The Battle Between SEO And Social Search : A Debate

Search, Social Media January 6, 2010 34 Comments @niallharbison

We all heard for years how SEO was the best way to get your site to the top of the rankings on Google and it is to this day a massive business. Social media is bringing about a change in the way we all consume content and spend money online but has it made SEO totally redundant or can the 2 practices live side by side? What should you be spending time on for your website or business? Budgets are tight at the moment so you want to make sure you are getting the best bang for your buck so we invited two leaders in their field one from each side of the fence to debate where we are headed. I want to try and open this up as much as possible in the comments so as we can get as wide a range of opinions as possible so feel free to get involved and leave your opinions. So where are we headed? Here are the 2 opinions…

Social Search

Erik Qualman is the author of socialnomics and the Global Vice President of Online Marketing for EF Education, headquartered in Lucerne, Switzerland.

There will be a blending of search and social. We are already seeing this with Twitter being incorporated into the Google organic results. Consumers we will be privy to a) sponsored listings b) organic listings c) social graph listings. During a purchase decision we will utilize all three of these data points – however I would strongly argue that item c – what our friends and peers think – will be “weighted” the most. We are seeing “word of mouth” transforming into “world of mouth.” If I have my first baby and need to purchase a child seat for the car and I can see via social/search tools that 30 of my friends have purchased a child seat in the past 18 months. And, of those 30, 23 have purchased the exact same model and all have had a great experience, well then I’m going to be fairly confident in that purchase decision and I may not even look at the sponsored or organic listings. SEO is still a vital part of any product/companies health (especially in the here and now), but as we look down the road, the simple fact is that I trust more what my friends and peers think than an algorithm. So good companies are starting to listen to what is being said in the â€œsocial sphereâ€ and adjusting their products/services accordingly.
Erik is the guy behind lots of great videos including this one…

SEO

Alastair McDermott Website Doctor

Alastair McDermott runs SEO company Website Doctor and can be found on Twitter here

My brief here is to talk about the importance of search engine optimisation (SEO) vs social media, and where I see the industry going over the next year. SEO here meaning “organic search”, or more simply: the results you get when you search Google, etc.

SEO and organic search is very important in 2010 – as is social media. Most organisations are significantly increasing their social media spend compared with last year – mainly because it was so far behind other marketing spend. SEO spend continues to increase, though at a smaller pace since larger organisations realized the importance of SEO in 2007-2009 and started to invest heavily then.

SEO itself has undergone huge changes in 2009, mainly focused on the areas of real-time (e.g. incorporation of Twitter results and news), personalisation (based on your browsing history), and the related local results (geographical based). This trend will continue as Google drives to improve in particular their real-time results which are still at an early stage currently. There is a general shift of consumers moving from their reliance on search to peers for news, recommendations and answers – Twitter and Facebook are capitalising on that, and Google are working hard to combat it by the partnership with Twitter, amongst other strategies.

The first port of call for most people looking to answer a question online is still Google search. Why? This is Google’s stated goal in search:

“Our goal is very simple: We want to return to the user the answer that they need. It’s about getting people what they need, and about getting the results to be as accurate and fast as possible. We’re innovating, and concentrating just on the relevancy of results. Last year we made over 450 improvements to the algorithm.”

Google Search Guru Udi Manber, April 2008.

Even in 2010, SEO basics are still the same as before: if you focus on creating good, relevant, link-worthy content then your authority and relevancy will build and you will rank highly in results. Unfortunately there is no quick fix or silver bullet for SEO, and as your competition invests in creating content so the bar rises.

If Google made 450 changes to their search algorithm (the formula which they use to rank results) in 2007, how many tweaks and changes do you think they made in 2008 and 2009? Google are continuously tweaking their algorithm on a daily basis – so instead of trying to cheat on this exam, it’s time to knuckle down and put in the effort!

What’s to come in 2010? More real-time stuff: more focus on Twitter, news headlines and maybe even Facebook integration in either Google or Bing. Social media will continue to grow, though not at the breakneck pace of 2009. My advice – sign up for whatever social media you prefer, e.g. Twitter & YouTube, and start blogging: high quality posts infrequently are more useful than poor quality posts frequently!

Back to the original question of the importance of SEO vs social media – ultimately choosing the right tool for the job is as important as ever. SEO, social media, and all of the other facets of online marketing (don’t forget email marketing) will continue to be relevant for some time to come.

Where Do You Stand?

