Social Sites Vs. SERPs

Which is better? I really think ranking on the first page is better - especially for long tailed KWs - because your getting targeted traffic into your site.

However, just wondering which is really better? Refferal traffic from sites such as Twitter, FB and Youtube - or just plain old ranking high in the SERPs.

I guess I can see the pros and cons of both. For Social sites like Twitter, you can build your network that has the same interest as you. You can occasionally post a link (let’s say you wrote an article that’s posted on your blog or website) and have ppl click on it. That would be a big plus, however, a lot of ppl really don’t look at Twitter or FB but maybe once or twice a week. So your network of let’s say 1,000 ppl of the same interest as you, at least half don’t log into Twitter to see what’s happening.

However, w/ Search, many people will see your site on the first page (let’s assume you have your site at #8), but, there are 9 other sites on that page are in a way competing for the searcher’s attention.

So what do you guys think? I still rather have my site ranked high in the SERPs. I know you can do it both ways - but which way, in your opinion, would be the better outcome? High in the SERPs or referral traffic from the likes of Twitter, Youtube and FB?

Sidenote: It really depends on the conversions - not the traffic. Also, depends on how many returning visitors and the bounce rate of your site.

Search Engines all the way.

Can’t beat good SERPs. But I work on both.

For getting good SERP and PR you need a good traffic for your site, which can be gained from Social sites listed above. You should try to effectively use the social sites to get backlinks which will benefit you for your PR and SERP in turn

Well, At least in my case social sites like Myspace and facebook have helped me increase my sites PR.

I’ll go for SERPs. most of my traffics came to search engines directly.

If you want to gain good traffic in Search Engines you will definitely have to work on Social sites. In the end main traffic comes top your domain from Search Engines not from social sites.

No one can beat Search Engines…most important part of Web World

Hi all,
I am quite new for the forum and I do not understand this word “SERP”. Could you guys explain what it is?
Thanks!

SERP stands for search engine results page are those pages which are returned by a Search engine against your keyword query.

For example if you type Cars in Google, the pages which will be shown by Google will be the SERPS for your keyword Cars

Its always better to let the traffic flow from either sides… as if you have traffic both from social networks and search engines then its really good for us.

Well I prefer SERPs as it drivers more traffic and also for long term its a nice way.
But on the other side it is the most job to do.