If we accept that the entire reason for search engine optimization is so a website can become more visible on the web Facebook’s latest changes have gone a long way towards making it an irrevocable element of SEO activities. 

 

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, announced the changes with the statement:  “We are building the social web” and his assessment of this is not far from the truth. Before we discuss how this relates to a website’s SEO efforts it might be useful to first examine what the Facebook changes really are: 

 

1. "Like" buttons - Buttons with the word "like" and a thumbs-up icon on them have started to pop up all over the web and are already a part of this website (and this article). By clicking one, you indicate that you find the content interesting, relevant or helpful. Basically, you would recommend it to a friend. When  When you click one, you post the item, whether it's a blog post, photo or celebrity web page, to your Facebook news feed and it becomes visible to all your friends. The "liked" content may also become part of your Facebook profile, and visible to your friends or to everyone, depending on how your privacy settings are configured on Facebook. In real terms it suddenly allows you to recommend any content, anywhere, to you friends and their friends and allows you to become, in a sense, a digital ‘publisher’ of what you find and promote news items and articles of real worth to those who might be interested in them.

 

2. Friends' faces - A consequence of these "like" buttons will be that your friends' Facebook profile photos will start showing up all over the web extending your ‘fifteen minutes of fame’ by a considerable amount, depending on the newsworthiness of what you (or your friends) recommend. If you see your friends' smiling faces online, it's an indication that they have clicked a "like" button on the Web site you're visiting. In a way, they're recommending it to you.

 

Facebook says these recommendations and social connections are the basis for the future of the Internet. Boring old hyperlinks are becoming something of the past, the company says and this is their first attempt at a more interactive, more immediate and personal way of sharing content on the web. 

 

3. No log-ins - These new Facebook features will show up regardless of whether or not you have entered a user name and password on a particular Web site. So, for instance, you do not need to put any of your personal details, password or anything else on this site. The instant you click on the ‘Like’ button your recommendation will show up and recommendations from your Facebook friends also automatically show up in the same way.

 

4. Toolbars - Facebook announced new toolbars that other Web sites can add to the bottom of their pages. The toolbar lets you "like" a particular web page or item, and gives you information about what your friends think of the page you're viewing. You can also chat with friends who are currently logged into Facebook without visiting the site, right from where you are which is an additional means of talking about something important and sharing it with your friends the moment they are online.

 

5. Privacy issues – This means that your likes and dislikes as a web user and consumer of online services and information are going to show up all over the web. This is not necessarily bad as such but in terms of leaving a trail which can be tracked it does a little cause for concern. Mark Zuckerberg has, repeatedly, stressed his own desire that users are more open with their information. With a membership fast approaching 500 million worldwide Facebook is poised to become an ad-serving giant capable of rivaling Google’s earning power. Privacy is a hot topic and , when it comes to it, you are responsible for checking to see what is on your profile’s privacy settings and what you should and should not show. 

 

At least for now, a person's likes and dislikes are only as visible as they want them to be.

 

But, if nothing else, that means you should probably double-check your privacy settings.

 

Go to Facebook, look at the top right of the screen and click the "Account" tab. Choose "Privacy settings" and then navigate to "Profile information." Check the "likes and interests" setting. If you have that set to "everyone," then anyone on the Internet could see which Web pages you have liked. Some users might only want their Facebook friends to see that information.

 

6. Facebook everywhere - One thing you will notice is that Facebook is going to be all over the Internet with these changes. This puts the social network at odds with Google, which also is trying to organize the world's information by interests and preferences. Another potential side effect: The web you see is the web your friends like. Without some effort, you might end up browsing based on your friends preferences, rather than exploring new territory. Your activity can influence them, too. In terms of the ‘democratic’ web this is, probably, not an entirely bad thing but ‘democratic’ can easily become ‘insular’ and ‘inward looking’ trends which are totally at odds with the spirit of the open web and the free flow of information. 

 

Considering the six web trends above the question now really becomes how do the affect SEO and what should you have in mind? Well, for a start, with these sweeping changes and bearing in mind that Facebook now does have about half a billion users worldwide, it sets itself to rival Google in terms of serving information, controlling people’s browsing habits and attracting ad-revenue dollars. 

 

Already Facebook ads play a large part of online marketing for many companies and the ability to promote to specific segments of the online population is now an important area of web promotion which cannot be overlooked. More than that, the Facebook ‘Like’ button now takes viral marketing to an entirely new level making it imperative to create viral marketing campaigns for many products and services and, at the same time, breathing new life into a means of online marketing which was beginning to get old and tired. 

 

In practical terms this means that first you need a Facebook presence no matter what you intend to market. Facebook is the largest social network on the planet and a powerful means of engaging with your potential customers, managing your online brand and promoting yourself to search engines like Google, which in turn have made the indexing of Facebook information a priority. 

 

Second you need to have the ‘Like’ button on your site. This is a must right now, allowing you to leverage the social web and promote your online content to a far wider base of potential customers and online visitors than ever before. 

 

Third you now need to think in terms of the Social Web as well as Search Engines when it comes to optimization. The Social Web is purely person driven so this affects the quality of your page titles as well as the design of the pages you put together which now have to be as appealing and user-friendly as possible. 

 

Finally, cross promote your content. Use your own Facebook profile and your own friends on Facebook to kick-start the promotion of anything you place on your website as a matter of course, first. 

 

As you might have guessed SEO is changing. The new trends are adding powerful, new, online marketing weapons which the search engine optimizer needs to have as part of his armory. Over the next few months new initiatives and practices will be developed as a result and you will find out about them here, first. 

 

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