Tees In A Pod: What Does SMO and SEO Really Mean ?

Thursday, July 15, 2010

What Does SMO and SEO Really Mean ?

Online business owners are always looking to expand their business' growth, online presence, and profitability, but it can be difficult to do. In knowing how to optimize your website can help bring awareness to your business, while improving your business' online reputation. Knowing the difference between Social Media Optimization (SMO) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps in understanding how to make them work for your business. The ultimate question we all have been asking ourselves is, "What are SMO and SEO?"

Social Media Optimization (SMO)
There are many businesses who are improving their website's SMO without even knowing it. Today, many businesses are incorporating social media sites into the way they do business online. In knowing what Social Media Optimization really means and how your business can benefit from it, may change the way your business uses their social media sites.

What does Social Media Optimization mean?
Businesses who use media outlets found within social media sites, with the intent to bring unique visitors to their website's content, are boosting their sites Social Media Optimization. In other words, when businesses use photo sharing, social bookmarking, videos, and blogging as a part of their business' promotion on social media sites, Social Media Optimization is occurring. The main focus of SMO is to drive visitors to your website from places online, other than from search engines.

There are two main ways in which to improve your sites Social Media Optimization (SMO):

1. Social Media Features: When adding social media features to website content via RSS feeds, sharing buttons, polls, ratings etc. and also including the use of hosting sites for videos and photos, also known as third-party communities, helps in building your businesses Social Media Optimization.

2. Social Media Promotional Activities: Occurs when businesses are doing social media activities on social media sites, as a way to promote their website without promoting a specific product. When businesses blog, comment on other blogs, join in on group discussions, and update statuses on social media sites, they are also raising their website's SMO.

Social Media Optimization is a method used as a part of viral marketing, but instead of "word of mouth" by family and friends, it is done through various activities on networking sites such as, commenting on forums, photo sharing, videos, blogging etc. SMO is looked at as a major factor in gaining an online presence and is an important part of protecting and managing your sites reputation via search engine queries.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
Unlike Social Media Optimization, where you use social media sites to bring traffic to your website, SEO or Search Engine Optimization, focuses more on driving traffic to your website via Search Engines.

What does Search Engine Optimization Mean?
SEO is to increase the amount of traffic and the quality of visitors to your site by using un-paid or "natural" search results, within search engines. The key, is to have your website rank high within search engines, for the higher your site is on Google, Yahoo, etc. the more chances your site's traffic will increase.

Ways to improve your sites Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
Your websites content is crawled by search engine spiders on a regular basis for the purpose of indexing and ranking your site within search engines. There are many ways to improve your sites content which will in turn, improve your site's SEO. The better your website's content and coding, the better your site will be ranked. Here are two ways to increase your websites SEO, On-site and Off-site Optimization.
1. On-Site Optimization: Is when the information/content on your websites page (that visitors see) and the coding that occurs behind the scenes (that visitors do not see) are correctly done to meet search engine standards. In other words, if your website is coded properly and the content is filled with quality content, then your sites SEO should be good. In knowing how to properly use website coding can affect how your site will be ranked by search engines (Ex: html, CSS, etc.). In understanding what your website's content needs, for search engines to qualify it as quality content, is also very important in increasing your sites Search Engine Optimization (Ex: Site titles, keywords, descriptions, etc.).
For examples of how to improve your sites On-site Search Engine Optimization, visit the Tees In A Pod Blog Post 6 On-site SEO Tips You Can Use To day To Improve Rank!

2. Off-Site Optimization: Is when good quality backlinks are created on other sites that point towards your website. The more backlinks your website or page has, the more popular it is looked at by search engines. Keep in mind that page rank also factors into the importance of a website and that the number of backlinks a website has, helps search engines determine it's ranking. With that said, it is not just the number of backlinks that count towards how search engines rank your website, it is also determined by the quality of those links as well.

The best quality backlinks are called, "Anchor Text Backlinks", which are also known as hyperlinks or links that are created using HTML. These links use clickable text to drive traffic to your website.

Example: Tees In A Pod Facebook Page (This Text is clickable and is actually directing people to the Tees In A Pod's page on Facebook.)

How to create an Anchor Text Backlink?

***NOTE: Click above to get a larger view and then hit your browser's back button to return to post**

Anchor Text Backlinks should be placed on high ranking pages or sites that are related to your website. They are most beneficial to your site, when you use keywords you want ranked by search engines in the links "Title" and are relevant to the landing page. These type of links should remain below 60 characters.

Poor/Bad Quality Backlinks
When your website's link(s) are left on sites, pages or directories that have no real value to your website, they become bad quality backlinks. These links will lower your websites SEO and could possibly get your site banned by search engines, so be very selective in where your website's links are placed.

In integrating Social Media Optimization and Search Engine Optimization into how your business creates, promotes, and sustains it's website, will inevitably improve your sites ranking, reputation, and online presence. Get to know SMO AND SEO and watch your online business, continue to grow!

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Written By: Amanda Ryan, Creature Creations, Personalized Photo Gifts