I came across this today in a link from Facebook. I don't necessarily believe it. I just thought it was interesting.

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-s...w-king-is-smo/

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Stacey B. Stahl, Owner/Virtual Assistant
CuttingEdgeVirtualAssistant.co m

Great article! Thanks so much for the link. I do believe it. As much as everyone wants to discover some magic formula, in the end, it's always about being exceptional in some way. There aren't any shortcuts.

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Mary H. Ruth/Virtual Writing & Communications
http://www.writingVA.com

The encouraging implication is that the audience values content, not keywords. And Facebook sides with the audience. And so it’s time to christen a new era of social-media optimization, or “SMO.” The era of SMO liberates publishers from the exercise of tricks, hacks and keywords. Instead, the big opportunity is now once again creating and refining the most appealing content possible.

This [underlined bit] has always been true - so doesn't feel like news, but the author's perspective on a new lean toward 'SMO' is very interesting.

I think one of the most important statements to take from this article is
SMO strategy means appealing to the audience, not an intermediary - and that is new, the idea of no longer being beholden to Google for traffic. And anyone worth their website has to admit the immense and growing power of Facebook. The article is interesting and very relevant, it's just that I don't see Google going away anytime soon... so while Facebook should, without question, be on your marketing plan to-do list, don't give up on those keywords and H1 tags just yet.

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P.S. the comments on the article are worth a read too!

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You're absolutely correct, Tess. I doubt we'll be doing without Google ... It's like you win friends by being pleasant and helpful, but you still have to brush your teeth. Know what I mean? Technical correctness can't be ignored just because you have great content.

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Mary H. Ruth/Virtual Writing & Communications
http://www.writingVA.com

I think an important thing to be aware of though, is that great content really is a healthy percentage of good SEO - technical aspects aside. And that's always been the case.

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Content is always king...no one's going to want to link to you without great content...but those backlinks are very important!!! As is the number of pages that Google has indexed from your site. Whatever your niche market is, go out in the world and comment about it on other people's blogs, etc...great way to build back links...but be respectful and educational...not spammy!

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Christine Wade - Real Estate Virtual Assistant
http://www.eRealtyAssistance.com

I just wanted to follow up with a quick comment that I can definitely see the impact of Facebook and Twitter on numerous sites (that I operate for myself and for clients). It's definitely a great source of traffic when used correctly (that is, creating appealing content to Tweet or post on Facebook)

During a week when I spend time every day looking for something valuable to share on both networks I'll see a relative spike on traffic. If I don't do this every day, the numbers relatively go down. There's no question that Facebook, Twitter and perhaps other similar sites are a boon for traffic - but I don't see that ever replacing SEO. Google (and maybe 1 or 2 other SEs) will always be a major vehicle as well.

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Good article! Two parts:

Re/ SEO: This is kind of a "well, duh!" that I'm glad someone has finally put into print. It may be true that SEO gets you hits, but USERS get you sales. If you don't appeal to the user, you're just another search result that gets passed over.

Re/ social media: By now we've all seen a thousand times over what an impact "going viral" has. It has spread to traditional media as well! Hardly a day goes by when I pick up my paper-and-ink newspaper and don't find "Supporters [detractors] have created a Facebook face about the issue" buried in one story or another.

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AnnaLisa Michalski, Sunny Words Writing Services

This is a great article, thanks for sharing! I can definitely see Social Media being the way of the future, however I don't think it could entirely replace SEO. I think they are both really important marketing tools.

I also stumbled upon this social media video, very interesting:

http://www.simplyzesty.com/social-me...social-search/