How Social Media Affects SEO Rankings

Los Angeles search engine optimization (SEO) services are aware of the challenges that face any business that aims to outrank its competition within the Los Angeles metropolitan area alone. This is why SEO experts use every means available at their disposal to help the pages of their clients improve in terms of ranking in search engines. One of the most effective ways to improve page rankings is by taking advantage of social networking sites.

Despite what some SEO theorists may claim, social media still has a significant impact on SEO rankings. It is true that search engine results pages (SERPs) and algorithms continue to evolve. However, the affinity and appeal that social networking sites hold over internet users consistently make it a viable SEO tool. Here are how social media affects SEO rankings.

Social Media Shares Influence Web Traffic

If your website has content that is interesting, updated, practical and shareworthy, you can trust that your visitors are more likely to share it on their social media accounts. This is one of the reasons why you should have high-quality content on your website. The shares will not only increase the number of external links to your site, but it will also encourage more traffic and visitors to your page.

Social Media Pages Help Boost Your Website’s Ranking

The main reason for this is that the social media page for your business also ranks on search engines. If someone searched for your business, its social media page will likely appear along with its website in the SERPs. SEO experts are well-aware of this, which is why most of them will try to optimize your social media pages as well. This also helps increase your online visibility on SERPs. One important thing to remember, however, is that your social media pages need to remain active and responsive to remain on Google’s radar.

You Gain More High-quality Links

High ranking and established websites that refer and link back to your website is still one of the major factors that affect your page rankings. You can catch the attention of such websites by using various social media platforms to promote and share your content. This is yet another reason why you need to have high quality, shareworthy and updated content on your site. It also needs to appeal to a larger portion of your target audience and clientele because studies show that people are more likely to share links to content that they deem are worth their time reading.

It’s a Great Branding Tool

Facebook alone has more than 2 billion active users globally. Facebook alone is a great platform that you can use to boost brand awareness. To make it work, though, you need to be consistent in engaging your social media followers and audience by being active in asking and answering questions, sharing opinions on current issues and trends and by starting discussions.

It is also important not to lose sight of the fact that there are more search engines online apart from Google. Your SEO efforts should therefore also optimize for review aggregators and online directories, apart from Google and social media sites.