By now you’ve probably heard that Facebook’s introduced a new search service called Graph Search. Here’s a brief rundown of what it is and why you should care.
First of all, not a Google competitor — but it could be in the future.
For now, it only searches for things that have happened on Facebook.
Example: A user can see which restaurants in Philadelphia their friends have “liked.”
Why does that matter?
The news is important for one main reason: Graph Search is turning Facebook from an interaction tool to one that can help users find new things.
Now users can actively search for new products and services their friends like, versus just seeing them pop up in their news feeds as they’re being liked by friends.
This is yet another reason why it’s so crucial to establish a strong presence on Facebook (if you’re not there, people won’t find your stuff).
Although it’s not bound to happen overnight, if it works well enough, it’s possible Graph Search could become the go-to search engine for customers looking for vetted goods and services.
Major SEO implications
The launch of Graph Search is huge for another reason: It makes Facebook SEO a concept businesses are going to have to become familiar with.
Ways this changes the search marketing landscape:
- Likes will matter again. Until now, it didn’t matter how many likes you had. If nobody was engaging with your content, Facebook didn’t give your posts much authority — meaning it didn’t post them high enough on users’ news feeds to be seen. That’s all about to change. Much like links and keywords on Google, likes will be what gets your company to the top of Facebook’s search results. To show up, your page will need to be liked by the friends of a person searching for your product or service.
- Bing optimization will be more critical. When it comes to SEO, most focus on pleasing Google’s bots. Now Bing optimization will become more crucial than in years past. Why now? When there are gaps in Graph Search results, Facebook will fill the holes with Bing results.
