Just because Twitter and Facebook are not driving you enough sales does not mean you should stop using social media at all. In fact, social media is important not only because it drives sales but also because it improves your search engine rankings. Both Bing and Google now use data from social networking sites to determine your website rankings.
There are many reasons why it makes sense to invest your time and money on running a successful social media marketing campaign:
Social Links Improve Rankings
While it may be true that social signals related to a profile’s authority are losing their importance, Google still values the links published on social accounts. Links to your website through social media accounts have an impact on your rankings. After the latest updates from Google, the only credible way to achieve links is through developing original content.
It is not enough though. You can take a step ahead by sharing content across social media with links to your website. Links to your content on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and other social networks help Google and other search engines understand what websites are credible and how they should rank those websites for specific keyword phrases.
Your Social Media Profiles Appear In Search Engines
That is another reason you need spend time building a solid profile on different social media networks. Google crawls Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking platforms like other websites, and anything new and interesting will grab their attention.
It is important to optimize your posts for searches. For starters, you need to have a strong anchor for your post, which could be an infographic, a video, or even a link to a full-detailed article. Be sure to title it in a compelling and descriptive way. Post it and frame it with text that should be optimized for your target keywords. Making the right use of keywords in your description will help your content to appear in Google and Bing and other searches.
Your social profile may get listed in Google that will affect your search results as a whole. Getting your social media profiles listed in search results will attract more customers because these pages feel more personal than regular web pages. Many people go straight to a company’s Facebook or Twitter page to learn more about them. It means social media can increase traffic to your website and improve user experience in some ways that in turn will help improve your rankings as well.
Social Media Platforms Work Like Search Engines
Many experts believe that social is the new SEO because many people now go straight to social media channels and search for anything they want. In fact, Facebook recorded more than one billion search queries a day in 2012, and it has already increased significantly.
It means your search engine optimization campaigns are now incomplete if you do not consider social media search engines. You can make your content visible in Instagram and Pinterest by using hashtags and categorizing their pins. You can also become more visible for search queries in Facebook.
Social Media Connections Make A Difference
Social media is critical to your online success because the number of followers and connections on your social media profiles have a significant influence on your rankings. A company with 100 Twitter followers just cannot compete in rankings with a company with a million Twitter followers or a million Facebook likes.
The catch is that Google can detect the quality of your followers, which means that buying 100,000 proxy Twitter followers won’t help you much.
[quote]Your rankings will improve only when you build your following organically.[/quote]
It is important that you stay consistent to get positive results. You need to present your brand in a unique yet consistent way. Post useful articles, general discuss items, and helpful tips, and then follow up with your followers by engaging with them directly.
Direct customer engagement and conversations will help create a sizeable, interactive following that will have an impact on your rankings.
Social Media Gets You External Inbound Links
The more diverse external links you have on your social media channels, the higher the chances of you getting better rankings in Google. By making the right use of social media, you can make external sites to link to your content. The real thing is to have high quality, authoritative content on your social media channels.
Once you have created quality work, you can make it visible for syndication by using hashtags. Be sure to bring your content into existing discussions and threads. This improves your social reputation, which will make you a favorable choice for external sources to link to your content.
Social Media Helps With Social Sharing
Social sharing is important for your brand’s authority and works as external links do. You will experience a small improvement in your domain authority if Google and other search engines find an authoritative external source validating your brand or your content. It means that favorites, shares, likes, replies, and re-tweets all contribute to improving your authority.
The best way to encourage increased social sharing is to offer a specific reward for people who share your posts. It could be a small discount for anything or an entry in a draw for a substantial prize. Another way is to do an interactive survey that encourages people to “like” your post if they find it helpful.
This helps because it is a self-perpetuating cycle – you get new followers when someone shares your content, and those new followers will also share and increase your reputation. All this will help establish you as a social authority that will improve your rankings in the long run.
Social Media Helps You To Engage Locally
You can use social media to engage yourself in the local community, which in turn will send local-specific authority signals to Google and other top search engines. The best way to do it is to make updates every time your company takes part in a local event or organizes one. Be sure to interact with local establishments and local brands on social media to build a reputation.
There are several platforms that let you share images – Instagram and Pinterest are great choices. The next time your company attends a local tradeshow, festival, or other events, take some nice pictures, share them on social media platforms, and invite local residents to comment. This is a great way to participate in the community and improve your visibility in local searches. In short,
You should not stop harnessing the power of social media just because Google says they do not consider social signals in their search algorithm.
There are many other reasons why social media is still critical for SEO and rankings. You need to broad your concept of SEO and also consider so many ways that people use to find content on the web. Work with a professional SEO company or an expert to understand why social media is important and how to make the right use of different platforms to improve rankings.
Shiv Kumar Gupta is a full time SEO professional working with SERPholic Media. His main focus is to give the most useful information and help to his readers. You can read his blogs at SEO Peace, a SEO company & sister agency of SERPholic media that brings revenues & leads, not just rankings.
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