The Importance of SMO

Have you ever heard of the acronym SMO, and wondered what is was? SMO stands for social media optimization. In case you're wondering what SMO is, I’m here to explain it to you. SMO is increasing awareness of products and/or services, by using social media channels and communities. When using SMO effectively, your brand is more likely to get recognized.

SMO is a part of SEO - but it also contributes to other ways people find you online. SEO (search engine optimization) is a set of strategies for search engines to consider your site most relevant to the end user. The ultimate goal is bringing more people to your website, by improving your search engine rankings.

Online marketing is all about being seen and building awareness. Most of the time, people find you or your business online in a few ways:

• Your company ranks top in search engine results,
• Inbound Links - meaning a link coming from another site to your own website, or
• They already know about your company and come straight to your website via organic traffic.

SMO involves enhancing your company’s online presence through interactive communities that are relevant to your industry. Targeted groups or lists can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Inbound and outbound links help your SEO tremendously. The more links you have, the more beneficial your marketing strategy. This includes mentions of or links to your business.

SMO can help you strengthen your brand and boost visibility. Optimizing your social media builds authority for your business giving potential prospects more opportunities to see you. This gives you more opportunities to generate leads and increase sales. Take advantage of social media as a tool, it gives you a chance to reach out and communicate with prospects directly and informally.

Benefits of SMO:

• Increases brand awareness
• Increases reputation of business on search engines
• Succeeds in a wider reach of web users and increasing rank

Google is constantly working on ways to improve their humanization of search engines. Over the years, we have experienced a variety of algorithms. Although this is nothing new, the Hummingbird algorithm values quality content that is relevant, authoritative and shareable. Instead of focusing on keywords, it targets conversational content. Think about how you type into search. The more your content has been shared across social media, the higher its perceived quality - and the better you’ll rank on Google. Social shares coming from someone else are more valuable and carry more rank. Focus on interacting with relevant audiences, being involved in conversations and sharing your own authoritative content.

How do you factor SMO into your online marketing strategy? KBK can help your business become visible to search engines, with our expert knowledge of SEO and SMO.