SEO revolves around gaining high visibility and high ranking of websites by winning the hearts of search engines. The social media platform is also excellent for boosting visibility although it is not known how much it helps in search rankings. Although SEO and social media are entirely different in its application, even if it is just for gaining high visibility, it makes enough sense to use the modules in tandem. Often there is confusion among marketers about how to make use of the methods and align it correctly for marketing gains.

social media and seo

Another concern that arises is about what kind of impact social media has on SEO and whether it is beneficial for better search rankings.  SEO has evolved over the past few years to remain tuned to the ever-changing Google algorithm updates and to respond to the growing importance of content.  As a result of the emergence of a new kind of SEO with a focus on content, a large section of companies and agencies have started integrating social media into the SEO strategy in varying degrees. It has happened in spite of the uncertainty about whether search engines use social media signals as a factor in determining search rankings. Now, let us look at the reason for such uncertainty about the impact of social media on search rankings.

Social media and search engine relationship

At the beginning of the current decade, way back in 2010, both Google and Bing had admitted that it used social media signals, which indicate a profile’s influence and authority, to help pages rank in search results. Marketers lost no time to take their businesses on the social media to exploit its immense powers in gaining outreach and visibility while also pushing up search rankings. Then, in a sudden twist to the tale, in 2014, Google released a video where Matts Curtis, the former head of Google’s web spam wing explained why Google would no more rely on social signals. That was perhaps the fallout of Twitter blocking Google’s access to their network temporarily that exposed the uncertainty about the continuous availability of social signals to search engines.

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When we look back at the above incident in light of the ground reality in 2018, a lot of things have again changed in four years. If you look at the search results today, you would observe that social media has started appearing much more in search results and at a much larger scale. Studies have revealed that there has been an exponential growth of Twitter and Facebook pages making its appearance in search results.

Therefore, it leaves little to doubt that for the best online results marketers have to use SEO together with social media, although in different ways but to achieve the common goal of earning higher ranks in search results. To know how you should proceed in using social media and SEO to make it work together, you should consult experts and see R1SEO for the best online marketing and expert SEO in Perth here. Also, you would find some more useful information about it in this article.

Promote content on social media

Although there is no clear evidence that social media signals are useful for search engines, there is ample scope for the signals indirectly facilitating search rankings. The better you can promote content, higher will be the chances of bettering search rankings, and the social media platform is an excellent place for promoting content.  Even if you produce high-quality content, it does not assume any value for search engines unless many people see and appreciate it. When you publish quality content on the social media, the content could even go viral due to high sharing on the platform. The social media provides the eyes and ears with that matter so much in content promotion with multiple options for choosing your preferred social media networks.

finding social media content

By pushing content on social media, you could make other SEO gains, too. The incoming links from social media might not be much use for rankings, but it can ensure closer and prolonged engagement that reduces bounce rate and impresses search engines. The engagement metrics impact the search engines as it demonstrates the value of content that had attracted viewers and kept them engaged in it. The strategy should be to convert the best website content into social media content that enhances engagement and drives more traffic to your website.

Social media creates better engagement

You should learn to capitalise on the opportunities for prolonged engagement on the social media platform by launching a solid content promotion campaign. It is an excellent way of bolstering SEO that depends on the engagement factor. Since search engines keep watch and monitor bounce rates that directly reflect the extent of engagement of viewers, the high rate of engagement earned from social media would act in your favour. Search engines would consider the content valuable and reward it in some way that would have some impact on search rankings. Or else, why should search engines monitor engagement rate at all?

Engagement with top quality content is not only crucial for pleasing search engines but also because it enhances your online reputation and connects to more people that leads to the generation of new business leads. Content that enjoys high engagement on social media platforms will surely rank high for the topics covered by it. Search algorithms consider engagement as a factor to determine the worth of content, and it justifies the selection by search engines. Content that generates interest creates more engagement and qualifies for better ranks.

Social sharing augments link building

One of the most noticeable gains of using the social media is that it brings your website and specific content in front of influencers with whom you can start building relationships.  Influencers are very active on social media channels, and by posting content on selected channels that match with your business needs and niche, you can reap the benefits of extensive sharing.  If your content is of high quality, it will attract the attention of influencers who on liking it would be interested to link with it from their websites or blogs and share it with many people. The links you earn from influencers are high-value links that enhance the value of your site to search engines and improves the ranking prospects. All this would not have been possible if you had kept away from social media and relied on SEO only.

For creating an impressive inventory of backlinks, that is still important for earning high search rankings, and you have to use social media. The exposure you gain from social media is one of its kinds, and is not possible to achieve by using any other means. The exposure is beneficial for SEO as more external sites come forward to link to your content that creates a repository of different links and enriches the link profile.

Exploit brand awareness for better ranking

Social media is the chosen platform for marketers because of its enormous power in building brands and generating brand awareness.  Word of mouth spreads so fast across the social media that introducing a brand and establishing it becomes much easier. Viewers quickly get familiar with the brand and start gathering more information about it which paves the way for creating brand awareness.  As the brand reputation grows on the social media, the brand value keeps increasing.

social media statistics

Publishing quality content consistently creates higher engagement that not only increases your online presence but also turns the brand into a more reliable and trustworthy entity that works in favour of SEO in the long run. When your brand becomes almost omnipresent on the web and exerts authority, it leads to more branded searches that place the brand much ahead of others. When more traffic flows from branded searches, the chances of ranking for non-branded keywords go up many more times.

Google has Twitter as its partner

At the beginning of this article, we had mentioned an incident in 2014 when Twitter had temporarily blocked Google’s access to Twitter networks and the resultant change in Google’s attitude about social signals. Once again, there is a marked change in the relationship between the search engine giant and the social media platform as Google and Twitter have not only come closer but has also forged a partnership. The result is that now for branded searches you can see relevant tweets in Google search results. The Twitter posts in search results might not have any impact on search rankings, but it increases brand authority and awareness that encourages other websites to send links to you thereby enriching the backlink profile. For marketers, tweeting has become much more critical than ever before.

Instead of trying to understand whether social media signals have any link to search rankings, it is better to count other gains like more engagement, improved brand awareness, better content promotion and better link building prospects. The sum of the parts is much more than the whole when evaluating the SEO gains from social media.