With the ever increasing popularity of social networks and their ability to virally spread information, a concept in Search Engine Optimization has quickly emerged; SEO for Social Search.
The partnership for example that recently was created between social media giant Facebook and Microsoft's Bing search engine is a sign of the times. The agreement between the companies would allow for Microsoft's search engine to serve up results based on the Facebook "likes" of the friends of the searcher. Internet giant Google was doing something similar with Twitter updates. This is a natural development that matches the business models of those companies and it shifts the trend of targeted search results to the next level: returning results that are tailored to the current social footprint of the searcher.
This trend has drastically changed the SEO industry. SEO trained professionals willl need to adapt regarding the way they run their client's campaigns and need to respond to their ever changing needs. It is a huge development and will affect the industry as a whole.
In approximately 15 years of existence, SEO has shifted from a small loosely run and overlooked necessity which was handled by webmasters and servers of content. It is now one of the fastest growing and demanding sectors in technology. Search engines are constantly evolving and that is the reason for the rapid change of the face of SEO.
While the method is changing, the mission will pretty much stay the same. The core purpose of the SEO industry is getting clients ranked high on results pages. How this is done can constantly be shifting, but clients will always be demanding “Show me the Money!”. The pressure is high on SEO firms to get clients the results they want.
In the world of Internet marketing, Social Media is not a newcomer. If Facebook was a country it would be ranked in the top 5 in the world as far as population. You probably have seen Twitter feeds in Google searches already and it won't be long before you see results from social media sites such as Foursquare; not to mention the sites that have not arrived on the scene yet. This shift highlights the SEO professional's need to include and integrate social networks into their optimization efforts.
The partnership between Bing and Facebook for example is a prominent indicator of the large amount of changes that have shifted SEO from being a small operation and in many cases an afterthought to an element of paramount importance and innovation. Many people consider SEO to be a strategy that resembles a counter-punch and a reaction to the ever shifting landscape of search engines. It is not. It is about adapting to the way search engines conduct their searches and evolving alongside them to make certain those searching get what they need.
Let's take a look at how a search engine such as Google includes elements of one's social network in its search results. You will notice that you use your Google username and password to login to mostly all of Google's affiliate sites. By doing this, Google has access to a number of social areas that people use such as Gmail accounts, Docs, Flickr, Picasa and even Twitter feeds you signed up to follow.
Here are some things you should consider implementing with regards to SEO that would give you potentially more hits when people search:
- Actively post updates to your twitter account and use keywords that you typically include in the content on your free website. This will boost your subscribership and drive traffic.
- Other social profiles that are tied to your company should also have a high number of subscribers and deliver quality content.
- Because Gmail is utilized through Google's social way of searching, you might want to consider optimizing your emailed newsletters and posting them around.
With some effort on your part, your site will show up in results in due time.
