Utilize Your Social Media Reputation to Gain More Search Engine Visibility
Nowadays, most startup ventures promote their brand via social media sites, especially on Facebook and Twitter as these sites got millions of active user traffic compared to search engines. But these days, online marketers are speculating whether social media make some impact on search result rankings for a web page or a URL. Google has been avoiding this question and refused to officially comment on it. But majority of industry experts believes that social signals do affect SEO rankings to some extent. Recently, the internet search giant has shown links to social media icons via its Knowledge Graph. According to them, Google, Bing and Yahoo purportedly collect social signals that generate from links that are popular on social channels, i.e. those that have been liked and shared multiple times.
According to the annual survey conducted by SearchMetrics, among the various aspects that affect online search, Google’s own social networking site Google+ ranks number 3, way ahead of a large quantity of backlinks at a time when they were considered as a major SEO ranking factor. The study also found that out of the top ten factors that matter most to SEO, six are related to social media. This information is useful for those businesses that are low on search visibility but already has got some good social reputation.
Spend more Time in Content Development
With search engines getting smarter year by year, marketers are forced to produce fresh, relevant, interesting, share-worthy and timely content for searchers. It is not recommended that you create content for your social media pages but link those posts from your blog which has got high chance of getting shared. There are many blogs and articles that mention about tips and techniques to be used in your content marketing campaign. You must keep in mind that an extremely popular blog and strong sharing means users trust your content. Search engines especially Google view this sort of enormous popularity as votes in favor of your brand, and consequently increases your authority in their search algorithm, which ultimately translates to a higher ranking on searches for associated keywords.
Google+ Provides Considerable SEO Benefits
When we talk about social media, the websites that normally come into our discussion are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and of course, Vine. Here Google’s social site Google+ rarely gets a mention but for online marketers, it’s a perfect social marketing tool, other than Facebook. Even though Google+ is not as popular as its counterparts, Google made it some sort of a ranking factor in its search results. It is even important if you are having a local business venture and if you have a Google+ Local page, then your search results show user reviews from fans on your page, to posting interesting content with a local touch. Google+ has the power to make or break your local search result ranking.
As Google include its own social signals in its search, you better be active on the Google+ network and update it with all your business information. Many experts recommend posting content customized to Google+ if you want Google to add those social signals in SERPs. Some of the important aspects that up your SEO value on the social network include the number of people following your Google+ page, the authority of your followers, the authority of people and brands that share your content and the total number of +1s and shares that your posts get.
Don’t Forget about Image Sharing Sites
You cannot think about social media if there were no images. Images play an important role in Facebook and Twitter as they can get you ‘explosive’ popularity, and image sharing sites such as Pinterest and Instagram is now highly trending among social media users. According to a SearchMetrics study, Google shows image results for 40 percent of all keywords search in the universal search results. If you do an image search in Google or Bing, most of the images come from Instagram, Flickr and Pinterest. As users more attracted towards images than simple text, business owners can utilize this opportunity according to their brand promotional needs.
So, if you have some social marketing skills, then use it as per your needs so that the social signals generated from your campaign will impact your search result rankings as per your expectations.
