Social Media & SEO

Does Social Media impct SEO?

It may not be the rasion d’etre of SEO, but there is little doubt that social media impacts greatly on search engine optimization.

Firstly, let’s state facts – Google does not allow signals from social media sites to directly affect ranking, yet social media gives marketing professionals a plethora of ways in which to publicise their business and position it prominently on search engine results pages.

So, if you’re still undecided about whether you need to invest in your social media strategy, or simply just start using the various platforms, take a look at these six ways in which social media impacts your brands SEO.

1. Share and share alike

Not always a good thing, depending on what your preferences are for sharing, but in terms of most things digital, sharing is the holy grail.

Social sharing drives traffic to websites, and posting links to quality content can garner shares, likes and comments. It also encourages social media users to visit official business websites and re-visit them.

By engaging with prospective clients via social media, you are not only keeping your brand at the forefront of their minds, but you are also driving social traffic back to official websites and are thus increasing your organic search ranking. The organic nature of this growth in visitors lends greater authenticity and authority to your site in the eyes of the search engine over-lords, proving to be a much more cost-effective way of boosting your SEO rankings.

2. Profiles get ranked

Social media profiles do rank in search engine listings, so when someone types the name of your business into Google, any affiliated social media accounts will likely pop up alongside the official website.
Therefore, if a business is not only able to rank its website, but also its social media profiles as well, this can help to beat out potential competitors in terms of visibility on the SEO top-spots. And who doesn’t want to take up that valuable real-estate?

Top tip: This will only be effective if you are active and consistent across your social media platforms – make sure that you are using the right platforms to engage with your target audience, and work hard to keep them engaged. If you get all of this right, you should be sitting pretty, SEO wise, in no time.

3. The link collector

Everyone knows that external links are the key booster in determining the authority, and therefore ensuring higher rankings, of your website in the eyes of Google.

Well, did you know that you can use social media platforms to share and promote your content by inserting links to posts, articles, case studies etc? This then increase the likelihood of other websites referring and linking back to it.

Top tip: Make sure the quality of the content is high. People will only share things that they want to read themselves.

4. Social Media is a stage…

Social media boosts your brands awareness, Facebook alone has over 1.71 billion monthly active users and Twitter has over 400 million monthly active users.* These figures demonstrate exactly how big a platform social media has become in providing a space for generating brand awareness.

Top tip: Social media management takes time and dedication, you need to be consistently engaging with your audiences on each platform by asking questions, joining in discussions and commenting on the latest trends and news.

5. It’s all about geography

Recent reports from Google indicate that 80% of smartphone users perform mobile searches to locate businesses that are close to them. This means that if Google has noticed this trend, then search engines are definitely paying attention to how users are searching for their content.

Most social websites make it easy for brands to leverage locality, allowing businesses to show geographic placement alongside a space for customers to discuss and review a business. The more people who ‘check-in’ or review your business online, the more likely it is that search engines will take note and bump you up the rankings.

Top tip: You must must must make sure that all address and contact information is consistent across all of your social media platforms and website.

6. Everyone has a favourite…

Much like every parent would never dream of saying they have a favourite child – despite all evidence to the contrary – different search engines are unofficially partial to specific social media activity.

No one is trying to get sued here, but if you want to know who favours whom, you can, ironically, just Google it. However, it is important to remember that Google is not the only piggy who went to market, so take into account other search engines such as Bing who also take up large portion of the search engine share and plan your activity around it.

Top tip: Be sure to account for other search engines besides Google when creating SEO strategies, cast the net as wide as possible to make sure you’re covering all bases.

While social media may not be the direct causation of SEO rankings, there certainly is a strong correlation between the two, and social media activity definitely influences online marketing success. Not only this, but as the number of social media users continues to rise, it’s likely that this correlation will only serve to get stronger, making social media profiles more powerful in terms of SEO rankings.

So remember, always produce content worth sharing and take advantage of the platforms available to you and your business, you might be amazed at the results it can bring. And if you need some help? We’re always here to chat to you about developing your brand online, so drop us a line today today at either one of our Nottingham or Marlow based offices!

*figures supplied by Statista