The Straight Dope on Digital Marketing
Google has been hiding their secret sauce recipe for decades. Digital marketing agencies all over the world constantly try to understand what factors influence ranking and the latest algorithm changes. There is often not enough talk about the effect social media can have on where Google will rank your website for searches (SEO). This is mostly because Google is very upfront about not letting the evil empire of Facebook be a factor in their beloved search ranking algorithm. That is usually where the conversation stops, but it shouldn’t.
There is no real, direct impact of social media on SEO, we can agree to that. But if we peel back the onion a little more, we can start to understand some indirect ways social media can complement and improve SEO efforts.
The More Eyeballs, The More Better
Continually creating good content and posting it on your website or blog is a basic recommendation by leading SEO agencies. Google likes websites that continually add value, or content. The challenge occurs in getting people to see and read your content. If your article contains highly competitive keywords (insurance, attorney, etc), you may never be able to drive traffic via Google Search . If nobody is reading your article its very hard for it to generate links on the net. Social Media is a great way to get your content seen. This is especially true if you have a big following or invest in advertising to boost your exposure and perhaps gain more followers.
Branding & Reputation
A lot of the core SEO principles center on authority, best practices and branding. Google wants to show results from reputable sites. Google always wants to provide the user with what they are looking for. Having an active social media game for your business is a way to build trust amongst your followers and friends. Don’t forget to share business content on your personal page. For one, you get a better “reach” and two, your friends are often more closer to your target audience than the followers of your business page.
Posting on social media is an opportunity to be seen as a reputable resource, which will result in natural inbound links to your content. Social media is often described as fake news in our recent climate, but that is how you use it. Social media is a fabulous opportunity to establish credibility and branding, be it personal or business. Credibility is good for your brand and what Google looks for in their rankings.
Network, Network, Network
Just like the book The Tipping Point suggests, connections are the most integral part of “the network”. Social media is great way to make industry connections by following, commenting and interacting with influencers, friends of friends and industry leaders. Creating new relationships is often what drives change in our lives and in business. Making connections on social media may bring about an opportunity to guest blog, appear on a YouTube channel, or gain a media mention. All of which produce inbound links which Google loves to see when determining search result ranking.
CONCLUSION
While its highly doubtful the Google algorithm will ever allow social media followers or mentions to mean anything, having active social media channels will drive traffic to your site in many ways. The Google robot will see this and think you are one of the popular kids and show your website more often. That’s basically the jam.
Thanks For Reading!
