The main function of search engine optimization is to improve the visibility and ranking of website on the various search engines. It is an eternal online marketing tool that allows the companies to directly approach the audience and improve their business via search engines. However, the tool of social marketing is also rapidly making its mark in the field of online marketing and has also succeeded in overtaking search to some extent.

Social networking is promotion and advertising of services, products, websites, organizations, events, etc. by the way of different social networking sites. Social networking somewhat functions like web portals where people of different occupations, interests, and hobbies come together at one place to find the people of their interest. This grouping is not only restricted to people but is also done by different organizations and institutions. The medium of networking sites help these companies to directly reach their target audience which is followed by immediate feedback.
These two key components of online marketing although are in competition with each other but they also provide effective results when used in association. The search rankings of a website can also be improved by equipping it with the latest social market trends. The search engine ranking of a website also depends on how much it is active on popular social networking sites. Advertising links, pages or products of a website through a social networking site makes the website more shareable. Any information updated or posted on sites like Facebook or twitter makes the information spread much faster than any other possible medium.

SEO services can be effectively used to update a site with the latest social media trends by adding some simple features. These include social sharing through bookmarking buttons, Facebook sharing widget, twitter following widget, send to a friend, RSS feed subscription, reviews, rating, retweet, polling, voting, forums, and blogging.These features mainly focus on rotating and upgrading any particular product, service, or piece of information by involving it in forums, discussions, debates, suggestions, subscription, sharing, or following on various social marketing sites. All this helps to make the information visible to maximum number of users and any discussion or debate held on them makes it a ‘hot topic’ in turn attracting more and more attention. Any thing which is much discussed about on such sites gains popularity at a rapid pace and ultimately the search engines like Yahoo and Google show them as top results for a very long time. The ranking can be maintained by continuously utilizing these features in your websites.

Author's Bio: 

The author is an experienced Content writer and publisher for Business Development. Visit at http://www.themarketingpod.ie/ to know more about search engine optimization and Social networking.