Recently, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine in the PR industry who was given a large client. She was telling me how she is guiding the client through their foray into social media. As she was talking, naturally I started to check out their company website, blog, Twitter presence, etc. And I had to stop her.
I had to stop her because their corporate website (huge company, you have heard of them) failed just about every basic SEO item you can think of. It’s almost comical that in a company this large no one would have bothered suggesting making their site even a hair bit search friendly. They had to either have been told about their failure and didn’t care or really are that clueless. Perhaps they’re so big they feel like they don’t need extra visitors from search engines.
From a social perspective, they definitely could be doing much better too (hardly my friend’s fault, she just started helping them) but when they get so much wrong from an SEO standpoint how can they expect to get social and be effective?
The search marketing industry is far more mature than the social media marketing industry – if this company doesn’t bother grasping search, it makes little sense to skip to social. Search is a core function of the web, and should come first.
The order matters, because search and social programs have an intersection, but to really activate this your core web presence and social content needs to be optimized. Otherwise, all that effort of directing a community for the outcome of growing search KPIs falls short. It’s analogous to building a skyscraper but wanting to create the top first without having any sort of base.
Sadly, this example is one that’s all too common. Somehow SEO, while more mature as a formalized industry, is skipped and companies jump immediately into social programs. Have you seen this happen too? What do you think?
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The Future Buzz is a blog run by communications professional Adam Singer. Adam has experience as both a digital PR strategist and online marketing manager for some of the top-rated brands globally
Roy Morejon (2 comments)15 July 10
I have seen this in nearly every social media client that I consult. Let’s get the website SEO straightened out first, then worry about engaging on social networks.
Randy Burge (2 comments)15 July 10
Why the division? Fresh, relevant and interesting content is one of the keys to getting found and creating engagement. That’s why we at Media Logic are moving from creating websites to creating Dynamic Content Hubs… capturing the best features of websites and blogs and developing content that can be shared across social platforms (as well as in traditional marketing channels).
Ben Rogers (1 comments)15 July 10
I’d have to agree with the general thrust of your comments but both SEO & Social can and should be tackled together. We’re finding a large number of people looking for social but also understanding that the combination of the 2 will produce better results overall. More ‘big picture’ thinking across all internet marketing areas will bring the results – not silos of activity.
Conversely those that are looking for SEO alone need to consider how to utilise Social to help their efforts – both in overall brand building & engagement with their potential customers.
David Perdew (2 comments)15 July 10
Agree with the other comments. SEO lapses are addressed in the process of managing social, and the holes in online business strategies create opportunities for us as SMMs (social media managers). Some of these websites have likely not been analyzed from a 2010 perspective or may not have been updated (period) for years.
Educating clients on both SEO and social is part of our job descriptions, and I would personally consider it more of a challenge than a burden. I suppose we should feel fortunate to have such a strategic advantage (which won’t last, by the way) from which to create success stories for business clients. Everyone likes being a hero, don’t they?
Catherine Lockey (30 comments)15 July 10
Yes yes yes – I see it here in PA a lot. Even more disturbing, there are now a lot of “marketing” companies and “social media consultants” here who do not have optimized sites themselves and have no clue how to do it. We even have a large, respected business journal here who features a “best of the web” contest giving top awards to businesses who don’t even have source code or H1 tags…(I feel a controversial blog post coming on…).
Here’s what happens when SEO is missing from the “mother ship.” I’m on twitter or FB, see an interesting link, click it, and end up on an unoptimized (which also means unorganized and possibly chaotic) blog or web site. I close that window immediately. Yes, social is an effective way to drive people to one’s site. But, it’s the website SEO which creates an organized, user friendly experience for the consumer turning hits into leads and conversions. And don’t forget about natural search – without quality SEO your site won’t show.
Craig McGill (7 comments)16 July 10
Isn’t that a bit snobbish Catherine? You see a site has poor SEO so you leave? You aren’t there for the optimised code, you’re there for the content.
If that’s how you want to do things, it’s your call. It just seems a bit like cutting your nose off to spite your face.
