Search Engines Vs Social Media : Is SEO dead?
This is my reply to the most common question asked ‘ Is SEO dead?’ I am basing my reply on the recent discussion on DP forums.
What they say:
- Search engine volume declining.
- Google dying out.
- Facebook and other social media sites are now the most valuable sites for marketing, including Viral and word of mouth marketing.
- No point of doing SEO
- No point of affiliate marketing via SEO
My answer to them:
Search engine volume declining:
Are you nuts? You are assuming here the search growth volume decline, but do you even know that almost every single person on the internet will use ‘search engine’ to search for something? Do you expect someone to go on facebook and search for ‘how to loose weight?’. If you think SEO is dead, then you are just too much negative.
Google dying out?:
Do you know which sites get the most visitors per month? Yes its facebook, but do you know which sites make the most money per month? Oh wait you don’t . But they are not social media they are amazon, google, ebay, etc etc. Do you find facebook or twitter on those top earners list? Nope. So in simple words, most visited doesn’t make them most worth or most earning sites.
Facebook and other social media sites are now the most valuable sites for marketing, including Viral and word of mouth marketing:
We internet marketers don’t give a damn for ‘what site’ a user visits. We do SEO to rank on search engines, do you know the purpose of search engines? It is to ‘search’ for what the people are looking for on the world wide web. So if SEO is dead then all the websites on the internet are dead!
No point of doing SEO:
It is funny that some people assume, SEO IS DEAD and yet they say that ‘Facebook’ is the most searched keyword on any search engine. Now isn’t that contradicting. If google wasn’t there or any search engine for the matter of fact, will your average user be able to find anything??? ANYTHING AT ALL?? It is already shocking enough that they can’t find facebook without searching Google or yahoo. Does that mean SEO is dead? I don’t think so.
No point of affiliate marketing via SEO:
Another well known fact is that, 90% of searches on social media sites are of no monetary value. Social media sites are only for socializing or marketing a product which is ‘common’ like movies, etc. YOU CANNOT SELL medical products, or even anything that doesn’t make it ‘social enough’. If that was the case then why would millions[assuming] of internet marketers spend time on SEO and not just make friends on Facebook and social media sites & sell to them like ordinary sales men in real life? Well why should we, when we have Search engines. In fact search engines are killing the ‘real world’ market because more and more people go online and search for products, its reviews and information before buying them from markets or shopping malls. Why is that? Why can’t they go and use facebook for such a purpose. Because Facebook or Social media isn’t for that purpose.
What they still keep saying:
- Facebook is most searched term on all major search engines
- Facebook and social media sites can over take Google and other search engines
- Facebook is democracy based, Google is authority based.
- Social media sites get more search volume then search engines.
- Viral marketing is the game changer.
What i think about that:
Facebook is most searched term on all major search engines:
If you think as mentioned above, then your common senses have failed you. An average user can’t find a single site without searching it on google and yahoo. And we expect social media to help us make money? yea right keep dreaming. The only way that i have seen people making money via facebook is by those stupid fan pages and cpa offers. FOOLING the avg user. Did you realize that the avg user searches for ‘facebook’ on the ‘search engines’? So facebook is perhaps alive because of search engines, but still it earns nothing compared to what google and yahoo earns. Why is that? Because facebook needs lots of resources to accommodate its ‘users’. It is not for business it is for socializing. So for us merchants we need to sell stuff, not meet people and talk to them for 8hrs and convince them to buy some products which they never wanted to even try. BUT via SEO we get those people directly to our sites and get them buying what they are looking for.
Facebook and social media sites can over take Google and other search engines:
If facebook and social media could have overtaken Google and other Search engine giants then it would have happened by now, but instead we get reports of these Search engine Giants offering to ‘buy’ sites like facebook and twitter. Who is making more money here now?
Facebook is democracy based, Google is authority based:
Regarding facebook being democracy based and Google being authority is pure rumors and utter BS. It is the users who search on google and it is us the ‘webmasters’ who make our sites capable and competitive to rank on google. So in my dictionary it is the other way around. If you provide good content and do hard work you will rank on google and be the authority, but elected by democracy of the searchers. But on facebook – do we ever search there?
Viral marketing is the game changer:
In some cases yes, but assuming only viral marketing can change the game then you are wrong, Viral marketing +SEO are the top game changers. They go hand in hand and the faster we realize this the better and easier Internet marketing is. So no you can’t rely on viral marketing only. In fact some social media sites can just ban you for spamming.
Social media sites get more search volume then search engines:
Facebook is visited by the same people over and over again for socializing. TELL ME SOMETHING, can facebook send ‘ITS OWN USERS’ to your site? No it can’t, even if you try it might be considered spamming, unless you want to spend money there you got nothing. So in terms of value, google and search engines get more ‘worthy’ visitors. Why isn’t facebook earning as much as google if it has more users then it?
They still don’t stop:
- We can make more money via Social traffic then SEO traffic.
- Viral marketing without SEO yields better result in shorter time.
- SEO is not stable and will die and we will be better off with social media.
- Yahoo is closing its Publisher program because SEO is dead.
