Sociograph - The end of SEO?

Search Engine Optimization was the ultimate tool for everyone who had a website as a main traffic funnel. A recent article published at Marketing Week shows that the audience is looking for news, articles, products and services primarily to Social Networks instead of “googling” them.

To turn cards around, Google has launched Google+ to invitees and is expected to open it to the public soon. Bing is experimenting with social search, combining Twitter conversations with general search results, and its findings are likely to be fed into a full-scale launch in the near future.

Google+ is widely seen as the result of Twitter refusing to sell to Google and Facebook appointing Bing as its search engine. The moves have prompted Google to end its deal with Twitter to index real-time posts and launch its own means of collating what people are discussing so that the information can be displayed in search results.

Google+ allows users to build up ’circles’ of friends and contacts, which can be divided into discrete groups, such as school pals and work colleagues. It enables users to ’like’ a page by clicking a ’+1’ icon. This is then considered when someone in their circle or another Google+ user conducts a search on that subject. So a page on mending a broken window that one of your friends found useful will be prioritised next time you turn to a Google search in need of help to replace a pane.

If users are going to use that tool which is trying to compete well known Social Media Platforms as Facebook remains to be seen.

The biggest shift in the Internet Industry according Colm Bracken (Microsoft group search manager) is that Search Engines are now going Social. The products or services are not going only to get high ranks according their SEO but also they will go high according the likes they achieve to get…This could be considered as a huge opportunity for businesses to campaign effectively themselves in a new model which is called “sociograph”.

For those who didn’t realize that Attraction Marketing is the only way to win customers the message is clear. Get a presence and develop it, or drop down the natural search results pages as rivals with loyal social media audiences find all those ’like’ and ’+1’ clicks turn into better SEO performance.