SEO and Social Media

Search engine optimization (SEO) has changed significantly in recent years, with the growth of social media.

But it has its advantages for an SEO, since it provides the ability to focus on the core purpose of SEO (link building) and provides numerous opportunities to create new means for getting sites to rank.

You might say that its probably the biggest shift in SEO in recent years, and presents new challenges at the same time. The issues lie in the fact that the signals provided through social media make it more challenging to identify true authority.

The web is in a constant state of flux when it comes to SEO, and social media has its pros and cons. The biggest issue being that it also gives the less scrupulous practitioners new opportunities, but that's not likely to change.

What's Most Important for SEO?

Want traffic? What SEO doesn't?

What is more important - traffic or rank?

Rank is a measure of sorts, but ultimately, isn't traffic more important?
Rank can bring you traffic, but there are other means without relying solely on the search engines.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Social Media Optimization (SMO) are now recognized as essential tools to the SEO process. Some even might say that they are a process all on their own.

Sounds like the same argument as whether branding is part of marketing or its own individual process. Either way, it's essential to be familiar with both - in both cases.

The thing about SMM/SMO is that it can also help your overall SERPs in many cases. But when you have true succcess with the Social networks and bookmarking sites, you can see almost instant results.

So much so, this is what has been labeled as the "Digg Effect". If your webhost isn't ready, a surge of 20,000 in one hour can take its toll on a server, often bringing a web host to its knees. This crippling affect can be avoided, which I'll comment on in another post some other time.

Anyone disagree that rank is more important than traffic?

Rank can equal traffic, with the right phrase optimization and conditions, but at the end of the day, traffic can convert while rank may or may not provide customers.