Social Media Optimization

I was referred to the origins of the term Social Media Optimization(SMO) from an old ProBlogger article about Google’s treatment of blogs.

The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs.

While I think video and other tactics are important especially given Google’s inclusion of video in search results. One trend of growing importance is optimizing web pages by including microformats:

Designed for humans first and machines second, microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards.

Examples of microformats are

• hCard – For people and organizations
• hCalendar – Calendars and Event
• XFN – Social Networks

A broader list of microformats can be on the microformats wiki.

I think the key thing to consider when optimizing your website for audience (Whether it be readers or search engines) it’s important to make it easier for the website to be be consumed. That means syndicating content, offering multimedia when and where appropriate. Now I have one more TLA (Three Letter Acronym) to throw around along with my geek-speak laden vocabulary.

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Technorati Tags: Blogging, optimization, SEO, Social Media

Tagged as: Blogging, optimization, SEO, Social Media