Social Media Optimization
is the latest addition to marketing your website. So far we have used Search Engine Optimization to propel our websites up the search engine results of search engines like Google.
There are two methods of exercising Social Media Optimization:
1. Adding Social Media buttons on your website like RSS Feeds, Sharing Buttons, User Ratings and Polling tools allowing visitors to engage in your content.
2. Engaging in Social Media sites including Blogging, Commenting on other blogs, participating in discussion groups, and posting status updates on Social Networking profiles.
The term Social Media Optimization was first used in an article by Rohit Bhargava on the 10th August 2008 titled “5 Rules of Social Media Optimization (SMO)”. These rules consisted of:
1. Increase your linkability
2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy
3. Reward inbound links
4. Help your content travel
5. Encourage the mashup
Social Media Optimization vs Search Engine Optimization
The traditional way to drive traffic to your website is to use Search Engine Optimization to ensure you develop your website to match particular keywords used by users in Google or other serach engnes. This means that you have to skillfully incorporate those keywords in your content of your website. This means that you are not writing exactly what you want in the hope that the search engines will find your content. Additionally the likes of Google will change their algorithms without notice and you suddenly find your website has dissapeared off page one and you have to start again.
Social Media Optimization comes at it at from the opposite end starting with your website and engaging in converstaion with other blogs, discussion groups and getting them to visit by ‘word of mouth’. In this way you are achieving qualified visitors because they are already reading a topic they are interested in and will easily follow you to your website if they are interested in the topic.
So yes SEO is important but SMO is equally important.
Here at The Net Shop we concentrate on producing Social Media Powred websites that have the facilities mentioned in 1. above and help businesses to engage their business in other blogs and discussion groups.
