SMO and SEO – if these two terms are just a jumble of letters to you then you are probably not involved in internet marketing or website development. If you happen to have heard of SEO, but scratch your head and come up with nothing when looking at SMO that is perfectly acceptable.
Most people involved with online business and promotions, will have heard of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). But if you really want to dominate your market and generate masses of traffic – you need to get involved with Social Media Optimization (SMO).
Why You Need Social Media Optimization
Social Media Optimization, SMO for short, is sometimes referred to as Social Media Marketing (SMM). The two terms are realistically interchangeable. Any website looking to improve their search engine rankings and become more visible, will normally try to run a successful SEO campaign. SEO is very important and should be the aim of every website that wants to dominate search engine, but the problem is that is can be a lengthy process – especially off-page SEO.
If the aim is to generate fast traffic to a website, establish a brand or interact with potential customers in real time, then Social Media Optimization is a key strategy. SMO is an incredibly useful partner to an SEO campaign. SMO uses social media to help promote a website and considering the vast amount of social media platform now available, and springing forth every month – Social Media Optimization could well be the future of SEO.
Social Media Facts and Statistics
Social media sites are now amongst the biggest websites in the world. They attract the biggest crowds, create the largest buzz and dominate SERPs.
Nearly every internet user has either head of, or has an account with, social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, You Tube and Flickr. Not only that, many people use these sites as homepages and perform their general search enquires from the actual site. There is recent speculation that Facebook may be toppling Google as the number one traffic referrer!
It is more crucial than ever that webmasters, marketers and businesses now incorporate SMO into their plans and actions. Social media is only going to get bigger and optimizing a website, and its content, for social media searches is a winning strategy. In fact, it may now be as relevant as optimizing a site for the big search engines.
Tactics for Social Media Optimization
Social media can be manipulated and utilized to any websites advantage. Many various formats can be used to promote via social media – user profiles, videos, images or even songs. The important point is to treat these marketing methods as you would any other and optimize them.
Add keywords and general tags to images, songs and videos. Don’t forget about Meta tags and submitting any media to the correct category. These important factors are often overlooked and can give you a serious advantage in the SMO market.
This article is written by Roko Nastic, editor at WebmasterFormat.com. He enjoys sharing useful advices, tips and tricks to webmasters willing to learn more about blogging, writing, web hosting providers, web development and web design.
