Many of you have probably heard the made-up “definition” of Santorum. Essentially a Rick Santorum detractor created an offensive Web site by the name of ‘Spreading Santorum’ and used ingenious marketing techniques to gain publicity, and defame Rick Santorum, in an extremely short period of time. Now with a copycat ‘Spreading Romney’ campaign, two presidential nominees are dealing with increasingly negative name connotations, and we have an interesting case study in search engine marketing techniques.
Despite the Romney site being live for almost a month, it has attracted an incredible amount of attention both online and on TV. Here are three ways they used marketing to draw attention that you can also use to promote your online presence.
1. They’re Fresh
Google ranks new content relatively higher in searches that seem to request very recent, timely material. With the republican primary race in full swing, “Romney” is definitely a fresh search term. Most people searching for Romney are looking for the latest news in the campaign. You too can take advantage of the concept of query-deserved freshness by capitalizing on recent industry news.
2. They’re Social
While Google claims to not be very tied in to social media indicators on Facebook and Twitter, it definitely takes into account data found on Google+. The spreading Romney site has gained close to a thousand +1 votes since going live. Bing does take into account Facebook and Twitter, so undoubtedly the number of social media responses influenced search results through this engine.
3. They Used Links To Pick Up Relevancy
The way in which people link to a web page is a primary way both Bing and Google determine search ranking. With only a few links from high-quality and relevant sites, the Spreading Romney site was able to achieve a tremendous surge in search rankings.
While these sites are in questionable taste, they do present an interesting case study for social media and search engine ranking techniques. That one simple page was able to become viral in only a month’s time truly speaks to the effectiveness of a well-timed, socially relevant marketing campaign.
