What the heck does social media have to relate to SEO? At MWI, we get this a lot from potential and current clients. Social media is a rapidly expanding channel of marketing that many companies have only just begun making use of in the past few years, however it’s very important to leverage – especially if you’re investing resources in search engine optimization. Making and managing social media accounts are extremely crucial to support SEO efforts, even though the benefits of social media aren’t always apparent. Here are five reasons social media is essential for SEO.
1) Social Media Signals
It’s no secret that Google, Bing and other major search engines have been using online conversations as part of their algorithm for ranking for quite some time. Social engagement occurs the time when people share, like, comment on, share or tweet about content. The more social interactions a piece of content gets, the greater social signals it will bring to your site. These social signals are used by search engines to determine the quality of the content. It’s a method of determining the content that people consider useful and what their algorithm determines to be top-quality. If something receives a lot of social shares the content can be indexable.
2.) Link Building
It’s past the moment when you could simply make a request for hyperlinks from other sites. Google’s Panda/Penguin algorithms have compelled SEOs to link build the traditional way: create quality content that is relevant. But how do you reach websites that are willing to link to your site if asking them directly is thought to be an «unnatural» link building technique? Social media is the solution. Social media enables you to expose your content to of the right people, who could be in a position to influence them to link to your content if it’s worth linking to. These people will share your content with others, increasing your influence.
3.) The amplifying of content
It doesn’t matter how good your content is, it will not gain traction until you amplify it. Email marketing is an effective way to boost content, but it will only reach those in your database of marketing. Social media allows you to connect with new audiences through your content. When you share your content, your following will be able to share it with their followers should they find it valuable. This will allow them to promote your content to their followers, which will increase your reach. In return, you will gain an abundance of relevant traffic, inbound links, Forum.sit.earth/profile.php?id=116083 branding awareness and social signals – all of which are used by search engines to determine the quality of your content.
content amplification lifecycle
4) Brand Awareness & Signals
Search engines can use brand image and recognition to judge the credibility of your website and how trustworthy it must be for their ranking algorithms. Social media can help build brand awareness and amplifies the content you publish. Google calls this co-citation. These co-citations are built by using social media to boost Google’s trust as well as aid with brand-name searches.
5.) Social Indexing
Search engines have been indexing social media accounts for some time now which means that they show up in results pages for search engines. This allows your business to appear in search results for brand-related queries, which aren’t limited to your company website. This is even better. Individual tweets on Twitter were at one time indexed and displayed in search results, too – enabling another way to ensure your content’s ranking in the search results. That was only temporary for a couple of months until Google decided to cease using this feature, which is still in effect. Google will once again show tweets in search results, so it’s important to leverage it for getting your content ranked.