SMO or social media optimization is quite an important trend these days. There is a lot of talk about SMO and SEO interaction – how does this work?
How SEO and SMO Work Together:
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process by which websites are first analyzed and then modified to make it easy for search engines to find, read, understand and then index a site correctly. This helps to increase traffic to specific sites.
Social media optimization (SMO) consists of methods to generate traffic to sites through social networking – websites, all manner of blogs and online communities.
What Companies should Note is that:
- SEO and SMO can effectively be used to drive traffic to sites and offer substantial leads to a business.
- SMO is usually used to impress people and SEO is used to get the attention of search engines and spiders. If one writes good content in SMO, it helps garner attention on social media. In SEO, content is written with good keyword usage to get a wide reach with search engine spiders.
- In SEO, titles and meta tags have to be changed to modify a site whereas in SMO, networking is used as a tool to highlight a brand.
- SEO has been around for a long time but SMO is a fairly new phenomenon – less than a decade old but gaining importance fast.
- SMO is not difficult to do – anyone with a bit of knowledge on how to use the internet can do it but to do SEO, qualifications are necessary. Search engines place a lot of emphasis on things like keywords and links. These play an important role in page rankings whereas SMO doesn’t have much of a role.
- The structure of a site is an essential aspect of SEO, not SMO as much.
- Search engines have certain rules which have to be adhered to when performing SEO. SMO doesn’t have any specific rules. The only thing to keep in mind for SMO is that it has to be done to grab a person’s attention. One never uses social networking sites to sell – it is used to raise awareness.
- As a strategy, SEO is usually used for the long term and it takes a while to see results. SMO is a quick process and one can use social sites and blogs to keep search results good.
- SMO can cost a lot or next to nothing as compared to good SEO services. SEO is usually done for the long haul and needs tweaking all the time to get the best results and good rankings.
The basic aim of both methods is to make sure that traffic to a website and also grow business. The question people usually have is which one to do first. SEO has to be done first to ensure that a website exists and visibility is guaranteed – then SMO can be done to engage users and build a brand. SMO works very well for companies with a strong web presence.
There are quite a few methods which can be used to increase visibility on social sites like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and others. Joining different groups and engaging people with similar interests is a good start. Discussion bards are another good way to get people interested and also to participate. The conclusion that one can draw now is that having a social media presence can have a positive impact on generating more organic listings as search engines are now paying attention to networking sites as well. Combine both methods to grow a business and prosper.
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