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Shareable Content Is The New SEO King

Search Marketing and Social Marketing Are Converging

Have you noticed how Facebook is trying to become more search engine-like and Google is trying to become more social?

I’ve been closely following the search engine wars for years now. Once upon a time the search wars were comprised of Google, MSN and Yahoo! Those days are long gone. Today, it boils down to Google, Facebook and Microsoft Bing.

When Facebook launched their Open Graph API in April 2010 that was a game changer for them and for you and me (marketers). Through the Facebook Open Graph, we are no longer restricted to using Facebook only inside of Facebook. It includes the Like button, as well as Facebook Connect, Facebook Sharing, Facebook Comments and the Send button.  Essentially any visitor to a website or blog can influence the sharing and hence the reach of your content through these Open Graph Facebook functions.

But, it doesn’t end there. Google recently launched their Google +1 button. Twitter has long provided an API allowing anyone to tweet your content. More recently, Twitter added a follow button so someone can follow you on Twitter without leaving your page.

Recently I wrote a post about maximizing your LinkedIn profile on my personal branding blog. This article received healthy sharing activity. Let’s look at how the numbers shake out.

Clearly the largest sharing number came from the ShareThis button. Accessing my ShareThis account allows me to analyze this further to determine how this blog post was shared to gain valuable insights into the social sharing and audience segments. Another button worth noting is the volume of content shares on LinkedIn.

Have you noticed how LinkedIn has been growing in popularity for content? Just look at the quantity of LinkedIn shares for this blog article. If you have a website or blog with business content, you may experience similar results. Be mindful of this.

Back to the search wars….In the first quarter of 2011 Facebook was the #1 site for ad impressions followed by Yahoo!, Microsoft, AOL and Google. People are searching for and finding content across non-Google web properties, so the ad dollars at stake are huge! The influence of content being shared through Likes and other sharing methods is very significant to those in this search engine war.

Marketers Need to Create Shareable Content

What all of these observations mean for marketers is the need to constantly create relevant content that is shareable. This concept used to be known as “link bait content.” And, while links are still important, content sharing is the new search marketing currency. In the end content that is shared the most wins in search indexing and being found online.

Are you creating shareable content? If you are, you’re doing well in being found online. If you’re not, you’re vulnerable in the new SEO paradigm.

If you like this article, please share it with your network using any of the social buttons available here.

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