SearchMetrics recently released their research on influencing factors for Google's search algorithm and we are seeing the continuation of the recent trend where social media, especially Facebook, is becoming a bigger factor.
For many years Search Engine Optimization (SEO – improving how your site shows up in Google's searc)) was mostly about 2 factors:
- Make sure you have everyting you need on your pages and it is setup correctly (H1 tags, meta tags, good URL's…)
- Get people to link to your pages.
Over the last 2 years we've seen a big change. Here' the top 6 most important factors now:
- Get people to link to your page.
What does this tell us?
Google is flexible
In a short period of time that have radically altered the top factors in determining what results to return. They are very open to new ideas and are willing to integrate more complexity into their algorithms to account for new user behavior.
Facebook is the King!
Facebook not only has the largest social media network, the biggest photo site, a large advertisement network, has presence most web sites, and has a huge mobile presence, they now also have a significant effect how most people search the web. No matter where you go on the Internet kingdom you will feel Facebook's power. They are the King!
We Are Going To Be Bombarded With Facebook Requests
The SEO world is gearing up to bombard you with Facebook share and like requests that will be similar to the more traditional email campaigns we see now. Get ready for more contests asking you to "like" their page and more messages on your phone.
Please Like Me! — Facebook Will be Integrated into Everything
You are going to see much stronger integration of Facebook share, like, and photo capability all over the web and on all mobile devices. Apple's next version of their iPhone/iPad OS will have much stronger Facebook integration. There's improvements coming to Android devices too. Facebook also just came out with much stronger integration into the WordPress platform which powers 16% of the top web sites in the world.
We will be "Paying by Likes"
Likes and shares are going to be so valuable that they could serve as currency in low value transactions. The is the model for the new service Pay by Tweet which works with Twitter.