So when I rock up at a party, probably one of those awkward ones because I seldom engage with people in the flesh, and a bored stranger (with little else to do other than talk to the quiet guy on the sofa) pops the inevitable question “So, umm, what do you do for a living?” I begin to haul out my carefully constructed one-liner: “I manipulate websites to make them appear higher in a search engine results”. Baffled by the existence of such an occupation, said stranger pushes for more and I am obliged to begin the lengthy explanation of what SEO is. So as to not get too technical with them, I opt for an introduction to the concept of link acquisition and how Google decides which page is most relevant on a given topic based on how many other pages are linking to it. This particular stranger, feeling left out of the conversation I’m having with myself, juts in and derails my train of thought altogether with “Works kind of like Facebook likes, right?”
Mother of pearl! This chap managed not only to grasp the concept of link building right of the bat, but nailed Facebook SEO in one foul swoop! Or did he? At least the SEO’er in me thought so.
Keeping on the topic of fail social interaction, let’s talk Facebook “SEO”. A quick Google search will tell you that professionals world-wide have been trying to push Facebook search results into an optimize-able corner for some time. Truth be told, no one has it down to a specific recipe. My theory is that SEO folk are feeling a little out of the loop and upset because they’ve encountered a massive web phenomenon that doesn’t fit into their service offering, even though it’s ever so closely related to the SEO niche.
My opinion is that we need to forget about the term “Facebook SEO” altogether, it doesn’t exist.
Facebook is not a massive resource of information by which one can decide which pizza joint to order from this evening – as SEO’ers would prefer. Instead it’s a collection of opinions that could later alter one’s choice of take out, thereby making optimization redundant. In layman’s terms: If someone’s looking for it, they’ll find it on Google. If someone isn’t looking for it, they’ll find it on Facebook.
Most SEO agencies aren’t well equipped for this and will, most probably, look to optimize a Facebook page for Facebook search initially. Once that’s crashed and burned they’ll look to optimize for Google search. What they’ll soon learn is that the same rules don’t apply for both search optimization and social optimization.
It may come as welcomed advice to look at an online marketing agency if its Facebook followers you’re after and it’s important to understand that there is a critical difference between SEO and marketing but that I’ll get into that another time, stay tuned.
Hey Jonathan.
I like the way you think man. I get “burned” for thinking in such ways.
I thought I was the only one who only sees Facebook as a place to just see what people are up to and not find what you are looking for.
I think people are trying to wish Facebook into a search engine which it clearly is not… its a SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE for crying out loud!
I also dont believe that placing links in Facebook to a website helps in SERP’s since those links are “nofollow” and all they’re good for is perhaps increasing web traffic, but that’s about it.
Also I think SEO’ers (as u put it) should try to remain focused on their key area which is ACHIEVING HIGH GOOGLE RANKING instead of being more focused on website traffic. Once Top 10 placement is achieved then traffic will increase. Thats just the reality.
Whether the amount of traffic a site gets affects its ranking in SERP’s is debatable but I dont think it is a factor because that then means that sites not gaining traffic (in the invisible pages of Google SERP’s) will never be found in Top 10 SERP’s simply because they dont get traffic… but isnt the point of being in Top 10 to increase traffic in the first place?.. Sounds like reverse thinking to me.
Anyway.. my comment is turning into a blog post in itself lol. Great post man.
Thanks for the comment. In response, there is quite some that can be said regarding the true value of no-follows and where they’re coming from.
Never the less, perhaps you should write a blog post, send on the link and I’ll give my input.
That is incredible post.Just like moving from broad idea to detailed idea and back again is both an important thinking habit and an important thinking operation. I like it.