- SEO doesn’t benefit the ordinary ‘webmaster’.
Neither do i:
We can make more money via Social traffic then SEO traffic:
So is SEO dead? Well let me tell you something about viral marketing. Viral marketing don’t last forever. Here you are for a month, next month someone better then you comes, down the dumpster you go. But with SEO you can maintain your positions on certain keywords. This gets you – TARGETED TRAFFIC, .ie organic traffic. Is that worth more then the UN-TARGETED traffic those merchants get from social media sites? YES.
Viral marketing without SEO yields better result in shorter time:
Here’s the thing -
Time spent on social media sites = time wasted [1]
Time needed for viral marketing = time spent on social media sites [2]
then from [1] and [2],
Time needed for viral marketing = time wasted
How is that? Let me put it this way, facebook has people who are addicted, they visit the site to chat with friends, they send mails , they log off. Spending huge time on facebook, But is that of any value to us the sellers? No.
Now on search engines – user searches something = he wants or is looking for something = he finds our sites = he gets what he is looking for = we earn $$. Can that happen on facebook?
NO! Unless you pay for advertising.
SEO is not stable and will die and we will be better off with social media:
Now imagine, everyone stopped SEO, Google and all search engines died. What next? who will visit our sites? Will anyone ever know our sites exists? Won’t facebook ban us for posting links? Even if we did just to our friends – it will be un-targeted traffic = no value. Which makes Our sites = useless, we make no money. No money means no income for facebook. No income for facebook and so much users with high maintenance means facebook is dead. SEO is the backbone of the internet marketing scenario . IT WILL NEVER DIE.
Yahoo is closing its Publisher program because SEO is dead:
Last but not the least, i believe yahoo died the time it sold itself to Microsoft, i.e Bing.
You might not know but people on facebook are ‘humans’ and so are they on all social media sites. They don’t know anything unless someone spams them, they ask questions and doubts to their friends via status – why can’t they just search facebook to find answers? because its not possible. And when someone asks such questions. Do you know what reply people give on social media sites = just ****ing google it. Oh and that reply is common everywhere, facebook, twitter, yahoo answers, etc etc. Its true there is immense power in social media but SEO is not dead. period.
YPN died out because they can’t compete with Google and have bad policies? and perhaps they don’t have enough publishers because they are not worldwide?
SEO doesn’t benefit the ordinary ‘webmaster’:
If that is the case and if SEO dies, then so does any other website on the internet that isn’t ‘advertised’ offline. Which means a total of estimated 10-50 million ‘ordinary’ merchants, webmasters, freelancers, sellers etc will run out of business and it also means the economy would fall to ‘WORST’ conditions ever.
Q. Can word of mouth i.e viral marketing alone save us without the use of SEO?
A:Not always. It will take a 100 years for you to sell a common product to every user on the internet. Because not everyone has same tastes, or is rich, or is located in a place where they can avail those items. But if you were to make a website, target a keyword and rank top on the keyword on any major search engine, you will sell your product to every single person who visits your site.
So does that mean Social Media and viral marketing is Dead?
Let me put it this way, if i wanted to rely on viral marketing to sell a product to 10 million people. Let that be the basic goal. Then, that would mean 10 million people should just buy my product by word of mouth. This is very unlikely. BUT if i were to do the same via SEO, Viral marketing together by Ranking with certain keywords. And then get 100% organic traffic and say get an average of 1 million people monthly.[which is possible on high traffic niches] then i can reach my goals in less then a year. How? because i will have ‘targeted’ customers. More over, even if i don’t sell on first try i can always build leads, follow up. Spread my product all around the internet. Using ‘Search engines’ we can get many affiliates interested in promoting us, and these affiliates will still in turn promote our product using ‘search engines’. Can you do all this via facebook or twitter? You might be able to, but it will take lots of spamming and hard work. And it might not be automated as well along with the fact that you will have to do it all alone and by yourself without help of any affiliates etc.
What did you learn? SEO is not dead, don’t give up if you don’t rank well on search engines. Because in the end search engines were still alive when myspace was popular, is still alive when facebook and twitter is and will still be when other social media sites evolve.
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SJ I am sure you have seen my postings on DP, same post,
“Green-Eyed-Wizard” and my battle against the BC idiot. Thank you for taking a couple of my concepts, expanding on them better than I ever could imagine. Plus you added others so many other brilliant points and backed them up.
The only correction, millions are not taking the time to learn SEO, thinking the can make money by following the crowd. For a SEO expert like you, that just increases your prices and values. Because these followers become your customers to survive.
ONE OF THE BEST POSTS I HAVE READ IN THE LAST 3 WEEKS!
P.S. Under dyadvisor, I would definitely accept a friendship.
Hey donald,
glad you liked my post:D and i totally agree with you, some people just don’t understand SEO and its values properly. I will be more then glad to add you on my dp forums as friends.
regards,
sameer
Think of PageRank as being something that “flows”. By linking to lots of other websites you’re letting your PageRank flow out of your page, rather than allowing it to pool. Try to have reciprocal links wherever possible, so that the PageRank flows back to you.