The relationship of SMO and SEO
When building a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, it is very important to consider a number of factors like PageRank, keyword density, and backlinks. Social media optimization (SMO) works very closely with SEO. Many tactics for running successful campaigns benefit both. One of the main things Google suggests is to build content for your reader, not search engines, and build high-quality content. This benefits both SEO and SMO by giving your reader something interesting, which makes it more likely to be passed around. As it gets passed around, more backlinks are established benefiting PageRank and weight, key pieces in Google’s algorithm. High-quality content also benefits by adding keyword rich content to a site which helps increase relevancy to search terms, another big piece in the algorithm. If people begin talking about your content (i.e. posting your content on their site), the content benefits by the PageRank of their page. Social media optimization is a process by which viral growth is ignited by moving quality content past the initial negative inertia which prevents the success of most content and sites.
A great SMO tactic that benefits SEO is using a paid campaign to begin viral growth. If you are starting from scratch, then it is very easy to begin an SEO campaign, by using paid search to give yourself some traffic and a few links so that you will be indexed quickly. Sure that works, but try running a StumbleUpon campaign in addition to paid search. The one problem with paid search is if you start a campaign then stop your links disappear. When using something like SU you can begin the viral push, but more importantly, SU gives you links, permanent links. Every time someone thumbs up your content piece, you get a link placed in their profile. If they thumbs down your content, you get a link in their profile. When someone visits your site, you get a link in their profile. That’s about $.05, per backlink, even if no one likes your page, and as everyone knows, links are one of the big keys to SEO.
Mike Palmer
Analyst
[…] Hudson wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptWhen building a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, it is very important to consider a number of factors like PageRank, keyword density, and backlinks. Social media optimization (SMO) works very closely with SEO. … […]
Pingback by The relationship of SMO and SEO | Relationship Advise - Dating Disasters — May 23, 2008 @ 1:23 pm
Hey Mike,
Good seeing you the other day. Good post too. What are your thoughts on viral video as it relates to SEO?
-Nelson
Comment by Nelson Bruton — May 30, 2008 @ 2:18 am
Thanks. Viral Video is difficult to connect directly to SEO, it can be beneficial, but you have to use things like alt text when describing video since the spiders that crawl the sites pull relevancy from alt text (They can’t read the actual video itself) Another way that the viral video could help siginificantly is if people are linking the video on your site via Anchor Text instead of just the URL. The links to the site that accompany viral video are very useful, but if you have any control over the way the links are posted, it is much more beneficial if the link had anchor text instead. Google uses Anchor Text in keywords and search results.
Comment by Mike — June 6, 2008 @ 2:50 pm