Obtaining links, both internal and external, is one of the concrete, hard-and-fast basics of SEO; get more links and you have a much stronger chance to be ranked higher than the sites that don’t have them. Links generally are permanent “validation” points that search engines love. If they come from a trusted source, they are worth their weight in gold. In a much more deliberate and slower sense, it’s like word-of-mouth from website to website. With the right links in place you can build a following that won’t go away, and will be recognized by search engines. This is one of the main reasons why Search Engine Optimization exists.
Social Media has become quite the hot ticket in the last few years. Twitter, Myspace and Facebook, to name a few have become a great way to get your (_fill in the blank__) noticed by literally millions of people. People have become celebrities just for having something to say. Look at Tila Tequila. She is famous for being famous, and turned her Myspace fame into “legitimate” celebrity. Social Media sites like Reddit, Digg and StumbleUpon allow any user to pass on websites and news articles to the greater populations of the site. Done correctly, these sites are the internet equivalent of telling two friends, and them telling two friends, and so on and so on and so on.
So, which is better? A recent article by Steve Logan put it this way, “Both techniques work in very different ways. You build links by making requests, payments (only to the right people – directories and the sort) and creating content that causes a stir. Networking can of course help this process. When you get noticed by more people, they may be inclined to link to you; there’s no guarantee of course, but social media is a way of raising a profile and showing off your expertise to the world – prime link bait conditions.
“Of course the main reason most people create an article or release, at least in an SEO capacity, is to get it picked up and syndicated across a number of sites. The dream ticket is a major news agency picking up a story on their newswire and sending it global; this of course is extremely rare. To do this, it needs to be relevant, it needs to be interesting and it needs to offer something new. Regurgitating the same stuff over and over again may save time, but that could well prove to be a false economy.
“But once again we’re thrust back into the realms of Web 2.0. If you want to get people talking about your content, you may first need to start shouting about it.”
In a nutshell, Mr. Logan is saying links are good, and sometimes you need to use Social Media to get the word out to as many people as possible. But these two different approaches have their drawbacks as well. For Social Media to be highly effective, it takes a lot of effort. A LOT of effort. The Average Joe can’t just get on to Facebook, tell his friends to stop by his website to check out the latest gizmo he’s selling and expect sales to boom. However, if, in addition to telling all of his friends he creates a Facebook page for his site, goes over to Myspace and does the same thing, keeps in constant contact with his Twitter followers, puts out a blog entry that is picked up via RSS feed on sites like Blog Digger and Blogarama and plugs his new gizmo on other blogs and outlets, he stands a good shot at really taking advantage of Social Media But what these efforts do not do is make his site a better website by strengthening it and giving it credibility.
How does this fit into the scheme of things for the Small Business Website? First, you need to identify your target market. If you sell Twilight memorabilia, you can bet the majority of your target market is going to be 14 to 20 and female.* Based on this assumption, you should look at those two main factors for an idea as to where you should focus your efforts. BrianSolis.com recently published an extensive list of demographical information for the top 20 Social Media sites. His research shows that for the gender group we’re looking at, suggested sites would be Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Flickr, Friendfeed, Ning, Upcoming uStream and Yelp. Combine that with our assumed age group, and Myspace is your big winner with 64% of their users being female, and 44% of their users under the age of 24. Facebook, Ning, Upcoming and uStream are other sites that would likely provide good results for the effort you put in. If, however, you were selling high-waisted plaid pants, you wouldn’t be hitting up the kids at Myspace to help generate traffic. What this boils down to is finding your target, and not straying from it.
Links for the Small Business Website can be a little more challenging if looked at alone. To obtain links you have generally 3 options; submit your sites to legitimate directories, request links from reputable sites, or purchase them from reputable sources. There are other ways to do it, but those are the big three. Unless you just stick to buying links, obtaining quality links can be a very time consuming process, usually garnering little reward for the effort you put in, if at all. But, as mentioned above, obtaining these quality links will help strengthen and develop your site for the long haul. The more you get, the better off you are. But, quality trumps quantity any day. When trying to find potential sources for links you want to think of two things; where they are coming from, and who will see them. That is a bit broad, so let me elaborate. You want to check on the reputation of the site in general. Does it look like a site that you would want to attract visitors from? An extreme example would be a religious site trying to get a link on a porn site. Does the site have a place where a text link could be naturally placed? If they would just throw your link up in some group of links, just keep on looking. You don’t want that link. At least from an SEO standpoint. Is the site you’re looking at a .com? Or is it a .gov, .org, or .edu? These three types of sites carry a lot of weight with search engines. But, that said, they are usually very difficult to obtain.
In the long run, arguments could be made for both Social Media and linking. Personally, I don’t think Social Media can stand alone in the long run. Eventually people get tired of telling two people, and so on. But, if you combine your well-targeted Social Media efforts with solid link-building efforts, you’re likely to see more of a return for your efforts than if you chose one over the other.
*I pulled this demographic out of thin air to make a point. But, come on, how far off can I be?