Switchfast Blog: The Future of IT
Three Reasons Why Facebook SEO Isn’t Important For Small Business (Yet)
Monday, June 28, 2010 by Bryan Anderson
Back in April, Facebook released their Open Graph API which will
allow all Open Graph-enabled web pages to show up in search when a
user likes them. Essentially, this gives websites the ability to
place the infamous "Like" button that is ubiquitous among Facebook
pages everywhere on their actual website. If a visitor happens to
like the content of that website or webpage, he or she could click
on the "Like" button - this information would appear in their
Facebook news stream as well as the Social Graph that Facebook is
developing. Instead of website links improving website SEO, what
people "Like" would determine which websites deserve top row in the
search bar.
With its nearly 500 million users and counting, the private
social media giant is looking to conquer the web and take on
Google's powerful grip on the search engine industry. Small
business SEO is a fascinating, developing field with location-aware
applications becoming more relevant to online users. In recent
years, small businesses have benefited greatly from an increase
both in overall traffic and conversion rates.
Because Facebook's index is separate from (in fact, purposely
against) Google's PageRank system, some developers and websites
have already called the Open Graph the system to finally
bring Google down to earth in regards to its search engine prowess.
However, before jumping ship for Facebook's increasing audience,
consider these three reasons when using SEO to build your small
business:
Google is the prominent search engine, Facebook is still
primarily a social media tool. When it comes to
professional connections, LinkedIn has established itself as the
destination for enterprise discussion and activity. While Facebook
has benefited from the skyrocketing growth, the age of social media
has aided that growth. Users aren't necessarily accessing the
platform to find the best local restaurant or make a business
inquiry. An individual will use Google for general information
& questions and utilize Facebook when sharing their personal
life or requesting information from their connected network. From a
brand sense, users still select Google for "finding information"
while choosing Facebook for "finding connections."
No guarantee that "Likes" will catch on to replace
"Links". In order for Facebook's Open Graph to catch on,
websites will have to adapt the all-too-familiar "Like" button.
This placement will allow Facebook to personalize a user's
experience based on their social activity online. In essence, this
"Like" button will replace the action of posting links elsewhere to
access the content. Instead, it is streamed through a user's
newsfeed and categorized under the Social Graph. Sounds great for
small businesses looking to crack the social media conundrum,
right? Not so fast - Facebook's Social Graph, as noted earlier, is
in direct competition with Google's PageRank algorithm. While
presence on social media is certainly beneficial, it's worth
researching first to see if it adversely affects your ranking in
Google, a more powerful traffic and business tool at present.
The value in Facebook is still the quality of
conversation, not the #1 rank in search. Facebook users
primarily stay connected to the platform for the personal
networking opportunities and the stream of updated conversations
going on between their established connections. It is important to
bring your small company brand to where the audience is, and this
is a fantastic platform to interact and connect with your users as
well as your critics. The search bar is still a term that users
find more often referring to Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Search is
viewed as a general inquiry for information based on keywords and,
whether Facebook users know it or not, Facebook search is simply
not yet established as a broad content search engine.
The landscape remains the same for SEO -- Small business should
stick to search engines like Google and local websites like Yelp to
promote online traffic increase. As time goes on, SEO specialists
will keep an eye on the effect that the Open Graph has on web
pages. If website administrators adopt the Open Graph at the same
rate as Facebook new users, there may be a call for more audience
members to "Like" websites instead of sharing links.
Until Next Time -
Matthew Hymel
Switchfast Technologies
Chicago IT Support &
Consulting
Rochester
IT Support & Consulting
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