The Intimate Link Between SEO and Social Media
One of the most common misconceptions about digital marketing is that SEO and social media are completely distinct. Sure, this may have been true back when Myspace and Bebo were still afloat. These days however, the two are intimately linked. While there may be certain strategies which are exclusive to one or the other, social media has a clear, measurable impact on SEO. If you’re looking to launch a digital marketing campaign, then you need to understand how they tie in with one another. Here are some things about the relationship between SEO and social media which you may not have known.
First of all, social shares are a form of link building. Ever since SEO first became a marketing technique, link building has been an important part of the whole picture. The amount and quality of links you have going out and into your website has a big effect on your SERP rankings. Whether white hat or black hat, marketers have been using proven link building tactics for years now. These days, the main method for gaining links is by drafting and releasing original content. This content, in turn, is shared across various social media channels. If a link gets shared a hundred times on Facebook, it will be more visible on Google and Bing than one which was shared fifty times. You need to make sure your most engaging content is shared on all of your appropriate social platforms. This will ensure that you up your traffic both through social media and SERPs.
You need to have some understanding of Google’s author ranking system, and its effect on search engine optimization. Google+ has been around for years now, and is growing steadily as a social network. Naturally, they’ve integrated it with the way their search engines operate. When posting content, you can have it linked with your Google+ profile in search results. When you include the rel=”author” tag on your company’s website, and link all the content you’ve ever written to your Google+ page, it will get your author listing in SERPs. As a result, your content will appear a lot more credible on a page of search results. This will improve brand recognition, and ultimately drive up your web traffic. The author tag will also ensure that your content will stay associated with the original author, even if it’s scrapped or syndicated.
Social media also has a significant impact on how quickly web pages are indexed. When content is shared across various social media platforms, Google’s crawlers take it as an indication of quality. This means that it will be much faster to be indexed and ranked. A page that’s shared extensively on Twitter could be indexed up to twice as fast as one that isn’t shared at all. However, don’t become too wrapped up in the basic amount of shares your content gets. Indexation hinges on a few other factors too. The number of different people who tweeted the content, along with the influence of the people sharing and the time frame should all be considered when you’re measuring the impact.
The connections and followers your business has will also have a direct effect on your SEO performance. As mentioned earlier, search engines see a high amount of shares as a sign of credibility. Similarly, the amount of quality followers and friends you have will be interpreted as your business being credible. Note how I say quality followers here. It’s a big mistake to try and up the amount of followers you have in any way possible, thinking it will help your ranking. It may have some small impact, but this isn’t the most efficient way of going about it. You should be targeting advocates and influencers who genuinely have an interest in your business and the promotions you’ll run. These accounts will be more effective at sharing your content with followers, and will have a more significant impact on your SERP ranking.
Finally, some networks have a significant impact on your local search rankings. Local search is exceedingly important if your business has a physical location. Although some marketers have been slow to catch on, the locality of a business is going to become more and more important in the world of SEO. Due to this, you need to be active on location based social networks. These include Yelp, Foursquare and similar sites. Google keeps their business listings on Google+ local pages. However, the profile will be more static for Bing and Yahoo. Be sure to provide your business’s address on any social network where it’s relevant.
