How Social Media Impacts SEO
Social media is prolific and can drive huge numbers of traffic to your website and create sales. There are ways that social media indirectly improves your SEO (search engine optimization).
What Google Has Said About SEO And Social Media
Google has generally insisted social media is not a signal in the rankings of search results. So we will analyze how strong social signals can affect your search engine results.
How Social Media Can Improve Your SEO
Faster Indexing: When you publish a page online, Google doesn't see it right away. This means it isn't ranking in the search results.
Links from social media allows Google to see your page faster and getting it ranked.
More Links To Your Site: As people share your page on social media, more people see your website. These people who are new to your content could be content creators. If they like your content they might create a piece based on your content, or give you a mention in a future article. When they provide a link to your website, you'll get a boost in the rankings (links are a ranking factor in Google).
Better Brand Recognition: When you create quality shareable content, you're increasing your brand awareness by appearing in more social feeds.
What happens when these people start searching something and see your company pop up in the results? They'll click on your result.
Find Out What Content Engages Your Audience: Social media is ruthless. You can create content you think is awesome, yet on social media it flops.
But, you may whip up something quick and it gets lots of attention. Maybe do more of that kind of content?
Note: Not all content that goes 'viral' in search media will be popular in search engine results.
Content Revival: Social media allows you to extend the life of your post. Social media traffic referrals tend to have an expiry date. But you can recycle the content back out a few months later with some new information added.
When you update a post, Google appreciates the fresh content and that may provide a boost in rankings. Or you could end up with a sudden burst of links coming through to your content via the social media push.
Don't Forget Bing: Bing, the second largest search engine said social stats affects rankings.
"We do look at the social authority of a user. We look at how many people you follow, how many follow you, and this can add a little weight to a listing in regular search results." - Source
Not Now Doesn't Mean Never: Social media isn't dying and Google is always changing. If they can integrate social signals into delivering better search results you could get a nice boost in the rankings.
Social media doesn't have a direct way to influence the rankings, but having an active social media following could improve your SEO.
By Roy McClean