer a longer-than-usual trial period, or can attach a dollar value to the free service/trial, you strengthen the value proposition. Or, if you offer something for free that most of the competition charges for (or at least, isn’t claiming is free in ads), go ahead and use it.

But consider what you offer for free against what competing ads / search results do. When you’re head to head with completely free products, claiming a free demo or trial only reinforces that you are a paid product. Rather than highlight a free trial, bring the best reason to buy your premium product rather than the freebie.

Showing your pricing can also prevent free-seekers from clicking your ads and burning through your ad budget.

• Address the FUDD.

FUDD = fears, uncertainties, doubts and dealbreakers. Guarantees, free 2-way shipping, no contract, warranty, etc. are all elements that may reduce this anxiety. What’s on your FAQ page? What do customers want to know about the product or your service experience? Know what it is that runs through your customer’s mind during the purchase decision and address that in the copy.

• Make it unique. What do you do better than your competition? If you don’t offer anything unique, what value prop can you communicate that is more compelling than your competitors’ messaging? (Hint: use your search engine to review their ads and snippets, and view their landing pages.) Many of your competitors are already doing a poor job of communicating their value props. Take advantage of that.

Testing messaging

Use your PPC ads to test click through for various value props. Use the winners in your search snippet (meta description) and on your landing page, as search engines may substitute page text for your meta description. Test longer copy in A/B tests on your landing page.

Value props are not just about converting visitors, they’re also useful in driving traffic. Are you using them effectively in search?

The search giant disclosed its latest algorithm update includes page layout as a ranking factor, with a focus on how much above-the-fold real estate is dedicated to visible content vs. advertising or other distracting, useless shiny things (like splash pages).

Google states that customer feedback influenced this change, as it’s no surprise that sites with buried content make for a crummy user experience, as do pages that load slowly — another user-experience related ranking factor.

Design for Users – No, Seriously.

Google is open about its consideration of page load speed, and now page layout — but read between the lines, and you understand that it’s bounce rate that matters. And I mean bounce rate in the context of users pogo-sticking back and forth between search results (web pages) and SERPs (search engine result pages). This behavior is a strong indicator of which pages are truly relevant to a given keyword phrase, and which fail to deliver.

For example, if your page’s content and incoming links suggest high relevance for the search query “learn to speak french,” but you consistently have a high bounce rate and very short average time on page before users return to search to try other results, Google’s simply not going to want to keep ranking you highly. Whether the reason for your high bounce rate is too much non-content above the fold, painfully slow page loads, cluttered and confusing design or something else.

So, BRO (Bounce Rate Optimization — come on, you like this acronym) should be a priority, not just for hanging on to the visitors that arrive on your site, but to help keep those visitors comin’ through search engines.

How to Improve Bounce Rates

• Page load speed optimization
• User testing
• A/B and Multivariate testing

In that order.

Why?

Improving page load speed is low-hanging fruit. It can be performed without user involvement, and takes care of one of the biggest usability issues right off the bat.

User testing should be next, not that it’s any quicker or easier than quantitative methods like A/B and multivariate testing, but the insights you get from real people can help you make better testing decisions. There’s no point testing a whack of site elements that never were problematic for users in the first place.

Finally, A/B and multivariate testing is the process that helps you quantify the impact of changes against the status quo, rather than just making changes and hoping for the best. Use your web analytics to determine which pages to optimize first. Remember to segment traffic source to Google, and hone in on bounce rate by keyword. Look for pages that get high amounts of traffic, with higher than average bounce rate.

Designing for users is designing for search engines. Expect more algorithmic updates in the coming months that favor pages that keep users on-site.

Google now offers a “personal results” option for logged-in Google Account users that incorporates content shared by connections within Google+ and Gmail contacts (pretty much anyone in your email history with a Gmail address).

For example, a search for ‘handbag’ shows me 10 personal results, one being Zappos, which I have added to my Google+ Circles.

Clicking the link shows me my contacts’ shared content.

Smart Zappos uses Google+ to share photos as well as informative articles that stand out in these kind of results. Zappos needs not to be in one’s Circle to appear, if a Google+ friend or Gmail contact has shared Zappos’ posting, it will also show up.

