Feb 12
How Important Is The Social Graph To Google
Ever wondered how the social media graph may affect the search algorithms in the future?
I personally have, and its my view that Google is showing many signs that it is using the “social graph” more and more to influence its ranking algorithm.
Google recently introduced its new product, Google Buzz, which is incorporated into Gmail. Google Buzz is like twitter in that you can share what you are doing, share videos, images and links etc and generally provide your followers with status updates.
I have had a brief play, and I think it will be a big hit.
It’s my personal view that eventually users will move away from search engines. “What?” you say. “You must be mad mate!”. Well a little yes but let me explain.
The world has changed big time in recent years, not only how people interact online but also in terms of trust. Word-of-mouth has always been a great source of leads and information and I personally think this is the way the web is going. People will not be looking on Google or Bing or any other search engine for information. They will be asking their hundreds or thousands of connected followers that they have within the social sphere in order to find what they are looking for, or answers to questions they may have!
What do you think? I would love to hear your point of view. Feel free to send me a tweet, connect on facebook, mail me or leave a comment below.
Below is the latest blog posts from the guys at SeoMoz. Rand speaks about how they think search is changing. Enjoy.
February 24th, 2010 at 11:39 pm
My personal opinion is that this whole “social media” frenzy is somewhat over rated. Lets sit back and look at it honestly. Would you ask your “followers” friends etc about say Medical advice, Facts of almost any sort, journey planning, tax rates etc etc.. No! When someone wants a definitive answer they go to google. Would you really ask some unknowns about how to change the spark plug on your car.. I doubt it.
So where does social media fit in?
If you want to send a pretty picture, funny video or say “hey, look at this”. To be perfectly honest if someone is selling a product or service then its not quantity of passing traffic that matters but instead quality of traffic. eg I sell cars so I want people looking to buy a car visiting my site, not a group of guys all talking about the new colour range available in the photo I’ve added to my site.
IMO, if you have a game, funny picture blog, leisure activity then social marketing is great but if you’re serious about business the traffic you’ll get is little more than an added bandwidth expense. Think of it this way, social media is for sociable activities. You go to the bank for financial advice and you go and play football with your friends, not the other way around!
March 6th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Thanks for your comments. You have made some valid points.
Social media is like you say “social” and there is no doubt that it is being utilised greatly by many marketers, but I do not agree that because it is “social media” that it cannot be used to stay connected with your customers.
As a website owner, you need to give people as many options as possible in order to stay connected and receive further information on your company or business. Sites like twitter and facebook provide marketers with extra channels that can help to drive more traffic to their sites.
Many major brands are now using social media very effectively to give their brands more exposure. Organic SEO is great and can provide a lot of traffic if done correctly, but by not focusing on the BIG picture, you deprive your business of other channels to help bring in even more traffic.
I would agree that the effectiveness of any social media campaign is based on what you have to offer. The basis is always great content and without great content your sites is just like millions of others out there floating around gathering dust.
Another thing to bear in mind is that just because you have great content does not mean people will link to it. Unless you are active in getting out there and promoting it via organic SEO, PPC or social media, your content although it maybe “remarkable”, may not get linked to or shared.
Thanks for your comments.
March 7th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
Hi admin,
Some interesting observations and I think you’ve mentioned a point that I failed to pick up on which is “brand awareness”. I agree entirely that the social media is an excellent route to get your brand out there and bigger brands certainly cannot afford not to be there. I’ll confess to not being that active in ocial media and perhaps its something that I should focus more on. The only reason I haven’t is because I’m not sure where it would benefit a small / niche content site. Perhaps thats my ignorance of new marketing techniques showing through? Perhaps thats why I’m not an SEO expert
I think that I fit into the small business category and heres where the crunch comes. With little time and resources where should I be concentrating for the greatest return on investment? Organic seo, ppc or social media… as always the balance is a hard one to find!