Catherine Lockey (30 comments)16 July 10
Hahaha! That’s funny Craig. Content and SEO are intertwined as I have a feeling you well know.
Thomas Wendt (1 comments)15 July 10
I think this is partially due to the assumed ease of social media. I mean “ease” in the sense that “anyone can do it” and the perception that SM can increase clicks with little effort. While these perceptions may be true to an extent, they are both problematic: anyone can have a Twitter account, but not everyone can use it strategically. And as Catherine pointed out above, SM links to an unoptimized site will increase visitors but will also increase bounce rate.
SEO tend to get put off because it sounds more “technical.” Or it could be possible that large companies think they have enough exposure and don’t need to optimize their site. Of course, the point they miss is that optimization is about more than just search results.
Alastair (1 comments)16 July 10
I really liked this post. This is going to sound pathetic but it actually makes me sad that there are people in the world who have any serious plans for their website that don’t get SEO. I can deal with designers who think SEO is a con “…because it’s just good coding” and with the slightly bad reputation that some really bad SEOs have caused.
But how can anyone run a website and not understand the sheer volume of traffic that goes through Google and how it would benefit their site to top the list for the right terms? How can they not understand that people go to Google with the intent to research or the intent to buy something right now. Type the term into the little box, find the best site to go to and then buy.
I know that what you are talking about happens, I just don’t understand how. As to the Social Media end of things, is it perhaps that Social Media is closer to traditional marketing and PR and less “techy” in nature and easier to for them to understand?
Craig McGill (7 comments)16 July 10
I can see the reason for your concern but at the same time SEO is all about being found via search engines. Social Media can let them jump ahead there and get good links, which result in a good Google/search engine ranking.
At the same time, social media combines with SEO can make that process a lot easier – and prevent negative results – but I wouldn’t stop someone taking part in social media just because they weren’t SEO savvy.
Liz Mc (1 comments)16 July 10
I see this so often, mostly because you can’t avoid hearing about social media.
Clients think “oh – everyone is doing this, we need to get on board!!” before considering how or if it will even help them. Social media alone might be okay for branding purposes or reputation management, but in terms of drawing really qualified traffic to your website, boosting sales, and increasing searchability – it absolutely has to be coupled with SEO.
Scott Rowe (1 comments)16 July 10
I think any SEO expert worth their salt has had these same conversation with clients. As with any industry and tactic however, SEO has its share of con artists who have damaged the reputation of the technique and made some companies walk away from it as a focus. Social Media is no different. There are individuals who have a good understanding of SEO, customer engagement and publishing. In these experts we can hope for strong Social Media strategy, executing and monitoring.
At this point SM and SEO go hand-in-hand and should be performed in tandem with strong sharing of analytics, just as you would with SEO and SEM. The problem is a lot of companies don’t view it that way.
As SEO experts we need to remain ever vigilant about the changes in SM and our industry. Ultimately the conversations and content being developed outside of our client’s websites will potentially have far greater power than the traditional website. Think about the fact that today Facebook gets more daily visits than Google in the U.S. and more consumers are accessing web based information through mobile devices and mobile applications. Ultimately this could relegate the old website to a second tier marketing venue just as web has transformed traditional broadcast television.
Josh Braaten (17 comments)19 July 10
I’ve seen this happen! I think it’s because on the surface, social media seems easier than SEO. Search engines seem like magical, strange places with spiders and stuff. At least people want to TRY social media because they have a Facebook account. On second thought, that’s probably hurting social media as much as SEO’s lack of understanding the basics. Ultimately there’s still a lot of opportunity with both.
Mike (6 comments)29 July 10
SEO is more effective for startups to make first sales, because they don’t have a loyal community at all and SEO will help to generate first clients, freinds and fans. Social Media marketing is the next step after SEO marketing. You start managing your community and relations with clients, not keywords etc.
Eric Brown (1 comments)30 July 10
This post is so Spot On, and what we see everyday in our consulting business. The bigger question is, someone helped them get there, that business paid someone to build a completely SEO useless web site. So, I don’t agree with you that they know, (at least as a broad brush statement) and I believe that lots of folks are getting really bad advice, and even worse product.