This document summarizes research on the relationship between social sharing, organic search rankings, and click-through rates (CTRs). It finds that while social shares do not directly impact rankings or CTRs, there are positive correlations. Content with high social engagement rates, rather than just shares, tends to see above-average CTRs and better organic search performance. The document also outlines "unicorn CTR hacks" like testing headlines, advertising content, and remarketing to drive social engagement and search success.

1. Does Social Sharing Impact
Organic Rankings & Cost
Per Click ?
Featuring: Larry Kim & Steve Rayson

2. Steve Rayson
@steverayson
steve@buzzsumo.com
Larry Kim
@LarryKim
lkim@wordstream.com

3. Data Insights To Create Better Content

4. What do recent studies say about
social sharing, CTRs and rankings?
Are there correlations between social
sharing, organic rankings, views and
CTRs?

5. 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

6. Searchmetrics 2015 study:
Ranking Correlations:
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
CTR
Google +
Facebook
Twitter
Links
Time on site

7. Moz 2015: Social Shares Ranking Correlations
Facebook Total
Google +
Facebook Shares
Facebook Likes
Facebook Comments
Twitter Shares

9. tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

10. 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

11. 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

13. Is there a relationship
between social sharing and
factors such as dwell time and
click through rates?

14. 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

15. 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

16. The article was
shared 45,000+
times with tons of
comments on social
media.
Many rants about
people commenting
on articles without
reading them.

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

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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

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

23. 100k Random Posts
50% articles had less
than 8 shares

24. 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.

25. 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

26. 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)

27. What are common
elements of blockbuster
posts?

28. Common Elements

29. 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.

30. ‘How To’ Posts
15% of posts with more than 3,000 shares were “how”, “how
to” or “ways to”

32. Have You
Witnessed
This
Phenomenon
Before?

33. Exhibit 1: “catchy email subject lines”

34. Top Organic
Listing!!

35. Nearly a Half-Million Visits
from Organic Traffic!

36. Blog post has
1352 shares!

37. Exhibit 2: “best free survey sites”

38. Top Organic
Listings!!

39. Nearly a Quarter Million
Visits from Organic Traffic!

40. Blog post
gets 1189
shares!

41. Exhibit 3: “develop presentation skills”

42. Top Organic
Listings!!

43. Nearly a 100k Visits from
Organic Traffic!

44. Blog post
gets 956
shares!

46. 3 Random Facts About Larry

47. 1. Obsessed About Quality Score

48. 2. Originally From Winnipeg

49. Live in Harvard Square Cambridge, MA

50. WordStream’s Headquarters
2008 2016

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

52. 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?

53. Google: “No”.

54. What’s the Difference?
Social
Shares
Social
Engagement
Rates
vs.

55. Social Engagement
Rates
=
(Total Unique People
Who Engaged With
Your Post) / (Total
Unique People Who
Saw Your Post)

56. Social Shares Don’t
Equal Engagement Rates
Greater Paid/Organic Social
Promotion = More Shares!

57. Larry’s Idea:
Compare Social
Engagement Rates vs.
Organic CTRs

58. Download Facebook Post
Engagement Data from FB Insights

59. Download Query Data From
Google Search Console

60. Relative Organic CTR vs. Facebook Post Engagement Rate
Higher Post Engagement =
Higher Organic CTR!

61. 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

62. Above Average Organic CTR = Better Rankings
+/- 3% Increase in
Post Engagement
+/- 1 Spot in Organic
Position

63. The Old Theory
High Social Shares =
High Organic Rankings

64. The New Theory
High Social Shares =
High Social Engagement Rates =
Above Average Organic CTRs =
High Organic Rankings

65. 7.4%
Engagement
Rate When
Shared on
FB!

66. 8.5%
Engagement
Rate when
Shared on FB

67. 7.1%
Engagement
Rate When
Shared on FB

68. What Does all it Mean?

69. Click Through Rate Matters
(a Great Deal!)
Unicorn CTR = Lots
of Social Shares =
Great Organic
Rankings … AND …

70. Higher CTRs = Higher Conversion Rates

71. Higher CTRs = Higher Quality Scores

72. Higher Quality Scores = Higher Impression Share!

74. Social Media: More Shares!
Organic Search: Better Rankings!
Paid Search/Social: +Impressions, -CPC, +Conversion Rates
Virtuous Cycle of Unicorn CTRs:

75. Larry Knows Too Much...
Soon They Will All Know the Truth

76. 3 Unicorn CTR Hacks

77. Unicorn CTR Hack #1:
Audition More Headlines

78. 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

79. The Bearer
of Bad News
The
Hero/Villain
The Comedian The Feel
Good Friend
Step 2: Write Headline Copy From Perspective of
One of These Personas

80. Format
List post, quiz,
Infographic
Emotional
Hook
Emotional word or
superlative
Content Type
Images, quotes, pictures,
facts
Topic
Love, cats, dogs, fitness,
health, Donald Trump
4 AWESOME SEO STRATEGIES TO DEFEAT
RANKBRAIN
Step 3: Use This Title Template Commonly
Employed By ‘Viral’ Articles

81. So Test 10 Different Headlines
Unicorn Headlines = Top 10% Odds of Finding
Unicorn = 1:10

82. How to Spot the Unicorn?
You Need 10 *Different* Headlines!

83. Use AdWords to Test Headlines

84. Unicorn CTR Hack #2:
Advertise!

85. How Advertising REALLY Works
STEP 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.

88. Interests Targeting

89. Demographic Targeting

90. Behavioral Targeting

91. Unicorn CTR Hack #3:
Remarket!

92. Returning Visitors:
1. Existing Customers
2. 1-Day Remarketing
Audience
3. 7, 30, 180-day
Remarketing
Audiences
New Visitors:
1. Lookalike Audiences
2. Interest, Behavior &
Demographic-Based
Audiences.
Larry’s Ad Targeting Stack

93. Conversion
Rates Increase
With More Ad
Impressions
Weird Thing About Remarketing

94. Summary: Just Say No to Donkey CTRs!

95. Special Offers!

96. Thanks!