How SPYW Transforms Word-of-Mouth Marketing

While social sharing through Twitter and Facebook is good (and cheap) word-of-mouth for brands, Tweets and Likes have a very short half-life. The more Facebook friends you have, the quicker your Ticker updates. News Feeds are condensed to show only the most “relevant” stories, thanks to EdgeRank. Even if shares are noticed, if they are not relevant at that given time, they get lost in the haystack of updates.

Search Plus Your World obliterates the half life, hanging on to and indexing these shares and resurrecting them when they are relevant to a user. Who cares what Jessie, Joey and Johnny think about TurboTax until you’re in the market for tax software?

If Google could work a deal with other social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, it would really provide value to users. (Hey, it could happen!) But for now, if you want to show up in personal results, you’ve gotta drink the Googleaid.

How Search Plus Your World Affects Ecommerce

It’s obvious participating in Google+ helps your visibility in personal results. But it’s also likely that Google is or will factor social shares as a trust signal, and thus a ranking factor. Spammy sites don’t tend to get organic shares, so it’s one way to spot chaff among wheat. Because Google has full visibility into Google+, it’s easy to spot the fake “sock puppet” accounts — it’s tougher to game the system.

Social link building is becoming as important as old school link building. If you think you don’t need to invest in Google+ until it hits critical mass, or until you can demonstrate a “measurable ROI” from your efforts, competitors who do grok the Plus could leave you in their dust in traditional search rankings, not just personal results.

What You Should Do About Google+

1. Put the Google+ chicklet on all your site pages
2. Treat the chicklet like a call to action (don’t bury it, consider testing placement for best engagement, measure clicks on the button as a micro-conversion metric, etc.)
3. Appoint someone in your organization or an outsourced specialist to own your Google+ marketing effort (this can be part of a larger social media role)
4. Share images and video content regularly, tag appropriately with keywords (multimedia content stands out in search and may be weighted higher, also more likely to be shared by others)
5. Optimize your shares like you would for Twitter or the Facebook Newsfeed
6. Encourage Facebook and Twitter subscribers to also follow you on Google+
7. Segment your email subscriber list and target Gmail accounts with a special request to add you their Circles (along with the benefits of doing so)
8. Use Google+ as a microblog to give product usage tips, feature customer reviews, announce new products and sales events, etc.
9. Engage in “social listening” within Google+, find out who’s talking about you and engage with them. Activity across the network may give your social profile a bit more clout with Google when personalizing results, similar to EdgeRank’s Affinity Score.

While Twitter and Facebook are still important networks to nurture, Google+ deserves serious attention. If you want to be found in social search, now is the best time to start seeding the search engine with your content.

Though social link building is hot, hot, hot, traditional forms have not lost their importance. This post looks at (trust me) ten ways you can find valuable backlinks to help your ecommerce site’s search rankings.

Low Hanging Link Fruit

Ounce of prevention

Before you look to build new links, why not protect the ones you have? How does your site handle product pages for items you no longer carry? It’s a bad user experience to keep them in the catalog, but dropping them means spoiling some SEO. Make sure you have a plan to either keep them (and updating the page to the new product version, merchandise with alternative product suggestions), or 301-redirect to somewhere on your site, be it your home page or a category page or the new version of the product.

Repeat business

Another trick is to reach out to sites that already link to you and look for new opportunities. Was it a blogger that loved your product? Was it a news item? It’s easier to get “repeat business” than approach brand new sites, so check your backlink results for opps to reach out again.

When evogear.com changed its domain to just evo.com, the team reached out to me to update links, and I ended up blogging about their brilliant idea here on Get Elastic, which earned them another link.

There are a number of backlink checking tools out there, both free and paid. The paid tools are worth it if you want to do serious link analysis (e.g. SEOmoz’ Open Site Explorer and Link Research Tools) will show you segmented links like social, news and blogs, and domain authority scores to help you hone in on the most valuable targets first. If you want a freebie, BackLinkWatch is decent.

Social circle

Not only can you create business profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and others and link back to your home page, most social networks allow you to place links to other websites from your personal profiles as well. Encourage your employees to create LinkedIn profiles and add our site, even if they move on from your company these links can stay in their profiles.

