How Social Media Affect Your SEO

In this article, I am going to share some useful information about How Social Media Affect Your SEO. So if you want to know about this topic you should read this article till the end. I hope this article will be helpful for you.

Almost everyone has gone social. Even in the most remote parts of the world have already adopted these trends or if not, have probably heard about social media. It has dramatically changed the landscape of how people have been dealing with and living their daily lives. 

Technology has also made an impact on different industries in the world and one of which is the business sector which can be greatly seen and felt. Looking back to 30 years ago, business owners may have not imagined how social media and other technological advancements can become a growing necessity in running a business and how it will be impossible to separate it from each other. 

Business concepts and methodologies have continued to evolve as technology slowly becomes an integral part of it. Technology played major roles as businesses perform transactions and have made huge impacts in its operation, organization and promotion. 

Two of the most important strategies technology has offered businesses in terms of its promotional activity, is the development websites and the emergence of search engine optimization or SEO. This has been widely used these days by marketers and business owners to elevate and grow their brands online thus making it a great choice for you to expand your own business presence. 

But how can social media, one of the greatest innovations these days to connect people and widely used by almost everyone, can affect your SEO performance? Do they share a connection, a commonality or they do not mean anything to each other after all? 

What is Social media? 

According to Merriam, social media are forms of online communication channels that a user can use to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content to an online community. 

As of today, about 50% of the global population can be found in social media or about 3.8 billion people. It has also become an avenue for many businesses to build their name, grow their brand and establish their reputation. Social media channels that are widely used by a lot of entrepreneurs are: 

• Facebook – Might be overused but still proves to be an effective platform to grow your online presence and your business. 
• Instagram – Great with eye-catching visuals to get the attention of your audience. An innovative leader in introducing features that can be an asset for your brand like shoppable posts, stories, IGTV, polls and surveys.  
• YouTube – A powerhouse that has over 2 billions users each month. Mainly a video content channel, it has proved to be one of the effective platforms especially these days. 
• Twitter – With only 140 characters to build your name, Twitter has become a household name for brands to create their online persona
• LinkedIn – A platform that can connect you and your company to other professionals where you can start building and growing your network

What is SEO? 

Search Engine Optimization is the process where your website crawl in search engines to make it on top of searches and helps your site stand out among your competitors. It allows your business to be easily found by customers through the use of keywords and phrases. 

Types of SEO include: 

• Content SEO – anything to do with the creation of content on your website
• Local SEO – the way you optimize your online presence done in local searches
• Voice Search SEO – the next big thing in SEO, it is the way you optimize your website to be conversational
• Product Page SEO – making of original content to drive people to visit your website

The Relationship of Social Media and SEO

This relationship has been looming over many marketers’ heads for a long time now. Social Media and SEO have a complicated relationship over the years. Back in 2014, Matt Cutts (then of Google’s), announced that social media does not have any effect on search rankings. However, recent studies show that THERE IS an actual connection between these two and social media has something to do with your SEO rankings.

Though they are completely different, these two can complement each other and can work for your advantage. Leveraging on these can help you gain the result you want to achieve in terms of your online presence.

Here are the ways social media can affect your SEO: 

1.   Improve Online Visibility 

Your goal in doing efforts online is to increase your leads as more and more people see your stuff and eventually convert them into sales. 

As people look for you in Google searches and other search engines, your social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube can be seen on the found listings. As social media results crawl in these searches, your visibility is being boosted which will lead to brand recognition and improve your authority online. Social media profiles are often seen on the first pages and as people click on your profile links, they will get to get to know you, your brand’s personality and valuable content found on your social media accounts. 

Your social media profiles in different channels can also help your target audience and other people recognize your brand immediately.  

2.   Drives Traffic Through Content Sharing

Social media does not only improve your visibility by appearing on search engines but also through content sharing. It can be an excellent medium to let your content maximize its reach. You cannot just write valuable content and just wait for people to stumble upon it. 

While on search engines people only look for content that they want using a relevant keyword, social media allows your content to be seen by people who may not know that they need it. 

As more people see and eventually share your content within their network which can give your content opportunity to be shared over and over again. As this happens, more people will click on the content thus driving more traffic on your website and therefore, boost your rankings. 

3.   Social Media as Search Engines

The initial objective of social media was to connect people but as time goes by it also became a search engine on its own. 

People have been leveraging on social media platforms to look for things they are searching for. Experts are seeing these platforms as valuable search engines where a lot of consumers can discover companies, products, services and even contents. 

For people to find you, it is important to optimize your social media profiles and inject your content with relevant keywords to boost your social media visibility.  Moreover, people tend to check out a company’s social media profile before making any online transaction and rely heavily on the content they can found on your channels. 

4.   Local SEO

Your name, address and phone number (NAP) plays an important role in keeping you visible in your Local SEO. 

So it is important and crucial that you use the NAP information in your social media, website and listings. Another feature of social media that help expand online visibility and reach is its ability to let you geo-tag your posts and stories. 

Final Thoughts

The key to understanding the relationship between social media and SEO is that both can provide answers and a possible solution to your audience when doing their searches. 

As search engines help your audience find answers, social media let them discover answers they did not think they need. Though both are different from each other, you can make these two strong strategies work hand-in-hand to let your audience and potential customer discover your brand. 

AUTHOR BIO

JOHN OCAMPOS

John Ocampos is an Opera Singer by profession and a member of the Philippine Tenors. Ever since, Digital Marketing has always been his forte. He is the Founder of SEO-Guru, and the Managing Director of Tech Hacker. John is also the Strategic SEO and Influencer Marketing Manager of Softvire Australia – the leading software eCommerce company in Australia and Softvire New Zealand.