Utilizing the network effects of social media platforms has been a steady SEO strategy to boosting visibility and traffic. Social media platforms offer opportunities for direct engagement with a brand’s follower base and open funnels for traffic through external links. However, when it comes to developing more advanced strategies the conversation rarely moves beyond this point.
Understanding how search engines interact with social media platforms will allow you to leverage your accounts to meet your SEO goals. To help you get started, here’s 3 ways social media strategies can boost visibility and site traffic.
- The Gem of External Links: Social Engagement
Most sites publish content on their social media networks with the intent of building more external links. However, the link itself isn’t what creates value to a site’s search engine ranking. The value in external links comes from your follower base sharing the link. This is where follower engagement and quality social media content becomes increasingly important.
Most major search engines treat external links that receive high share rates is an indicator of an authoritative site. Other forms of engagement like comments, likes favorites and retweets are also taken into consideration when evaluating authority. The key is to receive shares in a large scale, so the more followers you have sharing your content the more impactful your external links are to search engines.
- Social Media Indexing
One of the major reasons why external links in social media platforms alone aren’t as effective as most sites hope is because search engines trouble indexing them. The volume of account generated content that is being created every minute is massive and overwhelming for engines like Google to index. In fact, a recent study by Stone Temple Consulting found that approximately 96% of all Tweets will go unindexed. Although external links within individual posts are rarely indexed, social media profiles tend to be one of the highest ranked properties that a brand has. Social media profiles are ranked especially well on Google, taking the third through sixth spot in most branded search queries. Posting frequently on brand profiles can indirectly boost your search traffic and visibility. Bing Is Consistent with Social Engagement Aside from indexing, Google is inconsistent with how they utilize social engagement in their search rankings. On the other hand, Bing has been consistent about using social engagement their algorithm to determine search rank. Although, Google continues to hold the largest share of search engine queries. Bing is still a strong second place with nearly 20% of the market share.[2] The effects of social media on SEO are magnified with larger rates of content engagement. Build your follower base organically by publishing high quality content from your site. Not only will this encourage more visitors, it will also help grow your followers. The result is a cycle of growth with more followers accessing your site. Sustaining this growth in followers and visits requires consistent, high quality posts. If you reflect your brand uniquely and maintain a good rhythm of publishing content, you’ll continue to expand the impact social media has on your SEO strategy. If used well, social media strategies can boost the effectiveness of your SEO. The key is to be consistent with publishing high quality throughout your channels. Google is known for constantly changing their algorithm, but understanding how social media influences search ranking will help you in magnifying your growth. Strongpages is a leading digital marketing agency in Austin, Texas that offers professional content development services that drive conversions and repeat business. To learn more about our services, fill out our short form and a content development expert will reach you shortly. Learn more about the effectiveness of your hashtags fast with our free Hashtag Counter Tool by Strongpages! [1] Greg F. “Google Now Indexing 466% More Tweets, Still Favoring Higher Authority Users”. Search Engine Land. http://searchengineland.com/google-now-indexing-466-more-tweets-still-favoring-higher-authority-users-study-224826 [2] Greg M. “Google vs. Bing vs. Yahoo: The Search Engine Wars (MSFT, GOOG)”. Investopedia. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/070915/google-vs-bing-vs-yahoo-search-engine-wars.asp