How Do Social Media Signals Affect Your SEO?

Social media has been given a lot of attention by SEO experts over the last few years. Although Google has claimed that social signals are not a direct part of their algorithm, there have been countless reports by SEO pros that show that there is a positive effect in search rank and web traffic when a business has a strong social media plan in action. Even if social signals aren’t a direct part of Google’s algorithm today, there are plenty of benefits of having a strong social presence online. Lets look at a few.

Increased Web Traffic

It’s easy to see how posting quality content to an audience that chooses to follow your business would result in increased web traffic. Your social media audience is full of prospective new business and it doesn’t cost your a cent to engage them. Search engines love to see increased web traffic from social sites. It’s evidence that your business is being talked about, is important and you are a leader in your industry.

Increased Domain Authority

Backlinko has stated that social signals “may increase a site’s overall authority.” When more traffic is directed to your site from trusted social networks, it starts to reinforce your site’s perceived value and authority. Google is likely recognizing these social signals as “brand signals,” which they love.

Link Building

As your awesome content is shared across the web, there are plenty of publishers that would love to pull a quote and link back to your articles. Perhaps you have a great info-graphic or video that is being shared regularly. These all turn into natural inbound links which are a very positive SEO signal that will move your site up the ranks.

Improved Rank On Social Search Engines

The social media platforms themselves are powerful search engines, so it makes perfect sense to optimize your posts to help your business show up at the top of their results. For example, local businesses would want to have a fully optimized Facebook page so that when people are searching on Facebook, they’ll have a strong shot at being ranked at the top of the list.

One of the most popular search engines in the world is also a social media site – YouTube. Millions of searches are performed on YouTube every day and everyone wants to show up in those results. Having complete profiles, keywords in your video titles and descriptions, and a lot of shares, likes and comments will drive your video to the top of search results. This is a strong example of social signals effecting your rank.

Managing your social media can be a time consuming task. 43% of businesses spend more than 6 hours per week on social media, and it’s not uncommon to find more active businesses spending over 30 hours per week managing their social strategy. We’ve personally documented cases where lack of social media activity has caused businesses to fall below their competitors in organic search rank, so when we plan a complete inbound marketing campaign for a client, social media management is always part of our strategy. Social and SEO both thrive on content marketing and they go hand in hand.

If you’d like help managing your social media, we offer an affordable social media service that fits just about every budget. Contact us for more information.