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Does Social Media help SEO? Here’s what you need to know

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One hotly debated subject in the SEO world is does social media help SEO? Can social media really affect organic rankings?

Does Google count your Facebook followers?

Does it really matter whether you’re active on Twitter?

Can your Pinterest profile make a difference?

The answer is that social media can have a fantastic impact on your SEO and your rankings but not in the way you might think.

As I’ll be exploring in this article, it’s unlikely that social media directly causes an increase in rankings – i.e. it’s not the case that the more followers you have, the higher Google will rank your website – but there are some clear links between social media and SEO that you shouldn’t overlook if you want to boost your organic reach.

While marketers often see SEO and social media marketing as mutually exclusive from one another, my personal belief is that they’re hugely beneficial to each other, a match made in heaven.

Here’s why…

SEO and social media marketing - a match made in heaven

It’s complicated – The relationship status between SEO and social media marketing

Back in 2014, Google’s Matt Cutts released a video saying that content on social media that can be crawled would be indexed like any other web page but that the search algorithms didn’t currently look at the number of followers you have on any given platform as a ranking signal.

This video created waves among SEO experts and marketers who had previously believed that an increase in social media followers directly caused an increase in rankings.

Even when Gary Illyes, a Google Webmaster Trends Analyst, reiterated Matt Cutts’ words in 2016 that social media isn’t a direct ranking factor, people just couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a strong correlation between the two.

That same year, Searchmetrics’ whitepaper, Ranking Factors 2016, concluded that, “The correlation between social signals and ranking position is extremely high” and “The top-ranked website in Google’s rankings displays vastly more social signals than all other pages, even more so than in 2015”.

This backed up the anecdotal evidence and individual data that webmasters, marketers and SEO experts were gathering. The correlation might be indirect but it doesn’t make it less significant.

So, how does social media marketing indirectly affect organic SEO?

Social media is about sharing and SEO is about the quality of those shares

As we’ve seen above, people had previously believed that rankings could be directly influenced by the amount of social media followers associated with a brand. However, as experts such as Neil Patel point out, “Social sharing and SEO is less about the amount of shares and more about the impact of those shares”.

In other words, you could write an article that strikes a chord with 100 readers who all share it to their relatively small networks but the bigger impact and reach would, in fact, occur if your blog was seen by just one influencer in your industry who is followed by thousands of people.

Therefore, shares on social media are more about who’s sharing than how many people are sharing.

In turn, if Google sees that an influencer – someone who already has a great reputation and who ranks highly – is mentioning or linking to your content then you’re probably creating content that deserves to rank higher for relevant searches.

In this way, social media is an authority marker. Google will look at signals such as who’s sharing your content, and the domain and page authority of the sites giving you backlinks, and consider those signals as part of its ranking algorithm.

 

What this means for you – some action points:

Knowing this, a goal for your social media marketing should be to make other content creators aware of your output. As Neil Patel advises, this can be done by reaching out to:

  • Thought leaders
  • Industry experts
  • Top industry sites

This may sound daunting but, given that the person you want to reach is likely to be active on social media, a first step is to mention or tag them on the platforms where they’re most visible. You can even post a shout out or thank you for how their great content has inspired you.

As the influencer will appreciate the shout out, they may well follow-up by reading your content and, hopefully, sharing it with their followers.

Another effective strategy is to include quotes from industry experts in your blog articles. This will reassure your audience that you’ve done your research and your views are supported by some of the industry’s most respected thought leaders.

 

Social media offers a potential for links

Publishing great content on social media creates an opportunity for people to share it and link back to it from their own domains.

In fact, Ron Dod from Search Engine Journal emphasises that it’s not really the number of shares on social media that make a difference but the number of backlinks that come from those shares.

From Google’s perspective, if lots of different domains are pointing back to your content as a valuable resource, each link counts as a vote of confidence from someone outside of your organisation, more so if those links come from high authority domains.

 

What this means for you – some action points:

To attract as many links back to your content as possible, you need to gather insights into who your audience is and what makes them tick. It needs to resonate with them so that they will want to talk about it with others.

It’s usually best to split your audience into different segments so that you can drill down into the specific needs of each group.