But social profiles are typically low-value links because they are easy to set up. Help build up their clout by linking back to them from your site. Not just your business profiles, but also personal ones. Do you have a page with your employees listed?

Howdy partner

Partners and suppliers are great sources for links, but so are your technology vendors. Why not participate in a case study (your vendor will love you), and negotiate a direct link to your site as part of the deal? Bonus points if you can get a brief description of your site with semantically relevant keywords, for example “online textbook marketplace UniXchange…”

Blog Baiting

Blogs are great to target because they are so plentiful, tend to be topical, have regular, subscribed readers and often list the blogger’s name and email address for easy contact.

There are a few ways to get on bloggers’ radars. Here are just a few:

PR pitch

Blogger outreach is very much like traditional PR — blogs are online media, after all. Remember, to get any traction you must first have something remarkable to pitch.

What makes a remarkable story? Check out what these retailers did:

Best Buy Remix

Best Buy’s Remix program offers developers a crack at building their own shopping apps with Best Buy’s API. Major tech blogs like Mashable licked this story up.

Moosejaw Mountaineering X-Ray App

The jaw-dropping moosejaw app that reveals what its catalog models are sporting underneath their gear was perfect fodder for the Huffington Post, Mashable and more.

Sears’ People’s Pick

Doing something innovative with social media will also get you buzz. Sears’ People’s Pick crowdsources its Black Friday deals.

Here’s a sampling of the sites that found this story blogworthy.

But don’t just send bloggers copies of your press releases, and please don’t start off the email with “I love your blog and really enjoyed reading {insert last post here}.” Rather, demonstrate that you understand the audience and the type of content the blogger usually writes about by explaining (briefly) how your story will delight the blog’s readers.

You can also pitch your executives as experts for interviews, for example to provide “predictions” or other business stories to various media (not just blogs).

Bonus tip: Infographics are also so-hot-right-now, so coming up with a killer one is a trendy way to win you some blog love.

Guest post

Offering to guest post can help you build backlinks via your author byline, often from a URL that is topically relevant to what you are selling.

Here’s a tip, use the Dogpile search engine that shows results from both Google, Yahoo and Bing using the term “your keyword] + “guest post”, and repeat searches with “guest author” or “guest writer” to find opportunities.

Don’t take it personally if a blogger no longer accepts guest posts or declines your offer. Bloggers often blog because it’s a way to get their own voice out there. Just keep hunting and you’ll certainly uncover opportunities.

Give it away now

Giveaway blogs are a great way to build links and get your product exposed to potential buyers. Giveaway bloggers are already open to promoting commercial businesses, so you’re likely to have better luck than with other types of pitches. Of course, you want to go for the higher trafficked blogs first, but even the lesser-read ones are still worth it for the link value.

Do-Gooding

Sponsoring good causes or holding charity events can get ya links and help out your fellow man. Just sayin’. evo is an example of both.

Find What is Broken

Here’s a trick from my link building days – it had a higher “conversion rate” (links gained/contacts made) than any other method. Find a page that links to your competitor or a related site and run a backlink check on it. If there’s a broken link, contact the webmaster to report the bug and suggest 2-3 additional links that may be of interest (including yours). Make sure they’re relevant! You’ve already offered something of value, which gives the webmaster motivation to actually go in and change code. But keep it ethical and be transparent about your affiliation with your own link suggestion.

I like to use iWebTool because it’s fast and free, but you can use any broken link checker you like.

The Old Fashioned Way

Of course, there’s the old-skool way of link building, scoping the backlinks of your competitors. So long as you’re patient to wade through spammy sites, you’ll find some good opportunities.

And don’t forget, social link building. Put these all together and with a little elbow grease you’ll have a nicely rounded link profile.

Got your own killer link building tip for ecommerce? Please share in the comments.

Looking for help with ecommerce strategy? Contact the Elastic Path Research & Strategy team at consulting@elasticpath.com to learn how our ecommerce strategy services can improve your business results.

