Social media’s effect on Search engine ranking and SEO
How to catch Google’s roving ‘eye’ with social media
Four tips to improve your rankings with social media: (Click on the graphic for a bigger version)
Social networks and content
How and where?
Search results incorporates information gained from social pages, posts, profiles, comments, tweets, videos, photos/images (think Pinterest) and interactive content such as YouTube and Slidesare to name a few.
Links and social signals that lead to good social content will help to improve your website’s organic rankings in search engines’ results.
- It makes your website more important to search engines like Google
- It helps your website rank higher on Google
Google+ counts on Google
Google looks at your interactions on Google+. The quality and the amount of these will impact your website’s ranking. Google will take note the more you interact with it, thereby improving your chances of getting higher rankings.
- Google checks shares and adds
Location is a factor in Google’s operations. Google takes into account how many shares come from users in a specified location, the authority of these users as well as the rate of the sharing and interaction. If all of these actions are valid then your website will get an advantage.
- +1 is useful
Google also checks up on the authority of people who +1 your website, how often and how many you get.
Google picks up your activity on Facebook and Twitter
- Google ranks websites within a particular location according to their level of influence on social networks.
- Twitter followers and mentions received are things Google looks out for.
- Google checks the shares and likes your page receives on Facebook as well as the content on your website.
- Google takes into account the authority of people who like, share, mention and follow your social media presences as well as your website’s content when it ranks it.
- The consistency of these actions will also affect how your website will benefit.
Pinterest is big
- It has been announced that Pinterest will be incorporated into Bing’s Images. This means that people can ‘Pin’ images from Bing’s search results directly to their collections and that all the ‘pinned’ images will provide a link to the original source.
- This provides more proof of how big social media’s impact is on search.
Location is important to search engines
Google uses Web references from your physical address to verify your location on Google Places (Google Places is a free local platform for businesses) and to do your local organic ranking.
- Social platforms like Facebook and Foursquare show Google your location
- They let users check in to a location
- Google uses your location to rank your website.
Akash Arora
Really I am surprised to read such things..but now I have one question from you . Suppose I have a technology blog which has only few followers So, Which will have more impact on my blog’s search engine rankings – Social Media Shares, likes & interactions or Good quality of backlinks from other blogs of my same niche.
Lee Stuttaford
Hi Akash, I think the answer to your question is the former, in that you’re much more able to create a conversation in the social space and therefore build an authentic community, rather than trawling for back-links that may or may not really be relevant. Search engines take ‘social’ links/shares into account now too – so you’d certainly receive traffic and therefore link juice value as a result over time. Your organic back-links will also originate from those interactions and you’ll achieve both goals in the longer term.
Shaneka Dawley
But, isn’t the case that Google says that it doesn’t use social indicators to aid in SERP’s? I think it is false, especially when it come to Local SEO.
Lee Stuttaford
Matt Cutts from Google states that they do take into account social activity when discerning what is of value in the social context. Does that affect SERP position? Probably not. Does it affect relevancy? I think so, in that Google will want to provide relevant results and this is one of the ways they can do so. To rely on a social content strategy only however, is not going to help with SEO/SERPs’ and I believe could even be detrimental if it’s overblown and ‘forced’. Google is all about relevancy for it’s users. Be authentic and provide value and your rankings will be what is reasonable and fair. Of course, there’s no harm in ensuring your site loads quickly, has great content and provides solutions to user needs. THAT’s what’ll influence your SERPs in the end.