We’ve always talked about how social media intersects with SEO. But the conversation was still always about how Google reads social content.
With today’s announcement from Facebook, they’re forcing the SEO lens back onto Facebook.com.
Facebook users can now search through the 2 trillion posts that have been published as updates on Facebook. This means that Facebookers can now get real-time information just as they would a Google search or search.twitter.com hashtag search.
To me, this is a game changer. Since so many people are active on Facebook, one successful search can convince them to forego the use of Google when looking up real-time news while on the go.
What does this mean in the long-run? Less market share for Google on mobile search and a fundamental re-positioning of Facebook into the search engine space.
By keeping users in their ecosystem, Facebook is guaranteeing more usage. What remains to be seen is the optimization opportunity that might now exist for marketers.
Will marketers now be more concerned with the keywords they use in their social posts? Will this become a strategy for which to hire an SEO expert.
Regardless of what happens, it’s inevitable that Facebook will monetize search via Facebook ads. The more usage picks up, the bigger the opportunity becomes for online advertisers.
None of this ends up being good news for Google.
But we’ll just have to see how much traction universal search on Facebook receives in the coming months.
For more information on this news, you can read the article on The Verge.