I want to spend some time on this blog looking into the controversy between SEO and SMO and where it may take your blogging efforts in the future. Now, writers who work in the online sphere have long been aware of the trials and tribulations of SEO or Search Engine Optimization. Basically SEO focuses on writing content and building a site to present the best keywords to a search engine crawling the web and just looking for terms to search against. Google even has a tool to let you search on any topic and find the best keywords for that topic so that you can build them into your content. Now, as a writer, we’ve had to change our thoughts on how to present content on the web to pull in readers because first we need to pull in the search engine and get a good rank on search sites. But the automated process has also been a frustration to readers because it means that the articles with the best content aren’t always the first ones served up by a search engine.
Which is where SMO comes in. SMO is Social Media Optimization and taking advantage of it means that your content is going to have to be interesting enough to engage a real reader and have them recommend you to friends. Which means the writers who write well will be those who succeed because you can’t fake good content. It also means that writers will need to be more active in social media themselves, so be prepared to engage readers on Facebook and Twitter.
As a writer, I’m going to say one thing — Good content cannot be faked. I’m active on many writing groups and I’ve seen this switch beginning to take place. Whereas once the answer to the question “where can I find more information about Xxx?” was once “Google it,” the trend now has shifted to the question “does anyone know of a good site on Xxx?” Because when researching an article, the last thing a writer wants is a heavily SEOd article churned out to meet keyword requirements.
So, when it comes to the SEO vs SMO debate, the question is — do you think your reader would want to read content you wouldn’t read yourself? Because if you aren’t writing for SMO, you’re about to be left behind.