This subject is a hotly debated one and one that we wanted to gather as much feedback as possible from so feel free to get involved in the comments and leave your opinion. Where do you see search going? Is it becoming more social? Is SEO as crucial as it once was? Will the two professions merge further together in the coming year? We look forward to hearing your thoughts…

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Comments

http://www.wakeupcloud.com/ Henri @ Wake Up Cloud

I actually have no clue and do not even dare to theorize. All I know is that I will be taking advantage of both and do my best to adapt to whatever comes my way. It’s a game after all, let’s keep it fun and awesome

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

I am the same Henri in that I don’t know enough technically to pass judgement. SEO is important right now and vastly more important if you look at the stats across the sites I run than social media but it is certainly changing quite a lot. The main difference are of course the real time results on Google pages but TBH i don’t really use those in the slightest. Interesting to sit back and watch it evolve though!

http://www.leofogarty.com Leo Fogarty

I think social search has actually made SEO more valuable and its more of a collabaration than a battle. Currently with social search results being blended in with organic results for certain searches, it means that there are less organic results available on Googles front page. This obviously makes any organic result on the front page more valauble. Appearing on the front page for social search results isn’t really all that beneficial due to the rotating scroller and the fact that anybody can appear in it as long as they tweet the keyword. The other part is google using social search results to help rank pages. One thing you will notice is that any results in social search with bit.ly links or other url short links, the links are automatically converted to the page title that the link is pointing to. Google is probably tracking this data and how much an article is being retweeted and using some sort of weighting system based on who is retweeting it which will be their PR/authority alternative for social search. Just my two cents

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

Yeah the only issue I have with the social search results is that I have yet to find them useful on the search results page. Now Google are far smarter than me and I am sure they will come in useful for local news etc in the future but at the moment only curiousity would lead me to them. Authority is a big factor and would have to be well established as anybody can set it up to be retweeted a bunch of times but certianly having content appear in search results that is getting passed around and liked a lot by the community is crucial going forward

http://www.channelship.ie/blog/ Fred

Great post Niall.

Going back to the beginning of the post where the budget seems to be the one making us think: “should I go for one or the other”.. I don’t believe it has to be necessarily like that. It really depends on the type of business and what kind of results you’re looking to achieve in a given period of time.
Nowadays, ongoing SEO or offsite work is pretty much based on building link after link (building votes), trying to convince Google that you’re more relevant for a specific keyword or key phrase. Also, to do this right you need a considerable amount of time an effort. It feels really good to type “that” word and see your site finally coming up within the first results and even better when you get business from that…however, at the end of the day, when you look at the time that all that took, you start thinking that spending time building a community and trust around your brand might pay off much more. While doing all this consistently and providing value, as soon as search get closer to the real semantic web or “social web”, you’ll realise that everything you’ve been doing in social networks suddenly counts for “search”.

Here’s the thing: engaging in social networks, building a community and providing value is HARD work and in my experience, not every business is willing to put in the time and effort to do it. For these companies, SEO will sound like a better alternative since all they have to do is pay someone to rank them better… In that case, time is the issue and not budget.

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

Yeah I know what you mean Fred coming from the side of dealing with clients. For some people social media is just not the right thing at all and I meet these sort of people all the time and TBH rather than wasting their time I just tell them to go and get some good Adwords campaigns built so as they can start selling tomorrow or work on SEO. Social media is very much for people who are in it for the long haul and want to build their brand and community. One of he biggest things that I find from working as hard on the community as we do on this blog is that the links pretty much look after themselves as people are always sharing our content and linking it up. I would advise most people to get a good base of SEO and a good template that does most of it for you and then build community and hopefully create enough good content to build the links for you. Of course easier said than done I will admit!

http://www.leofogarty.com Leo Fogarty

Agree with you totally Fred but SEO is just as much effort as building a community. Researching & writing good content. Marketing the content through blogs, social media ,etc, all these relationships take time and effort to build up and the return isn’t seen immediately but it is sustainable in the long term. In my experience SEO and building a community/offering value both go hand in hand. I build up a community of bloggers/influencers that I know my content would appeal to. I build relationships with them and when I feel I have something of value that might peek their interest I make them aware of it. But once again I totally agree time is a big factor, writing and researching great content takes time. Building relationships with the right people takes time and finding unique angles to market products takes time.

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

I don’t think most people have a clue about just how much time it actually takes! I certainly didn’t when I first entered the industry, I 100% thought it was build it and they will come! If you broke it down in to $ per hour it would be scary how little return you were getting but I think the value is in what you are creating for the long term. The one question I would have is will the incoming links always have as much value with Google or will they ever be replaced? I would hate to see all the hard work and trust people have built up with google vanish to be replaced with something more social just for the sake of it!

http://www.btbtraining.com/blog Niall Devitt

It’s strikes me as a chicken and egg solution, can you really talk about one and not the other. A lot of businesses have websites that contribute nothing in real terms to the business, most don’t blog and of those that do, many don’t know how to. Please don’t get me started with social media. I think that there is a certain responsibility to go back and rescue these people and businesses. In other words, the debate can sometimes be guilty of moving too fast for the market

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

Niall there is no dount in my mind that you need the 2 as you say. After all you only need to look at any of your website stats to see how much traffic comes through Google. Guess it can just seem very daunting for people outside of the industry who have only heard the buzz words and are looking to spend money on one or the other.