Your aim should be to provide content that adds value by meeting a need, solving a problem or reflecting the aspirations of the reader. Constantly ask what people would want to find when they come to your site and create content that addresses the reason they’ve taken action to search.

Where can you find this information?

  • Look at the search data available in Google Search Console.
  • Think about the main enquiries you receive or your customers’ most frequently asked questions.
  • Make a note of what gets people talking on your social media profiles.
  • Keep an eye on what the key influencers in your industry are talking about – there are several good tools to help you do this:
    • Epicbeat – Search for any topic or website to see which content is getting the most engagement
    • Buzzsumo – Similar to Epicbeat; as an example, I entered ‘SEO and social media marketing’ as a topic and was able to see who has written the most shared blogs on this topic and the content they have produced
    • Google Trends

You also need to make your content as easy to share and link back to as possible. There are a variety of ways to do this:

  • If you have a WordPress website, there are a number of plugins designed to encourage social sharing:
    • Social Warfare – This social sharing plugin is my favourite plugin of its kind – it looks great, it’s easy to use and is an excellent way of showing readers that other people love the content they’re viewing.
    • Click to Tweet – Pull out soundbites from your blogs that people can share as Tweets with a link back to the full article, then track the activity of each link.
    • Add This – Social share buttons that ‘float’ on the page as people scroll through so that readers can share to their networks at any point while reading the article.
    • Pinterest ‘Pin It’ Button – Add a ‘Pin it’ button to your images so that readers can share your content to their Pinterest boards.
  • Email people you mention to let them know you’re publishing an article that cites them.
  • Actively comment on influencers’ social media pages and blogs, and on your own social media profiles – without initially trying to promote anything – so that you generate good will and prove yourself to be part of the conversation. People will then feel good about sharing your content and buy from you on the occasions that you do promote your products or services.
  • Use hashtags and tags to boost your visibility and help people find your content.

 

Google rewards relevance

Google is a business and, as such, its priority is to give searchers a list of websites that are most relevant to their search. Google therefore rewards websites that it knows to be relevant.

Social media marketing is a stage on which to show your relevance to your target audience. As we’ve seen above, it can be done by publishing original content that speaks directly to different segments of your audience. It can also be achieved by sharing helpful content from thought leaders, or providing advice and further resources.

But social media marketing isn’t just about being seen; it’s about making sure you’re heard too – the microphone to address a crowd.

According to Search Engine Journal’s Ron Dod, 571 new websites are created every minute, which means that there are a lot of articles out there on the same topics.

If you can build your audience and then, through your content, show how much you understand what makes them tick, it will grow your reputation for quality and relevance and as a voice to be trusted amongst the noise of the 24/7 online world.

 

What this means for you – some action points:

As well as publishing content that’s relevant to the different segments within your audience, you can make small but smart changes to your social media profiles such as:

  • Including relevant information in your bios on each platform, e.g. use keywords that describe your business and that your audience would use to describe and search for it
  • Always including a link to your website in your bio

These changes will help people spot your relevance at a glance, even before they’ve read your content.

You can also help readers and influencers find your content by using hashtags and tags on social media, as well as categories and tags on your blog, to group similar topics together.

 

Branded searches can boost your rankings for high competition generic search terms

In Ron Dod’s article, How social media helps SEO [Final answer], he talks about how, if you’re able to increase traffic for branded searches using social media, Google is likely to eventually rank your web pages higher for generic keywords.

To use Dod’s example (you can read the full case study here), a relatively small company, Fashion Nova, managed to rank number one for the keyword ‘fashion’ at the beginning of 2017, and also achieve high page one rankings for ‘jeans’, ‘jumpsuit’ and ‘denim dress’.

When Dod dug into their SEO and social media marketing, he discovered that where Fashion Nova stood out from their competitors was the massive following they had generated on social media, particularly Instagram where they currently have an impressive 9.5 million followers!

Although Instagram is ostensibly a poor platform for generating backlinks, what Dod found was that people were seeing Fashion Nova’s posts and then heading to Google to search for ‘Fashion Nova jeans’ and other items. It would appear that because such a high volume of fashion searches included the term ‘Fashion Nova’, Google eventually decided to rank the company high for generic searches too. This has enabled Fashion Nova to rank alongside long-established brands such as Levi’s, H&M, Nordstrom and Macy’s.

