This is a guest post by Noah Mark Rodolfo from BestOnlineBusinessGuide.net
Social networking is one of today’s biggest arena when it comes to online marketing. It’s been an effective gauge for Internet businesses, not only for e-commerce sites but also for bloggers. Facebook, Twitter and even Google+ are making a big impact on the Internet and many practical users are taking the bait. So the question is – “does SEO still have relevance for your online business?”.
SEO against social networking is an interesting topic especially if you are looking for the best way to market your website business. If you want to promote your brand using social medias, then you certainly have to build your social network profile to develop both yourself and your site. Otherwise, you’ll have to stick with search engine optimization which is more complicated compared to social network marketing.
If you have a brand new site, the first thing that comes to your mind is to optimize every page of your site to increase its search engine rankings. Ironically, social media networks can highly aid your SEO needs when it comes to off-page optimization. It is good to note that search engines especially Google, gives a lot of attention on these social networking sites. So instead of focusing in SEO, you have to first try the waters of social networking because it also benefits your off-page optimization efforts.
So is SEO really the thing of the past? No, not yet! While it is easier to carry out a large social network marketing campaign to increase your site or blog’s traffic, it still has its limitation. Plus, not all people in your network are “targeted” people for your business. Social networking needs to be maintained through expanding continuously without delay. If you are unable to cope up with every changes in the social networking landscape, your business will also be affected. This is the reason it is called “networking” in the first place.
But SEO can be a daunting task as well especially if you are a newbie. There is two types of SEO namely – on-page and off-page. Google is not highly particular with on-page factors these days so off-page method should be your number one priority. Off-page means link building and that is the hardest part. If you know various tricks on how to get backlinks from various authoritative sites, then your site will become popular in just a few months. I mean “months” because you will have to wait for your turn to get higher rankings in the search engines. This is another drawback when it comes to SEO.
So What Is The Catch?
With search engine optimization, you can be a big player if you obtain good rankings in a certain keyword which gets millions of searches per month. But profitable keywords also have stiff competition from thousands of websites. So if you want to be a dominant site in the search engines, you have to take a lot of effort to build thousands of backlinks for your website or blog.
With social networking, you also start small and you have to build your network in a slowly but surely manner. What I meant was to get people on your network which has similar “interests” as with your business. Your site’s traffic has potential to receive tons of daily traffic if you have a big “network” on each of your social media profile. If you were able to achieve a big network in a short span of time, you can build good reputation about your site and your business as a whole to all those people within your network.
In summary, SEO and social networking methods are both essential to your online business success. If you can do both, then you will have better marketing program for your blog or e-commerce business. Remember that a business takes time to nourish and should not be rushed. Whether it’s SEO or social networking, the important thing is that you have to strive harder and put a lot of effort to reach your goal.
Do you imagine what your business can achieve if you were able to reach your goal in both SEO and social networking? Yes, Internet business can overwhelmingly reward you financially. So which is better, SEO or social networking? You decide!
First off, great post! And yes, I did read it completely lol :). This topic of marketing both ways is a long and opinion-full thing. I would have to say to balance both out. At the beginning of your blog, social media is a must, and the connection is real through that. SEO has to be the long-term investment. That’s the way I see it. Face it, with all the websites on the web, not alot of options to be way up front is readily available. Just my thoughts.
Make sure you are creating content that your customers will appreciate and make sure you are telling people about it. Both sides of this equation will take care of themselves as long as you are using good keywords in important places like your headlines and links.
Finding the topics to write about can be the biggest headache. I know of some ways to make it easier.
I would lean a bit towards SEO,as our efforts can stay longer and the only way to replace us is fair and simple.Social networking may be easy by looks but how much of potential customers can we reach is something to put thought through.
Noah,
I definitely agree with you. Social networking will give you more instant results since a good SEO job takes a long time to come to fruition, but ultimately any good business will need to tackle both of these aspects to succeed long term.
Hey Steve,
Thanks for your comment. I read your page -> http://www.stevescottsite.com/affiliate-marketing-strategies and I want to ask what you think about my own affiliate site -> http://www.thebestweightlossproduct.net. It is a weight loss site designed for moreniche products. Do you think I have to abandoned Adsense? Many folks are telling me to take out those ads as this can confuse my readers.
The site is 3 years old now and until now, I only manage one sale for that site. This is the reason I am now focusing on my other sites. So since you are more into affiliate marketing, I would like to ask for your opinion about my weight loss site.
Many thanks Steve,
Noah
Hey NOAH, I believe that if its only organic traffic that you are looking at then its only seo that will help but social networking sites really help in publicizing your blog.
Although, SEO may be complicated, time consuming and sometimes difficult, I have some experience doing it and I am a bit comfortable with the routine I developed. I have just gotten into social networking, I am aware about its potential but I am still learning how to utilize it. I don’t forget to update my profile but often there are times when I don’t know what my next step with it is.
I think social networking is overrated for businesses. Whens the last time you bought something or patroonized a business because of a fb friend? SEO all the way!
I would have to disagree. If you want to increase the sphere of your business, real people through social networks can spread like fire and can boost your rankings a lot. SEO has its place and the competition is getting harder and harder. As you gain more visitors through social media, SEO catches that and automatically boost the page rank of your business’s page. Just my opinion :).
I have been putting off getting into the social media sites for my company but I know I need to. I just am having a hard time starting. So I appreciate the push and you showing me the importance and what it can do for my company.
You should definitely do both, find the right balance between the two. Social Networking a la Linkedin is great to turn connections into sales, not so sure about Facebook. It seems that Facebook is used more to socialize, than to sell and buy. Twitter has also been good to me, because you can create a targeted audience.
I believe that both are essential strategies in fighting for that lucrative top ten spot. From what I have deducted from research is that having great content makes for a great asset.
Google constantly changes its algorithms and if your site is unappealing and does not provide anything useful Google will use that bounce rate against your site. Therefore having that great content is necessary.