What does social media have to have to do with SEO? At MWI we hear this a lot from the current and potential clients. Social media is rapidly growing channel for marketing that most companies have only just begun making use of in the last few years, but it’s vital to take advantage of it particularly if you’re investing resources in SEO. Setting up and managing social media accounts are important to assist in SEO efforts, though the benefits are not immediately obvious. Here are five benefits of social media is vital to SEO.
1) Social Media Signals
It is no secret that Google, Bing, and other search engines use online dialogue in their ranking algorithms. When people share content via Twitter, Facebook or comment on a piece of content it is referred to as a social engagement. A piece of content that has the highest number of social engagements will be able to show more social signals. These social signals are used by search engines to rank the content. It’s a way to measure the quality of content that people are able to use over what their algorithm determines to be top-quality. Content can also be indexed instantly if it’s receiving a lot of social interaction.
2.) Link Building
It’s long gone of going out and asking for websites to link to yours. With the advent of Google’s Panda and Penguin algorithms SEOs have to build links by hand and create content of high-quality that is worthy of linking. But how do you reach websites that are willing to link to your website if asking them directly is thought to be an “unnatural” link building practice? Social media is your solution. Social media lets you post your content and share it with appropriate audiences that are willing to link to it when it’s worthy of linking to. They will also be able to share your content with their friends which will increase the impact of your content.
3) Content Amplification
No matter how top-quality your content is, it won’t gain traction until you amplify it. Marketing via email can be a great way of amplifying content but it will only get to those on your list of marketing contacts. You can reach new audiences via social media. When you share your content, those who follow you will also spread it to their networks should they find it valuable. These people will then be able to share it with their followers and increase your reach. In addition, you’ll gain relevant traffic, inbound linking social signals, as well as brand awareness and can be utilized by search engines for content quality determination.
content amplification lifecycle
4) Brand Awareness & Signals
Search engines may use your brand’s name and reputation to determine the quality of your site and how reliable it ought to be for their ranking algorithms. Social media aids in building brand awareness and amplifies the quality of your content. Google refers to this as co-citation. The creation of these co-citations via social media can improve Google’s trust in your company website , and will also help with search queries that are personalized.
5) Social Indexing
Search engines have been indexing social media profiles for a number of years now and this means that they appear on results pages for search engines. This allows your business to show up on search results when you type in branded search queries that are not limited to just your company website. It gets even more effective. Individual tweets from Twitter were once indexed and www.mazra3a.net (wiki.r2.enst.fr) shown in search results too giving another opportunity to get your content noticed in the search results. The service was temporary for a few months before Google decided to discontinue it up until now. Google will once again show tweets in search results, so it’s important to leverage it for getting your content ranked.