In recent years, online marketing strategy has metamorphosed with the growth and relevance of social media. Many companies have turned to Facebook and Twitter with high hopes of drawing in legions of dedicated consumers. Unfortunately, the "build it and they will come" mentality doesn't reach it's aspirations.
While marketers understand that social media is an important source of qualified traffic that can help companies to build and maintain visibility on the web, it can be difficult to assess just how much social media affects SEO ranking.
Google has acknowledged that spiders can crawl social media pages, however, there is no definitive proof that social signals (likes, followers, shares) cause companies to rank higher on SERPs. Despite this, SEO professionals argue that these numbers have an influence, as they are indicative of your company's reputation and they act as a gauge of your ability to build credibility online.
Continue reading to learn about a few common social media practices that can positively impact your online presence.
Building Links: The More The Merrier
Digital marketers are constantly seeking back links and social media provides a solid opportunity for this. When Google analyzes a site, diversity of links to your site is taken into consideration. Thankfully, social media sharing encourages growing your pool of quality links; however, you must keep in mind that your content should be useful, enticing, and relevant to your audience. Companies that can effectively create and share useful content will ultimately draw in more followers.
Though Google's algorithm doesn't (definitively) take the amount of followers into consideration when it shapes SEO rankings, the more quality followers that you can attain, the more likely it is that they will share your content and help to grow your back links, which are part of the foundation for a healthy SEO strategy.
It's crucial to build your network of followers with real people through genuine and organic interactions. Search engine algorithms are nuanced enough to be able to detect proxy (purchased) followers, so don't underestimate them.
Social Posts Can Be Found In SERPS
Remember, the goal of SEO is to make it easier for users to find your content in the organic search results. If you weren't aware, your businesses latest tweets can be found in Google search results. When Google bots search for the latest information on a particular topic, it will display the most recent tweets, so if you've been covering the material their searching for, you shall rank first on a Google search.
It's important to realize though, tweets showing up in search occurs more frequently for popular topics. Google's first page of search results often contains other relevant social media content like YouTube videos, Facebook pages, or even Twitter feeds, meaning that you have several opportunities to get your content in front of a large search audience.
Take some time to research the types of social media content that's listed by Google in your niche, and then create engaging social media posts targeting the same keywords.
Learn how to optimize your businesses' social media profiles for search engines.
Social Media Platforms Are Often Used Like Search Engines
We're in a strange time when Internet users do not use Google exclusively for their searches; millenials have begun searching through social platforms in addition to Google. Essentially, people are beginning to treat social media platforms like they do search engines.
So, regardless of social media' impact on SEO rankings, it's good practice to optimize your social platforms to the best of your ability. Remember, there are numerous ways for consumers to discover or interact with brands on social media and, once a consumer has interacted wit ha brand on social media, they're more likely to purchase from the company, share the company's content, or link to the company's information.
