Finally, a simple explanation on the difference between SEO & SMO >> The Open SEO Vault

1. SEO & SMO: What’s the Difference?
Posted by: Aimee Beck on: March 7, 2012
Off-Page SEO | On-Page SEO | Social Media
Good morning! Ahh, it’s a gorgeous day here in Guelph. The sun is shining, the mercury is on the
rise and my windows are wide open. Birds are chirping and my cats are stalking chippies from
this side of the screen. It’s a feel good day!
I plan to spend some time outside in the fresh air, so today’s post is a quickie
You may have heard folks talking lately about social media optimization and the “death of SEO.”
The truth is that SEO is still very much alive. SMO is alive, too. One is not overtaking the other
though — they remain two very distinct entities and each has its rightful place in your overall
marketing campaign.
What is SEO?
Simply put, SEO (search engine optimization) is the process of optimizing your website so that
its pages show up in the SERPs (search engine results pages). SEO drives traffic to your site via
search engines (primarily Google). The most common methods used to achieve this are by
selecting keywords and making alterations to HTML code, such as titles, meta descriptions, alt
tags, headers and microdata. SEO is often referred to as onsite optimization. The carrier of traffic
in this case is the search engine(s) and the target is your website.
What is SMO?
SMO (social media optimization) is the process of sharing content outside the four walls of your
website. The carrier in this case is the user (or many users hopefully) and the target is, well,
anywhere and everywhere. When optimizing for social media, you’re not trying to drive traffic to
your website, you’re trying to get people to carry content away from your website and share it
with other users. The goal is to spread your content as widely as possible by various social media
channels, including Twitter retweets, Pinterest pins, Facebook likes, +1s and YouTube views.
Social media optimization is also known as offsite optimization or social media marketing (SMM).
Hope this clears up any confusion there may have been around SEO & SMO.
Now go enjoy another happy hump day!
~Aimee