Chances are if you have a website, business or even a product online, you are involved in either social media marketing or SEO – perhaps even both if you can manage it correctly. One of the biggest debates among businesses is which option is considered to be the best in terms of return on investment and which one will get the most people to your website or to be aware of who you are, what you do, and what you offer. Because of this debate, you are probably searching for answers as to what IS the best so that you can create better campaigns for your website and business. While it’s all generalized, there are a few things you should be aware of when it comes down to this debate. If you are interested in doing SEO or a social media marketing campaign for your business you should contact a top SEO specialist and discuss all of your options.
What is SEO?
SEO put very simply, is a set of strategies you can use to bring more people to your website. More people coming to your website means more of a presence online and essentially the probability of more sales coming your way.
What Is SMM?
Social media marketing or more specifically SMO – social media optimization, has to do with social networks like Facebook and Twitter. This type of optimization deals with social presence, reputation management and being interactive and engaging through sites like Facebook and Twitter, but also on other social sites like blogs and forums.
Benefits of SEO
Essentially when a person has a website online and they start to use tactics in terms of SEO for their website, they will notice a drastic difference than if they did not use SEO. Most websites online notice that by looking at their traffic stats, that a large number of their traffic comes from SEO, not Social Networks. Nonetheless, Social networks are still an important aspect, but maybe not as important as SEO. If you have a website and you are using off site and on site SEO, doing things like making sure your website is using the best keywords, making sure your code is correct, making sure that your formatting, navigation and content is all working with each other and being done correctly, you will definitely notice an increase in visitors to your site. You will also notice that your website for a certain keyword shows up a lot more on pages 1-3 of the search engines, this includes Google, Bing, and MSN. SEO is also target friendly. You can use regular keywords, long tail keywords or even geo-targeted keywords in order to get people to your website so that when they do a search, your website pops up.
Benefits of Social Media
I’d be lying if I said it’s not important to have a presence on social sites, it is important and it’s something you should be including in your campaigns. First off, social media marketing (for the most part) is free. So it’s very cost effective. Even if you choose to buy an ad from a site like Facebook you could be paying as little as 11 cents per visitor to see your ad. It’s also easy to set up advertising on these self-serve social sites so that anyone can do it, no matter your age or knowledge. Second off, social media sites give you the ability to make your presence known. Sites like Facebook for instance have fan pages, groups and pages you can like which can help you communicate with those around you and lure them back to your fan page on FB, twitter account or even your website. Social media is also very viral aka shareable. Essentially if you have a post that people really like, they can in turn like that post, comment on it and yes, share it to their own page.
Combining SEO and Social Media Marketing
If you are having a tough time choosing between which aspect you want to spend the most time on or which one will work the best for you, perhaps it’s a good idea to use both. Majority of websites and other people I know, DO use a combination of the two because really both have their own benefits and using them in unison is a great way to reach all the corners of the Internet. First off, when using Social Sites, make sure that you use SEO tactics i.e.; make sure that you use images, make sure that you use the right or most valuable and relevant keywords in your posts (this includes hashtags), etc. When using SEO, make sure that you are also using SEO tactics, but include social media marketing tactics in unison too such as including a link for social media sharing on your blogs, or adding your social sites you personally belong to on the front page of your website so people can join you.
