Among the hundreds of social networking sites online today, not one of them comes close to Facebook. With its total package of networking, social media, games, calendar functions, and dozens of other functional features, Facebook has taken the world by storm and transformed the way people use the Internet. Oh, and yes, it’s even affected search engine optimization strategies.
Facebook itself does not directly impact a website’s SEO ranking – in fact, search engines like Google don’t even notice things like Facebook “likes” or “shares”. What they will notice, though, are the additional recommendations a website is likely to receive if it is popular on Facebook.
Imagine this scenario:
You write a post for your technology blog about the latest eBook reader. Someone “likes” it on Facebook. Hundreds of people read your post because of its Facebook popularity… and then a few of them blog about your post from their own sites. It’s this final step that Google and other search engines will notice, and that can raise your relevance in their eyes.
What’s more, Facebook offers an instant advantage in readership that’s completely outside the model of SEO. Those hundreds of readers that found your hypothetical post about eBook readers? They found you not because of SEO, but because you optimized your post to be found through Facebook itself – a new route that is driving readership to many blogs and websites, completely outside the SEO model.
Facebook offers a whole new world for marketing and promoting brands, products, and services, and it’s an opportunity that no business owner should overlook.