 

What this means for you – some action points:

The Fashion Nova example illustrates yet again that social media can have an indirect and sometimes unexpected influence over organic SEO.

You might be tempted to discount a platform like Instagram from your social media marketing because you can’t post links in individual posts but let’s not forget that there’s a reason companies are pouring time and money into advertising on this platform.

Fashion Nova has shown that generating a buzz around your brand can lead to a sharp increase in branded searches and, consequently, being found for generic searches.

You can generate backlinks on Instagram by:

  • Adding a link to your website in the bio – you can change this link as often as you like, so it could link to your latest blog article, lead magnet, course or a product. Tip: Try including some emojis next to the link to attract people’s attention.
  • Posting an Instagram story and including a URL and call to action on the post – the link will only last for 24 hours but should get attention from your followers while it’s live.

Your focus in this area needs to be on growing the visibility of your brand on social media so that people are encouraged to carry out branded searches in Google.

  • Brand your cover photos and background images
  • Add your web address to memes
  • Link to your other social media profiles on each platform
  • Fill out every field when creating social media profiles/pages as this will help the platforms and your followers to build strong associations with your brand in terms of your location, services, products, aims, blog topics and more
  • Use the same professional profile picture on all platforms so that followers can identify you on any platform

 

It’s all about the engagement

In an article for Moz, The battle for traffic: Organic SEO vs. social media marketing, digital marketing consultant, Alexandra Tachalova, looked at 10 well-known blogs to explore the correlation between social media marketing and search engine rankings.

From this research and her own clients, Tachalova has found that people are more likely to like and share content than they are to click on it, so that for every 40 interactions on social media you will only get one click through to your website.

Consequently, websites that lead in social media engagement tend to lead in traffic volumes too. If the 40 interactions to every one click ratio is correct, then it shows how important it is to focus on engagement.

 

What this means for you – some action points:

Try to keep an eye on the type of content and topics – both your own and that of your competitors and industry influencers – that attracts the most engagement/clicks.

You can help to encourage more clicks by creating clickable Tweets and statuses that include a link to your website.

I agree with Tachalova that you should ignore the kind of ‘Follow back’ strategies that used to be rife on social media, e.g. ‘Likes ladders’ where people would post a link to their own social media profiles in exchange for clicking on everyone else’s links. This type of engagement might ‘game’ the system in the short-term but it won’t give you long-term engagement.

Instead, the key is to find people who are genuinely interested in your message and will therefore be motivated to engage with your posts and click on your links.

In her article for Moz, Tachalova suggests using Google Analytics to identify your largest referrer of social media traffic and focus on ways to increase engagement on that platform.

 

Spending time with you

If you’re able to put just a few of the recommendations in this article into action, you will hopefully begin to see an increase in shares, backlinks, traffic, domain authority and page rankings.

Social media can also indirectly influence your organic SEO efforts by encouraging readers to spend time on your website reading the content that’s most relevant to them – this is known as ‘dwell time’ or the average time on the site.

The happy result of this is that Google tends to reward websites with high dwell time by increasing their rankings.

Also, by creating engagement with relevant content, you can bring down the bounce rate on your website, e.g. the percentage of people who exit your site from the page they entered without having visited any other pages in between. A low bounce rate is a positive ranking signal.

 

What this means for you – some action points:

High bounces rates and low dwell time can be signs that your content isn’t up to scratch. Couple that with minimal engagement on social media and you might need to rethink what you’re creating.

With this in mind, two statistics you should monitor on a regular basis are ‘Average time on site’ and ‘bounce rate’ in Google Analytics.

To help increase dwell time and lower the bounce rate, think about ways that you can build engagement:

  • Create long-form copy that’s unique and packed full of actionable content – high rankings on page one of Google tend to correlate with higher word counts
  • Diversify your content – video, audio and infographics are all great for creating interest
  • Write relevant headings that tell people exactly what the content is about
  • Break the content into bite-sized chunks using headings, sub-headings, images, graphics and bullet points so it’s easy to consume on any screen

 Quote: Social media marketing and SEO are two tightly interwoven strategies.

Conclusion

When all is said and done, social media offers us a way to promote content, be found online and show our relevance to our potential customers. Good SEO is about this too.

