This is a debate that started a few years ago and seems will last for many years. Many companies/bloggers are still in doubt whether they should concentrate their efforts and budgets on SEO, social media or both. In the end, we all want the same thing: traffic that converts. I mean, it’s of no use having massive amounts of traffic that do not convert, right?

One thing is sure: both methods, if used appropriate, can be tremendous ways for getting the traffic everyone is chasing. But what kind of traffic is the most profitable one, that coming from search engines or that coming from social media? This all depends on the communities you are involved in (for social media) and the keywords you rank for (for SEO).

Let’s start with a simple example related to our industry: when you have traffic coming from the keyword “free web design builder” does it mean something profitable for your business, or it would be more profitable/converting traffic that coming from “affordable website design firm”? You guessed it right, the second one is much more likely to convert into a buyer. Keep in mind, we are talking about the web design industry, if it is to make an example from websites monetising with Adsense, “free web design builder” could also be a money maker.

This does not mean social media traffic does not convert while we get to keep in touch only with targeted people, people that could translate into buyers. However the trend is somehow different nowadays while SEO and social media seem to blend with each algo changes from the search engines. We see Twitter updates in organic search engines from Google and Facebook is already integrated with Bing. We believe there will be 3 major “metrics” people will choose to purchase a product or service: search engine rankings, social media buzz (word of mouth) and reviews.

Whether you are more into Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn than SEO, one thing is sure: your campaign should definitely use all available methods for a better exposure, thus a more profitable online business.

Tags: seo, social media

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 2nd, 2010 at 2:47 pm and is filed under SEO / Marketing, Site Content. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Posted by WebCreationUK You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.