With more than 10 % of every internet visit going to Facebook and 25 % of pageviews in the USA, Facebook has, in 2010, shown to be a more powerful player than Google.
Sure, you can spend your days optimizing your website for Google search results until you are blue in the face, or until Google tweaks it algorithm yet again and you have to start all over again. Sure you can read or hire search gurus for hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to show you the “hidden” tricks for SEO. Thing is, since they show everyone else, including your competition, it is not so secret anymore. It’s like everybody trying to climb the same ladder, at the same time, to be the first on top. For what ? Lots of clicks ? does that bring business?
It’s not because you throw you kite in a lot of wind that it will fly.
Problem with Google is that it’s google. It’s a search engine, not a reference tool.
In other other hand, you have millions of people connected via Twitter / Facebook / Linkedin , sharing what they like, and dislike, on a huge scales. Friends, colleagues, family telling each other : “look at this/that” ( sharing links is the number one activity on social media, by far). Why can’t your website become one of these links, with the added features of a friend reference ?
While your competition is still trying to climb the SEO ladder only to fall off a few weeks later, why don’t you explore the Social media jungle.
No, not by opening a Tweeter account and talking what you are eating. Besides your mom, no one cares. Neither by opening a Facebook page about your photography. The only friends you will get is those who already know you, or just want/have to be polite. These are just time waster for both you and whoever has decided to follow/friend you.
Rather, become the fuel of Social Media. Become those links that everyone shares. Become what other people want to talk about. Make your site Social Media Optimized ( SMO).
Just think about it. After links, or very close, the most shared item on social media is : Photography .
Don’t you have both ?
Here you have the ability to get yourself a rather free market research along with free ( and powerful) referrals.
Sure, we could go here about what steps to take to make a site SMO. But this is not our purpose here, nor do we claim to be a guru of anything, beside common sense. Furthermore, since it is constantly evolving, there is no such things as rules. The same way you research your next photo shoot, research what could work. For you.
And you know what ? The more SMO your site is, the more SEO it will be.