Although Google remains unclear on how social media links affect website rankings, the truth is that quality followers and shares help create trustworthiness and brand authority no matter what! How? Let’s imagine you’ve written a blog that contains information that your audience may find a lot of interest in. When you share it to social media, if you have a good following, people will click on that link and take a look at what you have to say! If they like it, well, they may “like” it on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and then share it with other people they think might find interest in it, and pretty soon you have an increase of traffic on your site!
Marketers should not ignore social media impact on search engine optimization, because it’s benefits can be great! Even if you don’t have a huge following, just being active on social media can signal to your customers that you care about your company, your brand, and in turn, about the products or services you provide, and the quality of care you can provide them.
Consider these following points before you dismiss social media as a tool to add to your SEO belt.
Social links may boost your search rank
Google does admit that they crawl social sites like any other page. If a social media post goes viral, and many people click on the link, search engines are going to notice. Whether or not that means it provides any significant benefits to your site’s personal rankings still doesn’t have any solid evidence, but more people visiting your site? That’s always good. More traffic to your site and people spending a good amount of time there, only serves to further signal to search engines that you must be doing something right.
This implies that sharing your content on social media and keeping your profile active with up to date posts could positively impact your ranking, even on Google.
Social media profiles can rank in Google search results
Whenever you search a company on Google, social media profiles may show up. Social media profiles are usually amongst the top search results for a given company, and this more than makes a case for having active social media accounts!
Social media profiles of a company are more intimate than web pages and a sure way to get a feel of the company’s personality. It makes getting to know a company or a brand more personal and fun, while giving you a platform to interact with customers, tell them about your latest news, share images, and more!
‘Not as yet’ does not mean ‘never’
Even though Google says that they do not consider social authority in determining search results, who’s to say they may not do so in the future? How search engines determine the relevancy of a website is always changing and better to already have a plan implemented when you find out a change has occurred than struggling to put something together to stay afloat.
It also makes a lot of sense that as Google continues to discard old ways of ranking pages, they will look for other signals to determine value and authority. Smart brands will continue to build their social accounts and establish their authority in key social channels. When designing their search engine optimization strategy, brands that are here for the long haul won’t ignore social.
Social media has search engines as well
Don’t forget about the types of search that happens in social media search engines! People nowadays do not search using Google or Bing only, they may take to Twitter or Facebook to find the answers, products, or companies they’re looking for!
In July 2016, Facebook saw 2 billion searches per day which was 500 million more than what it got just one year earlier. In an effort to out-compete Twitter, major social media sites are improving their consumer services and advancing their search engines to provide a better overall experience for their users. These statistics help establish just how much people use social media search engines to stay up-to-date.
It is important to note that people are spending more and more time on the internet and especially social media. Your current and future clients and customers are more likely to know of your brand and follow what it’s up to through social media.
Remember that ranking is an outcome and not an action—and it takes time. If you continue to intelligently market your brand and are adapting to the ever-changing world SEO, website design, and as we mentioned here, social media, you’ll find that your efforts won’t be for naught!
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