How Social Media Can Improve Search Engine Ranking
There has always been a discussion regarding the link between social media and SEO. Regardless of its relationship, both marketing strategies are valuable for businesses nowadays.
Businesses are eager to build their presence on both search engine ranking and social media. That means one cannot be ignored to gain more on the other.
In fact, when it comes to digital marketing, almost every form is connected with one another. Content marketing works with social media, SEO, SMS marketing, and so on. Therefore, marketing experts make it a frequent habit to implement one strategy with another.
However, not every marketing form has a direct relationship with other forms.
Social media and SEO are two types of marketing strategies that can work independently. But it has an indirect relationship with one another too.
With almost 3.78 billion social media users worldwide, social media can incidentally affect other marketing strategies.
To learn more about how social media can improve search engine ranking, read further.
We will focus on how social media and search engines work and strategies to improve your social media marketing for search engine ranking.
What is SEO?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a marketing technique that increases the visibility of a business or website on search engines like Google, Bing, and more. It aims to be on top of the search engine for it to gain more attention, bring more traffic to the website, and turn the audience into paying customers.
How Social Media Improves Search Engine Ranking?
Although there is no direct correlation between the two, social media can impact SEO marketing when properly used.
It Boosts Content Performance
Creating interesting posts and articles on your website’s blog and optimizing it for search engines can help boost your presence online. However, trying to be on top of search engines takes time. It doesn’t happen in one night.
Using social media to build your online presence and get more traffic can help. Although, it doesn’t mean that it will push your content on top of the search engine.
When you share your work on social media, it can gain more attention over there. With millions of daily active users, you can somehow get noticed. You’ll gain a wider audience than simply posting on your website.
Sharing your content will allow people to click on the link and visit your website. It means it adds traffic and signals search engines regarding the audience that visits your site.
It Helps in Gaining Backlinks
One way for web content or websites to rank higher on search engines is to gain backlinks. The more quality backlinks your site has, the more chances of ranking up on Google.
However, writing a blog article and not sharing them can leave your valuable content unreachable and unseen. The best way is to use social media for more opportunities.
Sharing your content on social media can reach plenty of people, and some may find it valuable. Hence, they’ll share your work with others.
As your content spreads on different social media platforms, the more chance that people will link back to it. In return, it will inform search engine bots that your content is trustworthy and valuable to readers.
Social Media Matters to Search Engines Too
Like your website, your social media account matters to Google and other search engines. It shows that social media profiles do influence search engine results.
When you search for a brand, most of the time, Google shows a list of social media profiles. Although the website of a company shows on top, most of their social proof is included too.
Social channels are ranking on search engines because most people use social media, and it’s a place where companies can show more about their brands’ personalities.
Make sure to keep your business’s social profiles updated. Include interesting content that is fun and engaging for your audience to interact with.
It Guides the SEO Content Creation
Having the right content on your website can help boost traffic and conversion rates. You’ll know if the content is working when checking on metrics like click-through, bounce rate, time on page, and so on. All of these metrics influence the content you create to maintain relevant traffic. The same goes when using social media.
Marketing professionals use social channels to test and measure what content works. They use the insights from social media platforms to see which content works the most. It’s also a way for them to test which title is best, what content is valuable and more.
Social media can indirectly help create titles, content, meta description, and others for your website. Using social media insights when creating content can help businesses focus on valuable and engaging content for their audience.
It Builds Trust
Businesses with their own website project authority and can inform people that they are professional and legitimate. But websites are not the only source of building trust anymore.
With plenty of competition out there, you need to make sure that you show that your brand can be trusted. If you want this to happen, you need to stay active and be present online.
Social media profiles are the best way to gain trust. By posting regularly on your social accounts, you let potential customers see what your business is all about. Also, your business’s social channels can be a place for customers to review your products.
When people read about positive comments, they’ll immediately want to buy from you.
Building trust with your audience can bring your business a long way. It will drive in more potential customers to your website, which indirectly affects your ranking on search engines.
It Delivers Traffic to Your Website
Every time you add a new page to your website, you need to find a way to bring more traffic to it for search engines to get familiarized with its content.
Social media is an excellent tool to drive traffic to your website. You can post relevant content to get noticed on social media. Another way social media can bring traffic to your website is by investing in social ads.
Social media ads can help target relevant audiences that will visit your website. The more traffic that enters your website, the more search engines will boost a page or website.
It Gets Content Index Faster
When you create new content, sharing them on social media can help index faster on Google or other search engines.
As social media makes your content visible online, it can drive more traffic to new content. In return, it signals search engines to index the page and move it slowly up the search engine page result.
Great Place to Do Keyword Research
Aside from using social media insights to create blog content and title, social channels are excellent for searching for the right keyword.
