What the heck does social media have to do with SEO? At MWI we hear these questions frequently from our current and prospective clients. Social media is a fast growing marketing channel that most businesses have only recently begun taking advantage of in the past couple of years, yet it’s essential to utilize it in particular if you’re putting efforts in SEO. Although the benefits of social media are not immediately apparent, they are essential for SEO help. Here are five reasons social media is vital to SEO.
1) Social Media Signals
It is no secret that Google, Bing, and other search engines use online conversations as part of their algorithm for ranking. When people tweet, like, comment or share the content it is referred to as a social engagement. The more the number of social interactions that a piece content is able to get, the more social signals you build to your site. These social signals are used by search engines to determine the quality of content. This is a way for search engines to know what content people consider to be most valuable and what algorithm they believe to be as high-quality. If an article receives a lot of engagement on social media it will be immediately indexed.
2) Link Building
It’s long gone from the moment when you could simply solicit hyperlinks from other sites. Since the introduction of Google’s Panda and Penguin algorithms, SEOs are forced to create links in the old fashioned way and create content of high-quality that is linked-worthy. How do you reach websites who are willing to link to your content, if they are thought to be «unnatural»? Social media is your answer. Social media lets you post your content and share it with people who are willing to link to it, in the event that it’s worth linking to. They will also share your content with others, increasing your influence.
3.) Content Amplification
You can write all the top-quality content you like however, it will not get any traction without amplifying it. Email marketing can be great method to boost content , but it can only reach people in your list of marketing contacts. Social media can help you connect with new audiences through your content. If you send your content out to your followers, they will share it with their own followings in the event that they find it helpful. These people will then spread the word to their networks which will increase the reach of your content. You will also gain relevant traffic as well as inbound linking as well as social signals and brand 192.41.27.51/mediawiki/User:DeanneBullard awareness All of which can be utilized by search engines for content to determine the quality of your content.
content amplification lifecycle
4.) Brand Awareness & Signals
Brand recognition and brand identity can inform search engines much about the credibility of your site’s content and the extent to which it can be trusted in its ranking algorithms. Social media helps to build an image for your business and also boosts the content you publish. Google calls this co-citation. These co-citations can be built via social media in order to increase Google’s credibility and aid in branded searches.
5) Social Indexing
Search engines have been indexing social media accounts for a few years now and this means that they appear on the search results pages. This allows your business to show up in search results for search queries that are branded and not limited to your company website. However, it’s even more than that. Individual tweets from Twitter were once searchable and displayed in the search results. This enabled your content to rank higher in the results of a search. It was only temporary for a few months, until Google decided to discontinue the service, and it’s still in place. Google will once again show tweets in search results, so it’s important to leverage it for getting your content ranked.