Search engine optimization (SEO) and social media optimization (SMO) are two of the bigger concerns for web-masters and bloggers, as they can both have considerable impacts on the amount of traffic a website or blog receives. But does optimizing your site for search engines hamper your SMO efforts or can they co-exist?
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| Driving Traffic Through Search Engines and Social Media |
Obviously, SMO has to do with social networks and their growing importance to business. This aspect of optimization deals with enhancing your company’s presence and online reputation through interactive communities—not just Facebook and Twitter, but also blogs, forums, and anywhere your business is mentioned or linked to socially.
If you’re looking to improve your SMO, it’s important to keep in mind that having huge numbers of links to your website scattered across social networks is not optimization. Joining every Facebook industry page, Google+ Community, and LinkedIn group just to seed links to your content is actually counter productive, to both SMO and SEO.
Link Building:
SEO – Inbound links are a large determining factor in rankings.
SMO – Links are a result of success, which means that SEO benefits from good SMO.
Analysis:
SEO – Analysis is necessary in order to know which changes have made an impact (positive or negative) on the site’s rankings.
SMO – Analysis is necessary to know what types of content draws interest.
Remember no matter which you prioritize for your company, there's a time for both SEO and social media, and an opportunity for them to work together, too.
