SEO and Social Networking February 27, 2008 09:57 by John Sollars

Social Networking – A conundrum for E-Commerce?

PLEASE DO NOT DIGG THIS ARTICLE!

We are all aware of Social Networking sites – the likes of Bebo, Facebook et al, and if like me you run an e-commerce website you have probably been trying to think of ways that you can benefit from the Phenomenon that is Social Networking.

I suppose Friends Reunited was the forerunner of Social Networking sites, and at one time a couple of years ago were always in the news. Then the network was sold to ITV and it was eclipsed first by Bebo then latterly by Facebook. Reading articles recently the feeling is that even the megalith that is Facebook has peaked and online registrations were down in the last couple of months of 2007.

So, the bottom line. How can my business benefit from these sites. The biggest problem in my view is that you have to spend a lot of time on the sites to understand the ethos of the users and what they are looking for. Because of the amount of information that people put on their profiles it enables very targeted advertising at users, but for the average small business the costs involved will be prohibitive. So, what are the benefits for me?.

Let me digress. I have been running a successful online business for 6 years. I employ 8 people and turn over more than £1M per year. I spend an awful lot of resource on organic search and website optimisation and trying to understand what Google considers good and bad. The real issue for me here is that no-one actually understands what Google wants, and as soon as you get close they change their priorities and knock you back again. They say that they want to provide the most accurate and relevant search results for their users, strikes me that Amazon now dominate in any category that they are present – or is that just sour grapes?.

Anyway, the one thing that we know that the Mighty G does like is back links, and even better if you can get back links with relevant anchor text.