Five Reasons Social Media Is Important for SEO

What does social media have to offer SEO? At MWI we hear this a lot from customers who are currently or are considering becoming clients. Social media is rapidly growing marketing channel that most businesses have only recently begun using in the last few years, however it’s vital to take advantage of it — especially if you’re investing efforts in search engine optimization. While the advantages of social media are not immediately apparent, they’re crucial for SEO aid. From the myriad of reasons you should think about social media as a part of your online strategy There are five main reasons why it is essential for SEO.

1) Social Media Signals

It’s no secret that Google, Bing and other major search engines have been using online dialogue in their algorithm for ranking for quite some period of time. Social engagement occurs when people comment, like or share a tweet about content. The more social interactions a piece of content has, the more social signals it will bring to your site. Search engines measure these signals from social media, and then use them as a quality factor http://www.bmetv.net/blog/1752017 when ranking content. It’s a way of evaluating what content is popular with users over what their algorithm determines to be of high quality. If an article is receiving lots of engagement on social media it will be immediately identified.

2.) Link Building

Long gone are the days of soliciting websites to link to yours. Google’s Panda/Penguin algorithms are forcing SEOs to build links the old-fashioned way: write good quality content that is pertinent. How do you reach out to websites that are willing to link to your content, if they are considered «unnatural»? Social media is your answer. Social media allows you to place your content in front of relevant groups of people who may be in a position to influence them to link to your content in the event that it is worthy of linking to. These people will be able to share your content with other people, increasing your influence.

3.) Amplification of content

You can write all the high quality content you want however, it will not get much traction without amplification. Sure, email marketing can be an excellent method to amplify content, but it’ll only reach the people in your database of marketing. Social media lets you reach new audiences with your content. When you share your content, your following will also connect with their friends in the event that they find it helpful. They will then be able to share it with their followers and increase your reach. In addition, you’ll gain relevant traffic and inbound links social signals, as well as brand awareness All of which can be utilized by search engines to make to determine the quality of your content.

content amplification lifecycle

4.) Brand Awareness & Signals

The brand’s identity and reputation can inform search engines an awful lot about the overall quality of your site and the degree to which it should be believed to be in its ranking algorithms. Social media is a great way to increase brand awareness and amplifies your content. This is what Google calls a co-citation. These co-citations are built via social media in order to increase Google’s trust as well as aid with branded searches.

5.) Social Indexing

Search engines have been indexing social media profiles since a while so they can now show up in results pages for search engines. This allows your business to be listed in search results on branded queries that are not limited to your company website. But there’s more than that. Individual Tweets from Twitter were initially indexed and included in search results as well — enabling another way for your website to be ranked in search. It was temporary, however it ended and Google stopped it after a few months. Google will once again show tweets in search results, so it’s important to leverage it for getting your content ranked.