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!
Great post, but I find it so hard to get people interactive with Social Networking so I find SEO much easier. Any tips for enticing engagement from people on a Social Network?
The most important aspect of social media is that you need to benchmark, test and verify the results.People don’t know how good social media can be for their business, and many don’t realize how effective social media is.
Very good writeup on the various positives and negatives of SEO vs. Social Networking. My emphasis so far has been on SEO but I am beginning to venture into Facebook and Twitter.
Ellie
For me personally SEO wins this battle as the aim is to not have to pay for premium advertising to help secure a 1st page result for your competitive keyword on the biggest search engine in the world. Social networking can help drive in more sales but nothing competed to how many people would visit your site because you are the first link on google – SEO does this better
SEO is ever green way to generate targetted FREE traffic…. Efforts in SEO will pay u for a longer period of time den SOcial networking
Social networking and seo are closely inter-related. Although both have different ways to processing but if joined and worked together can get great results.
In my opinion, I think a mix of both is best. Social media will bring you an increase in traffic almost immediately but it may not be as targeted as the traffic you would gain through SEO. There’s also Google AdWords which kind of acts like the best of both, instant traffic but also targeted traffic.
Hey Ava,
Thanks for your comment. Adwords is a good method but you need to have sufficient funds in starting this type of marketing campaign. So if you are a novice blogger, stick to viral marketing instead.
Thanks
Noah, I agree that it is best to develop both a strong SEO and social media marketing position. The irony is, when you do one, you often do the other. Your SEO information was solid.
I would quibble with one minor point. You correctly pointed out that Google puts more attention to off-line marketing than to the site itself, and advised the newbie to focus attention on their off sight SEO = social media campaign. I would argue that developing your blog is the first priority. SEO is something everyone is doing. Any and all weaknesses will get you discounted from your desired position. Since only ~12 get p 1….with any errors….forget it. Develop your blog first–for SEO and to have a fine product for your guests to read.
I especially like these lines taken from the conclusion; “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.”
The answer is both. They both have their own significance in their filed. SEO is useful to sustain good traffic and for building brand reputation for the site.
SMO has become a demand for promoting your site. Facebook and Twitter are the best examples for it.
I believe all of them are important, on-site SEO, off-site SEO, and social networking. You can’t always be sure with google, so better if you cover all the bases. Building backlinks are complemented well with social networks as these are very authoritive sites that google trust, because they are consumer driven networks.