SEO Professional

SEO and SMO are two of the bigger concerns for webmasters and Bloggers, as they can both have substantial impacts on the amount of traffic a website or blog receives.

SEO has been a common activity of website owners for years now. It is no doubt effective. Search Engines sends tons of free traffic to those with the high rankings for popular search terms.

While Social media optimization has only become popular in the past few years as the use of social networking sites has exploded. When compared with successful SEO, social media traffic is less steady. Those who use social media effectively can consistently draw traffic with new content.

One of the biggest differences between SEO and SMO is the networking aspect. SMO is heavily-reliant on networking and strong profiles, while SEO can be done without this.

Success can be accomplished from day one of a new website or blog. There’s no need to wait to become a trusted domain. While in SEO, one has to wait for a longer period of time to get rankings so that you can get relevant traffic to the website.

The structure of your website isn’t really important like it is with SEO.
Some Comparisons and Similarities of SEO and SMO:

Link Building:

SEO – Inbound links are a large determining factor in rankings.

SMO – Links are a result of success, which means that SEO benefits from good SMO.

On Page Elements:

SEO – Title tags, headers, image title, bold text and use of keywords are all influential on search engine rankings.

SMO – Coding and tags are not so important, while visual attention grabbers make a bigger impact.

Titles:

SEO – The title tag of a page tells the search engines what a page is about and carries a lot of weight in the rankings.

SMO – Titles and headlines are extremely important for grabbing attention and getting users to click-through.

Content:

SEO – Quality content is important in order to rank well.

SMO – Quality content is important in order to hold the readers’ attention and win their approval.

Analysis:

SEO – Analysis is necessary in order to know which changes have made an impact (positive or negative) on the site’s rankings.

SMO – Analysis is necessary to know what types of content draws interest.

Predictability / the Benefit of Experience:

SEO – Experts are able to reproduce success with new sites (although it’s not as easy as it sounds), as the same elements can be applied.

SMO – Those who know the social media audience can recreate success by publishing posts and headlines specifically for this purpose.

Success Breeds More Success:

SEO – Trusted domains will have a positive effect on all pages, including new pages.

SMO – Power profiles on sites like Digg can keep traffic flowing with new submissions.

I believe that SMO is the best way for new websites and blogs to draw visitors. This early success with social media can have long-lasting effects on search engine rankings as well.

Sources: http://www.mosaic-service.com/blog/seo-vs-smo