Does social media affect your SEO?

We get asked this question a ton, because while some businesses can rely on social media to engage with their audiences and to even make sales, but to most, high SEO ranking is still THE Holy Grail when it comes to marketing.

For example, if you receive a lot of retweets, likes and shares from your post - will that move the needle on boosting your page when it comes to search?

The answer, well...it should be an obvious yes. After all back in 2010 Matt Cutts (former head of Google's webspam team) did confirm that Google used links from both Twitter and Facebook to indicate ranking signal. But as you know, social media and digital marketing have come in leaps and bounds since then - so what's relevant today?

Fast forward 10 years and there is still a connection between social media's influence and the effect it has on higher search engine rankings. If you've been testing out and keeping track of your own content you may have noticed that content that ranks high on Google also tends to be backed up with plenty of retweets, likes and shares

In other words, viral content often ranks really well in SEO.

So what’s happening there? Why is it that the posts that get the most shares also tend to be ones that rank higher? Is it a chicken and the egg situation? or is it a clear case of one being consequent of upon the other?

If you create good content, it will most likely be popular on social media, and people are probably going to like it and link it to their personal posts and websites: Which will boost your rankings in search.

So let's get to WHY you have read this far already - how can you leverage on the power of social media to give your content the ranking you dream of?

#1: Content, Content, Content.

As we already said, if you put good content out, there is a high likelihood of engagement, and, when people engage with content that they like, they often link to it from their site.

But if your site is lacking content worthy of the description, why should anyone- other than your significant other perhaps-care to engage with it? Would you engage with crappy content or content that doesn’t help with your search?

Sometimes, you may actually have some decent content on your site.

Problem is, all it amounts to are decent sales pitches: Pages and posts that advertise your products or services, or those that provides readers with company.

All of that is fine if it is on your ‘About us’ page. But always remember… nobody wants to know about you until you have something they are interested in.

In light of that, what should your approach be?

“Engage rather than sell … Work as a co-creator, not a marketer.”

Tom H. C. Anderson.

Rather than churning out self-promotional content. Focus on helpful, informative content.

Useful tips, how-to tutorials, a catchy infographic, are all things that people can’t help but engage with and share with others:

Mainly because it also casts them in good light.

How many times have you read something or watched something that you felt compelled to share?

Not just because of its informative value… But because of how ‘enlightened’ it would make you appear to your followers, or perhaps a particular follower of interest.

That’s the type of content you should create:

Because content… that kind of content… is king.

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#2: Stop trying to build links on social media

“If content is king, then conversion is queen.” –?John Munsell

So you have some content that you believe can change the world.

… If only the world could see it, right?

So, to get the ‘world’ to see it, you set out to do a bit of link building on social media to ensure your SEO efforts are at their best.

Well… that’s the wrong turn to take. If you take it, soon your poster be up everywhere as a ‘missing person’… in the SEO space.

Why, you ask?

Because while sites like Twitter, ,and LinkedIn are authoritative themselves. Links from individual accounts on those sites tend not to be.

For starters, a lot of links from such individual accounts are?no-follow?links.

Meaning that when it comes to SEO, they do absolutely nothing for you as opposed to a?do-follow?link.

And in the event that you get a do-follow link, it would probably be from the individual user (e.g Emily) rather than the actual Social Media site (e.g LinkedIn.)

Unless the person was, say, Theresa May, or someone else infamous or famous, it would be worth very little to you.

Furthermore, social media links often get lost in an RSS feed almost instantly.

They don’t have the visibility or power that links on business and personal websites do.

Therefore, think of Social Media as a clout building platform rather than the place for link building.

Use social media to build a following.

Remember what we said about the correlation between social media influence and SEO ranking?

However, you have to be strategic about building your following.

#3: Cultivate the Best?Social Media Followers

‘Quality is more important than quantity. -’?Steve Jobs

So, rather than focusing on the sheer number of people following you, aim for high-quality followers.

You could have just 80 followers.

But if six of them are some of the biggest names in your industry who post content regularly, you’d be a lot better off than having 500 followers who are totally disconnected from your content.

So how do you get those that really matter to follow you?

• Don’t just like their content, share it and really?engage with it.?Don’t just share or retweet it: lend a voice to it. Craft an insightful tweet or post of your own where you highlight how helpful their piece was and why everyone should read it. This will get the influencer’s attention the way a retweet never will and make them curious to know you.
• Be someone worth Knowing. Having done the above, the influencer will likely start to look into who you are and what you are about. They might check out your blog or take a deeper look at your social media account. Will they meet content that shows you off as an expert, or will all they meet be tweets and posts ranting about the last season of Game of Thrones?
• Help the influencer?with their own link building.

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Final Thought

In conclusion, to harness what chances there are of social media helping your SEO efforts, you first need to create the right type of content.

Then to make sure you build the right following, you need to make sure the right people notice you.

This is where a little bit of demographic research comes into play. |Spend some time working out who it is that you deem worthy to your brand and than target your content toward them.

Focus on share-worthy tidbits that answer common industry question. Give them reviews. And don’t be afraid to use flattery.

Ultimately… and this may not be what you want to hear… Social media is not great for SEO!

But don’t dismiss it as being useless. It may not have much of an impact on your search engine rankings. But the power it holds for creating brand identity, visibility, and connection is unparalleled.

Combine social media with your everyday SEO efforts for a multi-faceted approach that can help you gain more followers, site visitors, and most importantly, conversions.