SMO verse SEO: Which is more important?

[Shawn Gossman]

Social Media Optimization or Search Engine Optimization?

Which would you outrank over the other? I tend to use both as equally of importance but only if the two can be integrated. If only you can take forum content and optimize it both for social media and search engines while keeping it as human friendly as possible.

What are your thoughts, folks?

 

[Lisa]

What are your thoughts, folks?

Truthfully? I don't care

 

[Sysnative]

SMO isn't applicable for all sites.

Think of my site Sysnative - people might be inclined to share on facebook a small number of our threads, but no one is really going to share on social media the thread that helped them solve their BSOD issue - we're a technical forum that helps users, and consequently we don't expect a large number of people to share our content on social media. If on the other hand you run Buzzfeed - if people aren't sharing your content, you have a big problem.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

but no one is really going to share on social media the thread that helped them solve their BSOD issue

I don't know about that... If somehow you can add something to make it humorous or entertaining in some way, you might change your opinion on that. I've noticed a simple joke or bit of humor can make a social media action go a long way.

Answer the question in all seriousness on your forum, add the humor or entertainment once you post it on social media.

 

[Lisa]

Shawn Gossman lol my statement was hardly dramatic

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Shawn Gossman lol my statement was hardly dramatic

Something about annoying you gets me excited lol

 

[Lisa]

Something about annoying you gets me excited lol

You're only annoying me in your own head. Enjoy yourself

 

[Phillip]

What are your thoughts, folks?

Either one works, to a point. But in all honesty doesn't matter.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Why doesn't it matter?

 

[Phillip]

Why doesn't it matter?

SMO has to do with social networks and SEO is a set of strategies with the broad goal of bringing more people to your website the first way, by improving your search engine rankings.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

SMO has to do with social networks and SEO is a set of strategies with the broad goal of bringing more people to your website the first way, by improving your search engine rankings.

Both in which can help your forum though...

 

[Phillip]

Both in which can help your forum though...

True, I should have thought more on my reply, haha.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

True, I should have thought more on my reply, haha.

No sad faces allowed...

*Gives Altari some frozen yogurt*

 

[Phillip]

No sad faces allowed...

*Gives Altari some frozen yogurt*

Oh, frozen yogurt sounds good right now. Keep this up and see how fast I run to the store.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Oh, frozen yogurt sounds good right now. Keep this up and see how fast I run to the store.

I'd have to drive 10 miles to get frozen yogurt anywhere and I am just way too lazy today...

 

[Phillip]

I'd have to drive 10 miles to get frozen yogurt anywhere and I am just way too lazy today...

I'm less than a mile away from some of our major stores around my area. I usually want to Wal-Mart all the time, but since my knee has been acting up on me I can't really go anywhere.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

They got those electric carts lol. Obese people who need to walk more use them all the time, so why can't you?

 

[Phillip]

They got those electric carts lol. Obese people who need to walk more use them all the time, so why can't you?

I wouldn't do that. There are too many handicap people around here.

 

[Sysnative]

Answer the question in all seriousness on your forum, add the humor or entertainment once you post it on social media.

We know our own social media and SEO strategy. There are plenty of threads on our forum where it just wouldn't be possible for them to be spread much on social media - "adding humour" isn't a magic technique that works with all content.

As said, there are some pieces of content where they're never going to be shared. They might do very well in SEO rankings though, and gain a lot of traffic.

If you have content that's designed to be easily shared - aka clickbait - then SEM is more important. If it's less likely to be shared, or not at all likely to be shared, then SEO is more important. It depends what your target audience is, and their behaviour. Buzzfeed articles rely on SEM because there style of content isn't really going to come up in search results too often - but whilst the article "26 hilarious pictures of cats with moustaches" isn't going to do very well in search engine results alone, Buzzfeed content like that generally does exceptionally well on social media.

One isn't more important than the other, but which strategy you want to focus on (preferably both) will depend on your content.

 

[pavan]

Whether you want to focus on your overall SEO operations decisions or you choose to concentrate and on SMO depends on your modern goals.


Method: Optimizing your website for search engines (SEO)
Method: Participating content off-site(SMO)
Goal: Improve traffic via search engines (SEO)
Goal: Build brand acceptance and demand among people(SMO)
Method: Choose and apply keywords, optimize HTML and backend coding, add meta descriptions, alt tags, headers… (SEO)
Method: Build quality content and published it as extensively as possible within social media channels(SMO)
Results: Seen over the long-term (SMO)
Results: Short intervals of success(SEO)