Can Social Shopping Sites Improve SEO?
The first time I’d ever heard about social shopping sites like StyleHive.com, ThisNext.com, and CribCandy.com was when working on a special report for MarketingSherpa.
A source mentioned these sites as an inexpensive way for B-to-C marketers to get their brand name out there as marketing budgets are slashed. It made me question whether these sites are successfully generating leads for marketers in tough times.
Lisa Mathisen, owner of Realm Dekor, couldn’t say exactly how many leads she’s gotten from these sites, but she did say they are great because she can post new products and blast messages to those who follow her products on the different sites. After some digging, I found more interesting information.
Denise Zimmerman, President and CSO of NetPlus Marketing Inc., blogged about it in an iMedia Connection column, “Get In on the Social Shopping Craze”.
In the column, Denise concludes that “by its nature social shopping is more likely to impact brand awareness, purchase consideration and maybe even intent, but not necessarily direct sales.”
Agreed. And marketers shouldn’t underestimate the role these sites could play in improving SEO. Even the act of posting items on these sites can make a product or company name more prevalent in search results. Who knows? Some bloggers could be using these sites to find products to blog about. They could be linking to your products on blogs of their own, therefore improving your SEO.
Categories: Branding, Consumer Marketing, Ecommerce Eretail, Search Marketing BtoC, SEO, social shopping
