Social Media and the Future of SEO
Let’s Follow the Yellow Brick Road, SEOs
A while back I read an interesting comment over at SEOmoz after watching Rand Fishkin’s Whiteboard Friday: it roughly, and rightly, stated that SEOs are tired of following Google’s latest algo change.
In his video, Rand asserts that all we’ll need to worry about in the future are the facts that backlinks will always count as votes of confidence and good content will always provide a satisfactory user experience. All true.
But what about the role of social media in the future of SEO?
Rand says that he doesn’t think that social is going to be as big as some are saying it will. I disagree. To justify his position he mentions that Twitter and FaceBook are easy systems to game. That’s true at the moment. But people are also learning that marketing through these social media without gaming them can actually be more successful than the unethical approach.
The face of search is changing and we detected a radical shift at least a year ago.
There’s even a new search engine called Leapfish that includes results on social media sites as well as traditional search engine results.
Interestingly a couple of years back when I asked Rand if he thought that Google included data on site traffic in the ranking algo, he said that he didn’t think so. That’s changed and now he says that Google will increasingly incorporate usage metrics to gauge the value of websites, to the extent that good traffic could even make up for not-so-good backlinks.
Rand also speculates that verticals will replace Google for some categories of search, such as Craigslist for apartments search, Kayak for travel search etc (those are his examples).
I would also venture that the comments over at Ad Age regarding Google’s treatment of SEOs and marketing people in general have served to create a general malaise over Google too. In plain language we’re all sick of Google moving the goal posts, insulting us, and outright calling us criminals when all we’re doing is providing a much-needed online service.
Is Google biting the hand that feeds it?
To read between the lines of Google algo changes and updates, you might be forgiven for thinking that today’s online marketers (including SEOs of course) are just mutations of yesterdays spammers and porno-peddlers. Naturally we’re all rankling at that–who wouldn’t. So in effect, Google sees itself as big enough and mighty enough to alienate a huge sector of the online community with impunity–and no compunction whatever.
So aside from the fact that most of us see Google’s monopoly as a huge danger, particularly with the development of ‘the cloud,’ (How the cloud can be a danger to us is a subject I’ll be covering in a post shortly), we will also be anxious to adopt the first real alternative to the Google empire simply because of the bad feeling that Google itself has created.
I started writing this post several months back. Since then many online marketers of all stripes have joined the growing crowd who see Twitter as playing an increasingly important role in online search and more. Already, as I predicted in a guest post over at Search Engine People back in March, users are looking to Twitter for instant gratification. Just a few minutes ago, I found myself searching Twitter for Google Wave invites (Ironic I know). You can see the result when I searched Google here. While this is the result I got for a Twitter Search for Google Wave invites.
As you can see, if you’re looking for a Google Wave invite, Twitter is the place to go! Those results just prove what I’ve been saying for months. Twitter poses a serious threat to Google as The New Search Venue. In fact, if I were a Google exec, I’d be much more worried about Twitter than Bing or any possible search engine combination.
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I second Malaysia SEO's comment.. .
Well done got some nice information, keep going…
Hi Patricia,
Good post and thanks for sharing your thoughts re Twitter vs. Google. Although I see your perspective, I don't quite agree Twitter poses a big threat to Google. In your example, the key phrase you chose, Google Wave invite, only tells me Twitters are tweeting posts that relate directly with a Google Wave invitation. For example, let’s say yesterday, there was a big issue with the Google Wave invite, I think we’d then see more Twitter search results about the issue instead wouldn’t we?
On the other hand if you were to search for ‘Sydney restaurants’ in Twitter and Google search, you'd probably want to look at Google search because you’d get a list of variety of Sydney based restaurants (which is what you’re after). But with Twitter search, once again, you’ll get results based on new tweet titles.
I guess it comes down to the key phrase used. Let’s not forget Google will be launching their new os next year. A computer being built, possibly with all existing Google applications – mind blowing indeed! I don’t seem to hear much news about Twitter though.
That being said Twitter is a great communication platform. However if Google embeds a similar platform into their Google Wave I think we’ll have a different story.
Nice post once again!
Upesh
http://www.netengine.com.au
Thanks for the very helpful information about SEO.To day many of people visit social media site and includes results on social media sites as well as traditional search engine results.I would also venture that the comments over at Ad Age regarding Google’s treatment of SEOs and marketing.
Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIN are really taking of this year. I found myself on so many different types of social media sites that …
Ok!this wery nice post.
Both are separate subjects but can effect each other, i was reading somewhere that social search can replace search engines which is not possible at all
So much is blogged on this subject, you have nice post on this subject as welll