While there is some debate and confusion around whether Google factors in links shared on social media when determining SEO scores, Microsoft has confirmed that Bing does factor these in. There are also a number of ways that social media marketing will indirectly impact a website’s SEO score. Social media provides businesses with a powerful marketing tool. When it is used correctly, it can prove a real boon to SEO scores as well.
Sharing Drives Traffic
Links to high-quality content or posting captivating original content will increase the likelihood of your audience sharing your links. The more shares, likes, and comments on your content, the more widely it will be seen. Even if only a small fraction of those that see it end up visiting your business’ main website, this can still add up to a reasonable number of people and can be a fruitful source of new traffic.
Social Media Profiles Rank in Search Engines
When you type the name of a business into a search engine, one of the first results you see is usually a social media page. They often appear just beneath the business’ main website, but not always. Some small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) opt to use their social media page in lieu of a dedicated website. This is definitely a cheaper option, and because they will still appear in search engine results, customers searching for the business can still find plenty of information.
Quality Content Will Generate Backlinks
The most important factor in determining SEO is the number of backlinks your website receives from authoritative sources. Links from high-ranked websites will provide a much greater boost to your SEO score than just about anything else. If you approach a professional SEO business such as Go Mungo SEO, one of the things they will help you focus on is encouraging other websites to link back to yours.
Utilising social media as a way of promoting your business and brand, as well as sharing original and compelling content, will ultimately lead to more websites linking back to yours. It is a good idea to add a blog to your main website, as this will give you an easy way of generating and publishing original content to be shared on social media.
Boosting Brand Awareness
It’s hard to overstate the number of users on the biggest social media platforms. There is no other marketing platform that can offer businesses that kind of potential audience. If you capitalise on the opportunity in the right way, you can raise awareness of your brand with a larger audience than many realise is possible. Of course, simply having a presence on social media isn’t enough; you need to be active and interacting with other users in the right way.
If you do this, however, the increased brand awareness will have a knock-on effect, which ultimately leads to a much greater flow of traffic to your website. The more people are talking about your brand and linking back to it, the higher your SEO score will rise.
Social media can have a much bigger impact on your business SEO than many people realise. While the direct correlation between social media and SEO might not be very strong, the indirect ways in which social media influences SEO are too important to overlook.