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http://www.seoidiot.co.uk SEOidiot

For me they are all elements of making any modern site a success. SEO is a discipline in the same way as PPC or PR or any other business service.
Like all things though its about applying common sense and making sure you are serving the visitor and the service as much, be that a search engine or a social network.

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

Yep agreed Paul

http://www.alan-rothstein.com Alan Rothstein

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, not necessarily website optimization. If you put the Search Engine as the goal (to increase rankings in Search Engines), social media becomes SEO. Much of what gets you more rankings in Google is external optimization. The definition of SEO needs to be revised and more likely it will be changed to Performance Marketing.

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

Yeah i think that it is becoming more of a rounded package alright with more and more thought being put in to who to get your social media profiles intergrated in to your site. Although saying that most businesses have not really moved past just slapping a facebook and Twitter badge on their site and saying follow m here!

http://kevindowling.ie Kevin

Funnily enough, this entire post is exactly what I’m researching for my final year project. Huge amount going into social media & search, and how they each bounce off each other. The code base is a from-scratch social media search engine that completely disregards the rules of Google, pagerank and the like and focuses on how to search social media effectively.

…that is, if it works in the end (the end being April) of course

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

Well it sounds as if it is your lucky day and this article and the comments were written pretty much for you. Give us a shout if you need more info at all

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http://blog.tamar.com/ Henry Elliss, Tamar

As somebody who works in both Social Media and search, I can see why the debate is so rife. However, I don’t think that natural search ‘people’ need to panic quite yet – the incorporation of social content shouldn’t be seen as a threat to traditional search results, merely another string in the bow. People have always leaned towards emotional and opinion-based content for their recommendations on some things – Erik’s example of the baby seat is ideal, and things like holidays, new products, services, restaurants and the like are others, but people are always going to trust a search engine over opinion-based results for a massive number of other, non-emotional queries. It’s a silly example I know, but if I’m doing a quiz and I want to know the fastest land mammal, I’m always going to hit Google rather than Twitter, because I trust the search engine more.

However, based on those points, I think it’s the PAID search that might potentially suffer from this new convergence of search and social, since the more factual side of search is the side where paid results come in a lot less useful. I might not trust my Twitter friends enough to decide on who the best mortgage is quite yet, but I’d certainly ask for their opinion once I’d narrowed down my search. But I definitely wouldn’t trust paid results to make that choice for me, and I suspect a lot of consumers will feel the same.

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

Very good pointshere Henry. One other thing that we should all take in when talking about paid search is that we know the industry inside out and know how it works etc. Most potential clients and “man in the street” type people that I talk to don’t have a clue about what Adwords even are. They don’t even realize that the top results are sponsored so they just click where they see what they want to see.

I do agree though that social search is just another string to the bow and that reccomendations are the way forward which is why everybody is getting so excited about services like Foursquare etc. It also shows why Google were willing to put 500 million on the table for Yelp only a couple of months ago and why they are investing so much money and time in their own local business listings. Should be an interesting battle to watch unfold over the next couple of years and all I can say with certaintly is that Google will come out on top somehow!

http://www.mauwebstudio.com Beverly

Good post, like the video, I am seeing these trends, and my clients are paying money to hop on board. Effective social strategy for ROI is still up in the air – a lot of time can be wasted chasing your own shadow, unless there is a strategy – and metrics to gage results.

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

It’s all about the metrics and I have to say that clients are getting better at understanding it recently and they are getting a feel for the metrics also.

http://www.toprankblog.com Lee Odden

Something I don’t see much commentary on is that the reason for SEO isn’t limited to public content such that found on Google.com. Search within social networks such as MySpace and Facebook actually rank in the top 20 most popular search engines according to comScore.

With the increase in recommendations, opinions and social commentary published with and outside of social content sites, there’s an overload of information that calls for a filtering of signal from noise. Search is a great way to do that.

If content can be searched on, it can be optimized. That means text, images, video, audio and anything else that crawlers find, index and make available via search tools.

Content optimization for search and social media marketing are by no means mutually exclusive, which the vs. in the name of this post implies. It’s more like Yin/Yang as they compliment each other.

I think it will become significantly more important to recognize the opportunity for SEO with social channels as it is to leverage Social and SEO for each other.

http://www.simplyzesty.com Niall Harbison

I agree as one thing that we find very easy to do is to control search results for our clients by using social media profiles for example to rank highly. They can be used to bump negative reviews down the rankings so as people only find content you publish through services like Twitter and Facebook. This is only a tiny example of it in action but as you say search through social networks will become a massive play at Facebook is in the right position to capitalize/monetize this area!

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http://www.daedalusinfosystems.com marianne

I believe that SEO and social media are not binary. and that one will not supplant the other. They are two completely different applications that have different purposes, both for the user and the enterprise. While folks may trust social media for recommendations or comments on goods and services, they will always look to search for the start points of these questions. They will always look to search for maps and directions on where to go or what is close by. That is because search is ubiquitous and social media is limited to one’s network of strong and weak ties.
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