Keywords are crucial when you want to rank on search engines. There are tools you can use like Ahrefs, Moz, and more to do keyword research. However, social media can play a role in conducting the right keyword for your business.
Using social media trends to find keywords for your profile and content can simply drive people to your platforms. Discovering what people want to read and engage in can help in driving traffic to your website.
Don’t forget, use only keywords that are related to your industry. You can’t choose various keywords not related to your content or industry. It won’t help with the conversion of your site.
You can use your keywords on your blog content, social media bio, and posts. Together with keywords, you can utilize hashtags on your posts on social media to gain attention.
With the indirect relationship of social media and SEO, you can build your presence online and start to gain relevant traffic to your website.
Social Media Platforms for SEO
There are popular social media platforms that can impact search engines indirectly. They appear on search engines whenever you search for a company or use a keyword. Also, people use social media as their way to learn about a brand. So using social media channels can give customers an idea about your business.
Furthermore, social media provides real-time results. Marketing experts can use insights from social media to create content and plans. It will help in finding the target audience and forming buyers’ persona.
Hiqy
The best platform for gaining more traffic to your website is Hiqy. It’s an excellent tool for promoting your website, Products and Services.
Facebook is the most popular social media platform, and it has the most number of users in the world. You can post and share media of different kinds – images, videos, links, and text.
Marketers use Facebook to share their website content as search engines crawl Facebook and links on it. That’s why they appear on search engine result pages.
LinkedIn is the best and most effective social channel to generate leads. That’s why marketing professionals are keen on using LinkedIn when sharing their content.
It’s an excellent social media platform used by B2B businesses. Content posted on LinkedIn can also be indexed by search engine bots. That’s why when using the right keyword, it appears on the search result page.
The best platform for gaining more traffic to your website is Twitter. It’s an excellent tool for promoting your website and content online.
Twitter can promote brand recognition by using hashtags that are relevant and trending. In return, it drives traffic to your website.
Grow your Twitter following and find ways to make your tweets recognizable. Google indexes tweets that have a significant number of retweets and a large number of followers.
YouTube
YouTube is the second largest search engine platform. Using YouTube to promote your content can drive traffic to your website.
If you are lucky enough to work on a niche that needs to create videos as content, don’t hesitate to use YouTube.
With video being the most dominant media online, YouTube can help you gain attraction from the right crowd. So as long as you optimize your content and use the right keywords.
Furthermore, Include all your details in the description box for people to visit your website.
If you have an e-commerce shop, Pinterest is a great choice to promote your products. It is a social media platform that mainly focuses on images. However, videos are also welcome on this site.
The most crucial tip is to use high-quality images to attract customers to click on the photo that contains the link. Pinterest also has an option to link your shop. So when people find your product interesting, they can easily check out and buy the product.
Quora
Interestingly, most businesses don’t use Quora for their marketing strategy. It is best to invest in it as most people use search engines to ask questions.
When people search for a query, Google or other search engines often suggest answers from Quora.
You can answer questions and share your website link. If you have content that’s helpful to those whose question your blog content can answer, then promote your content. It is also possible to create original content on Quora.
Medium
It is an online platform that’s great for writing blog content. Anyone can write on Medium, so long as it adds value to readers and it’s not all about ad content.
Medium has a large following on its platform. Therefore, contributing on Medium will help drive traffic to your website if readers find your content useful.
Tips on How You Can Optimize Social Media for Search Engine Ranking
Here are simple tips on how you can use your social media platforms to affect your search engine ranking.
- Don’t forget to fill out your social media profile. Make sure that every part has answers, from the About Me section to your business’s address.
- Use industry/niche-related keywords on your social profile and posts. Make sure that your keywords must also be relevant to your content.
- Add links to your post and profile.
- Post engaging content. Instead of writing lengthy captions or text, why not add media like short clips, images, or infographics to make it interesting.
- Use hashtags. They act as keywords on social media platforms, driving traffic that is interested in your content.
- Include a clear call to action. It will inform your readers what to do. Some CTAs to use, “Share this post,” “Leave a comment,” or “click the link.” But remember, you don’t have to add CTA all the time.
Conclusion
Digital marketing like social media and search engine optimization are just a few strategies that a business can implement. Using the right marketing strategy and combining them with others can help benefit a company. To effectively plan and start creating content that will sell to your audience, you’ll need to work with multiple techniques as you can. Although social media and search engine ranking aren’t affecting one another directly, both need each other for a campaign to succeed. So do other digital marketing strategies too.
AUTHOR BIO
VANESSA VENUGOPAL Vanessa Venugopal is a passionate content writer. With four years of experience, she mastered the art of writing in various styles and topics. She is currently writing for Softvire Australia – the leading software eCommerce company in Australia and Softvire New Zealand.