Links from topically relevant and authoritative sites serve as signals of quality for the content they point to. The authority of a web page, or “Page Rank” in Google lingo, flows from one web page to another through (most) links, making link building a staple SEO strategy, but also one that has been abused by spammers. Thus, the “rules” around what makes a valuable link changes frequently, from an importance on reciprocal links and directories (abused through link farms), to keyword-rich anchor text (abused by paid links), to deep-links, and to today’s vogue – social links.

Search engines have confirmed that social signals do factor in their ranking algorithms, and that Facebook and Twitter links are considered, provided 301 redirects are used by URL shortening services. Social networks like Twitter may automatically add the rel=nofollow attribute, but links can be found by search engines through other data feeds.

Though we don’t know exactly which types of links are counted and which ignored, it’s reasonable that factors such as the authority of the social profiles that share and re-share links and their semantic relevance (the keywords surrounding the link) are important. Social linking strategies should keep this in mind.

Let’s explore 5 strategies:

Like, Share, Plus One Buttons

Simply having Twitter, Facbook and Google Plus buttons on your product pages and email campaigns is a link building strategy in itself. These “chicklets” enable passive word of mouth — free link building provided by your own site visitors, customers and fans. You may not get thousands of thumbs up on most of your products, but the long tail of sharing a few times over thousands of products can add up to a lot of exposure for very little effort.

There’s no harm in adding social buttons to product pages, email campaigns, home pages and microsites, other than the potential drag on your page load speed (like analytics code, they should be loaded after the core page content).

35 million Facebookers (1 in 4 account holders) have shared a product with their network, and 35% are more willing to buy a Liked product, so this is a no-brainer.

Your own accounts

Of course, you can leverage your own social media profiles to share new products, sale events and other content. But just submitting your own links likely doesn’t cut it. Search engines can figure out when links are shared by an account associated with a website (do you link to your site from your profile, hmmmm?) They want to see volume of shares or authoritative accounts sharing your links. Working on building up a strong fan base is essential, as is keeping them interested and making your content “share worthy” – complete with headlines that pique interest. Easier said than done, but a good challenge for your campaign strategists.

Hint: Surround your shared links with relevant keywords or hashtags, and try to include keywords in your site pages that you intend to share. Even if they are shrunk with link shorteners, search engines will follow the redirects and account for these keywords.

Hint, hint: Choose your URL shortener wisely. Though most use 301 redirects, some don’t. You’ll be safe with Goo.gl, Bit.ly, Ow.ly and Cli.gs. For more info, check out this article on which url shortening service you should use.

Paid tweets

If you want Kim Kardashian to gush about how much she hearts your handbags, you can pay your way into her feed through a service called – you got it – SponsoredTweets.com (the same folks that invented the PayPerPost service in 2006).

But note that sponsored tweets are, like paid posts and any other paid links, ethically to be disclosed with the hashtag #ad. Treat paid tweets as advertising, not link building.

The #ad hashtag may be a signal that search engines use to discount such links.

PR

Not Page Rank, but the other-other PR, public relations. You’ve used PR to reach out to bloggers and journalists, and these folk often have Twitter accounts as well. In fact, you’re more likely to get a tweet than a full blog post when you pitch, as they take far less time to craft.

Because tweets sent through influencers are suspected to have more clout with search engines, even one or two tweets of this sort can pay off. If you are reaching out with PR, suggest keywords be included in the tweet, like #hashtags.

Customer campaigns

Share-with-your-network calls-to-action in email and social network channels are an underused tactic. Social links are common, but they’re usually of the “Follow Us” variety, comfortably tucked away in header menus.

Or, footer menus.

I suggest being aggressive, and placing the calls-to-action in the content space of your email. Kohl’s is specific that the call-to-action is to forward the email message, rather than simply Like or Tweet the brand.

(Kohl’s example via Retail Email Blog)

Social linking is important – but it hasn’t replaced traditional backlinks. Stay tuned, next post we’ll revisit some of the tried-and-true strategies that can help keep your link profile growing and well-rounded.

Looking for help with your ecommerce strategy and site optimization? The Elastic Path research and consulting division is available to enterprises selling digital goods and services. For more information, visit us at http://elasticpath.com/ecommerce-consulting/ or contact us at consulting@elasticpath.com.