[…] This past week I have been doing a lot of research on SMO. SMO stands for Social Media Optimization. It contains a lot of the newer sites out there that are often times referred to as the Web 2.0 sites and technology. There are some major advantages to it that I can see, but form your own opinion. Many SEOers don’t like this term. Even our main resident SEO expert refers on his personal SEO Blog that he has some issues with the term SMO. But from the research I have done and the experience that I have with the internet I will describe it best that I can in as positive as a light as I can. […]

I disagree with the claim that SMO is just another form of SEO. I will concede that SMO has a large affect on SEO but it is still distinct from SEO. The focus of SMO is getting traffic from social media sites, not search engines. SMO would be effective even if traditional search engines did not exist. However, a large factor in search engine rankings, backlinks, just happens to be one thing SMO provides a lot of, so as a result good SMO will result in good SEO.

There is a point here that you make “csandb” I will give you that, but the fact still remains you are making your site much more “community” friendly (on site) by having social bookmarking capabilities which in turn is “onsite SEO” …. also you get rankings in the search engines (which gets your more traffic) through a listing in a community such as del.icio.us (do you not do this for more rankings?) Which again is SEO. Just like link building is a form of SEO, Social Media is just another form of SEO.

I too am going to have to disagree that SMO is just another term for SEO. SEO is about on site and off site optimization in order to improve one’s presence in the search engines. While the specific article you linked to is about on site SMO tips, there are also profile development tips for places like MySpace that are off site development techniques in order to draw traffic from the #1 volume website in the world. Search used to be the majority of how people found websites. It remains the largest single piece of the pie, but the overwhelming majority of traffic comes from a splintered source of referral sites (many of which are social media).

I think it *is* fair to say they are both about optimization, but one is focused on drawing traffic from the engines, and one is focused on social media. In fact, it’s probably more accurate to say SEO is a subset of SMO. I just wrote a post on my own blog about this called “Web Presence and site traffic”.

My point is the term “SMO” (Social Media Optimization) can help you get better (and additional) search engine rankings for the keywords you want to be found for - thus - SEO. Thats all i am saying …

I do agree its an evolving term, and I probably will embrace SMO eventually as its own term, but for now I see nothing in “SMO” that I have done that has not helped me with getting better search engine rankings - thus - another form of SEO….

[…] Many SEOers don’t like this term. Even our main resident SEO expert refers on his personal SEO Blog that he has some issues with the term SMO. But from the research I have done and the experience […]