Why Google isn't a Search Engine and Facebook isn't a Social Media Site

Google isn't really a search engine.

That's one mistake many people make when seeking organic traffic.

The True Nature of Google

Google is more of a website ranking platform, and it's becoming more of a website ranking platform as its algorithm become more "sophisticated" (more capable of ranking websites). Those that get a high ranking are rewarded with MORE TRAFFIC and HIGHER RANKING.

It needs to rank websites in a way that people consider it a reliable and useful search engine, so they keep using it; and also so that the lower ranked sites or sites that don't get ranked can pay for advertising, to be seen on the top ranks.

In order to achieve the website ranking function and serve as a reliable search engine, Google developed and continually refines its information/ content grading system (the fancy algorithms).

What About Facebook?

Facebook is a personal data collection platform.

It uses your personal data to sell targeted adverts.

It attracts people to share data by presenting itself as a social media platform.

The system that Facebook uses in order to collect personal data and serve as a social media platform is a news/ information crowd-sourcing system (its fancy algorithm that, unlike the Google one, tries to keep your news feed from being crowded by only the top-ranked content).

Facebook versus Google

Those two algorithms/ systems (in Facebook and Google) are far from perfect, but vastly different.

The Facebook system makes it very easy to get exposure within close groups, but there's a limit to how far your organic exposure will reach.

On the other hand, the Google system forces you to apply extra effort just to get ranked, but once you rank, you can get even greater exposure beyond the keywords you rank for.

What's the Benefit of Knowing This?

By understanding the true nature of these two key platforms (social media and search engines) that your website will be relying on, you'll know how to use them effectively.

Using Facebook

Since Facebook is a personal data collection site, if you help it collect personal data, you're sure to get ahead.

This simple understanding will spare you countless trial-and-error episodes, and help you maintain a long-term strategy that will hardly ever be affected by Facebook’s algorithm changes.

Start with your own personal data, simply by regularly sharing your content to and engaging with INTERESTED people. And if your content inspires others to react, comment and share, you would have helped Facebook get more personal data from other people.

Remember to always give something to Facebook before or while taking something from it. For example, if you want to share links, it's best to include text or even an image.

And if you’re really keen on driving a major campaign, follow Facebook's lead... just as Facebook presents itself as a social media platform, in order to attract people to give their personal data, align your posts to social issues.

The issue I’ve seen often with people utilizing Facebook is that they don’t know how to transform the traction they gain on Facebook into sales for their services or traffic to their websites. The trick is in driving qualified leads and utilizing an effective sales funnel. These are the most basic marketing concepts. A simple Google will give you ample answers.

Using Google

However, concerning Google, since it’s a website ranking platform, I strongly believe that it should be the last consideration after:

• your service offering - I always recommend that a website should have a service offering and an online tool/ software, which from my experience are the most powerful tools to get backlinks and revenue through your website. For example, if I offer to edit other people’s website content in return for backlinks, I’m sure to get quite a number of backlinks without paying a single cent.
• Facebook/ social media - As indicated in the previous section, this is a powerful source of traffic
• your website - Although many website owners complain that they have a problem getting traffic, the real problem is often a poor website. This will be elaborated after this section.

Why would you want to rank something that isn’t worth ranking?

Also, when you set up your website based on what people are already searching for (keywords), you’re putting yourself on the path of continuous competition. It goes against the most basic concept of entrepreneurship: creating a new product/ service.

If you’re truly creating a new product, no one would be searching for it beforehand (yes, even affiliate marketers can create a new offering/ style/ presentation even if they are marketing already existing products).

No keywords, but the good thing is that you’ll literally have zero competition.

If your service/ product is something you would buy, then you’ll likely get customers. And when people start searching for a new keyword that you have established your website around (before anyone else has realized that it even exists), you’re automatically the top-ranked site.

There's Even More...

But all that isn’t the true value of understanding Google and Facebook.

The real value comes in when setting up your website.

For your website to succeed, it should adopt concepts from both Google and Facebook: a rank-social website. Actually, I think every website should be a rank-social website.

How Do You Create a Rank-Social Website?

Simple.

When you blog, you're already ranking certain types of content above others: you select certain content and consider it more valuable than others when you blog about it. And the fact that you want traffic already makes it a social site.

Why not take it a step further and take advantage of all the other features in Google and Facebook that have made them incredibly gargantuan?

One critical thing you learn from the major sites is: the less a website is about you, the more visitors it's likely to attract.

Now, about the features in Facebook and Google that you should adopt...

1. Curated and Aggregated Content

Google's SERP is the ultimate curated content.

Similarly, why not include articles of curated lists with links (majority of your links should be no-follow) to hundreds or thousands of other sites, within your niche (this presents an opportunity for outreach to get traffic, subscribers and backlinks from other sites).

You can even have aggregated content from multiple sites within your niche (this will make you the go-to “search engine” or news source within your niche. Make the aggregated pages no-index. You can even include highlights of select aggregated articles in email newsletters, which can be a great incentive to get subscribers who want their content highlighted in your email newsletter).

2. Guest Updates and Crowd Posts

Facebook is the ultimate crowd-sourced news platform.

To achieve a similar effect, why not include the option for readers to update your blog posts the way Wikipedia does it (with your editing oversight). This is far better than readers leaving comments. Many bloggers out there are looking for backlinking opportunities, and if you can give them the chance to get backlinks within the article itself (without writing an entire article), they’ll surely take it up.

Take it even a step further: offer crowd posting opportunities, instead of guest posting on your blog.

Why should someone who wants one tiny backlink have to write a 1,500-word article? Why not have the article be written by 10, 20 or even 100 interested participants. Each handles a specific subheading and it's all compiled into one article, with your editing oversight.

3. Non-Indexed and Exclusive Content

People register to and use Facebook because it has valuable content that can’t be found anywhere else – not even indexed on Google.

Likewise, you should have content that’s not to be indexed, requiring registration to access: a closed/ exclusive forum (the best way to do it is to require payment to get into the forum and to be updating the forum with content that you typically sell to others (or content that first appears in the closed forum for a certain period before appearing anywhere else).

4. Iframes and a Never-Ending News Feed

When you log onto Facebook, you get a never-ending news feed, which is actually a compilation of multiple posts. This is an incredibly useful feature that lets Facebook users read multiple posts without opening up new windows/ tabs.

With blogging, you capture a bit of this magic using iframes in HTML within your blog post. (Google uses it to embed its YouTube videos on website pages, why shouldn’t you?) However, be very careful with this, since you should have a reasonable amount of content on the page before adding iframes. You also have to be careful about creating multiple iframes within iframes, among other technical issues.

I implemented the iframes layout on this ultimate guide on how to make money online as a writer.

For a truly never-ending page, use an infinite scroll feature, but this might be best implemented with an accordion, so readers can scroll through multiple posts and only enlarge those that are particularly interesting.