by MikeSchinkel

Social networking has an impact on search engine marketing

Search engine marketing is starting to be heavily influenced by social networking.

According to new research from Experian Hitwise, social networking websites are grabbing significant amounts of traffic from search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. As a result search engine marketing agencies appear to be adopting their search marketing strategies to encompass the relatively new technology. John Merakovsky, a search engine optimisation expert from Experian, told ZDNet: “Social networking visits have consistently exceeded search engine usage.” He said that the trend has been strong in the Asia region since 2007 and it looks like the trend could take off around the globe.

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Experian Asia Pacific’s research showed that social networks in Hong Kong accounted for 16.69 per cent of user visits in the week ending October 23rd. This is compared with just 7.58 per cent for the leading search engines. In Singapore, the numbers were 15.57 per cent and 10.15 per cent respectively. The trend could easily change the face of search engine marketing, which is going to get a more real-time, user interaction focus.

Meanwhile, Steve Hodgkinson, a leading IT analyst with Ovum, told the news provider that social networking is merely the next step in the development of search – which means every SEO Company worth their salt will have to keep abreast of the latest Facebook and Twitter search engine optimisation developments.

“Social search is just a natural evolution of search made possible by the creation of social network databases that are available for exploitation by new forms of search algorithms and social networking dialogue,” Mr Hodgkinson claimed.

Meanwhile, James Roy, senior analyst at China Market Research Group, told ZDNet: “People are realising that information such as music or online videos which their friends like and recommend, are more likely to interest them than what is broadly popular on the Internet or has a high Google ranking.” Microsoft’s online search executive Yusuf Mehdi recently claimed that the integration of social media into its search offering was a major part of its new strategy to personalise search. His comments came as Microsoft signed a lucrative deal with the leading social networking site Facebook.