Social Media For SEO – Social Media Week

social media

Throughout this week, we here at Media Venue have explored how to use social media platforms as a business tool. Each platform presents unique features for elevating your company’s online presence. However, you probably still have one important question—why does it matter? Why should your business invest in a social media strategy? Well, the full extent of how beneficial social media can be would not fit into one blog post. There is one big reason to focus on your social presence: social media’s effect on your website’s search engine optimization.

Social Media and SEO

Before we dive into this, an important note: according to Google, social media is not one of the over 200 SEO signals built into Google’s algorithm. While this means that social media does not have a direct impact on organic search rankings, several studies have shown that the two are correlated. One such study from Hootsuite found that on average, there was a 22% increase in organic rankings for brands that had social media engagement. It’s also important to consider that Google is not the only search engine. A respectable 33% of US search queries are performed on Bing, the #2 search engine—and Bing has confirmed that they do use social engagement as a signal for search rankings.

Still not convinced? Here are a few more ways that a social presence can indirectly improve your website’s SEO:

Increasing Visibility

When you post your branded content on social media, you increase that content’s reach and expand your audience past just users of your website. Higher visibility means that the content is more likely to be shared, creating inbound links for your site.  This is especially true if that content is a blog post or other direct page of your site. Linking strategy is one of the most influential SEO signals, and utilizing social media to create links can be highly effective. Shared content can also grow your audience, which can drive more traffic to your website!

Ranking for Your Profile

Just like any other webpage, a social profile is indexable by search engines and can rank in organic search results.  This means that you can optimize your social profile similarly to other pages—use keywords in your captions, include alt tags on images where available, and make sure your NAP data is accurate. Having a high-ranking social profile gives your brand another spot on search engine results pages (SERPs) and increases the likelihood that a user will land on your business from a search query.

Building Authority

Authority is the metric that indicates whether your site is a trustworthy source of information about your field. Social media presence can affect authority in a few different ways. For one, if your posts link back to your website homepage, the search engines will read that page as a landing page. Newly created landing pages have low authority, but having well-established ones can boost it. Therefore, consistently directing your audience to your homepage will make your website more credible. Additionally, authority is a metric that takes time to grow. Publishing and sharing high-quality content regularly will contribute to that growth over time.

Finally, building a network of followers on social platforms will help signal both to search engines and to potential consumers that you are an expert in your field. 52% of online brand discovery happens in public social feeds, meaning that people are often looking a product or service up on at least one social media platform before taking action. If your brand does not have a well-maintained social presence, consumers may assume you are not legitimate or have gone out of business, and they will move onto the next result.

Utilize Your Social Media Presence for SEO

Will Google ever update their search algorithm to include social signals? It’s hard to say. However, it’s undeniable that having a consistent social media presence enhances your SEO. It can be a highly beneficial business tool. To learn more about best SEO practices, see these other MV blog posts: Making the Most of Your Website with SEO and Why Your Business Needs an SEO Strategy.

We hope you enjoyed Social Media Week at Media Venue! Ready to put together a social strategy for your business? Contact Michelle Dunaway at michelle@mediavenue.com or 502-855-4795 to get started. Enhance your marketing investment with Media Venue!

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About Our Blogger

Sarah Kelley is the newest member of the Media Venue team and brings with her a wealth of insight.  Her specialty is using SEO best practices to cultivate your business’s online presence. Her in-depth knowledge of website content and design allow her to constantly implement new and effective practices in her work.

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