Organic SEO and Social media marketing belong together – it’s a pairing too good to ignore and has consistently given our client’s vastly improved search engine ranking and conversion results.

Want to know more about getting SEO and Social Media Marketing working for your business? Let me know in the comments below or contact me here. We’d love to help you.

Alternatively, take a look at our Social Media Promotion Package which builds your social media presence in a real and authentic way to help your SEO efforts, giving you bigger, better and quicker results

If you found this article helpful, we’d love it if you could share it – thank you

A shout out

While writing this article, I was inspired by some fantastic content from:

You might also find these articles helpful:

SEO Techniques
11 SEO Techniques to boost your online presence in 2018
Google ranking factors in 2018 and beyond
Google ranking factors in 2018 and beyond
User Experience – what you need to know and how it impacts SEO
User Experience – what you need to know and how it impacts SEO

 

Using Pinterest to boost your SEO (even if you don’t have an obviously ‘pinnable’ business)

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Do you use Pinterest to promote your business or have you ruled Pinterest out as a social media platform because you don’t have a business that obviously lends itself to ‘pinning’, perhaps because you don’t sell products?

You could be missing out on a valuable source of sales and website traffic.

Pinterest to boost your SEO

The stats around Pinterest’s use and popularity are staggering. An article by Digital Marketing Ramblings last updated on 19th December 2014 – By the numbers: 175 Amazing Pinterest Statistics – highlighted some of the following numbers:

  • 70 million people use Pinterest
  • 80-85% of those are women, who account for 92% of Pins
  • The typical Pinterest user spends 14.2 minutes on the site per visit and an average of 98 minutes per month
  • Nine million people have linked their Pinterest and Facebook accounts for easy sharing
  • 18% of Pinterest users have an average household income of over $75,000 (approximately £47,900)
  • 23% of registered users visit Pinterest at least once a day
  • 49% of people browse Pinterest instead of catalogues
  • 30% of people prefer browsing Pinterest to watching TV
  • 64% of users try at least one Pinterest inspired activity per month
  • 75% of traffic comes through mobile apps
  • Pinterest users on mobile devices are three times more likely to share a Pin than those on desktops

From these stats alone, we can see that Pinterest users tend to be actively engaged with the platform, using it when they’re looking for things to buy, plan or do. And Pinterest is growing at an impressive rate – from September 2013 to October 2013 alone, it reportedly grew by 30.6%!

Figures would also suggest that the half-life of each pin is about three and a half months, which is 1,600 longer than the life of a Facebook post! Pinterest now accounts for 10.38% of social media referrals to commerce websites, adding up to some serious web traffic. This is important for your SEO efforts as Google looks at traffic coming into your site (and staying on it) as one of the cues that determine its quality and relevance. The higher these are, the more they will impact positively on your rankings.

One stat that particularly leapt out at me is that the most popular destination of pins is blogs. This is a perfect example of how you can use Pinterest to promote your business, even if you don’t sell products. You could set up a board for your blogs and guest blogs and pin each new article to this board. People can then ‘repin’ your articles to their own boards, encouraging their followers to read them.

Also, by adding the facility to quickly and easily share your blog posts to social media, including pinning them to Pinterest, you can help your blogs to be more widely disseminated. Stats for American traffic suggest that five percent of Pinterest users who find a blog article they enjoy will pin it for others to see. Although I don’t have the UK stats, it’s still a good idea to make it as easy as possible for others to spread the word about your amazing content.

Pinterest for Business

Stats from Wishpond tell us that 70% of people on Pinterest use it to get inspiration on what to buy, compared to 17% of Facebook users who do the same.

According to Digital Marketing Ramblings, more than half a million businesses are now actively using Pinterest to reach their customers. This is what the stats show about Pinterest for business:

  • 52% of daily Pinterest users consult Pinterest for purchasing guidance when they’re in a shop
  • 83% of Pinterest users would rather follow a brand than a celebrity
  • 27% of active Pinterest users do follow at least one brand on Pinterest
  • The average sale order value for customers that come via Pinterest is $58.95 (£37.96 approx.)
  • 47% of online shoppers have made a purchase because of a Pinterest recommendation
  • Each Pin you place on Pinterest should bring two new visitors to your website and six new page views

Using Pinterest even if you don’t have an obviously visual business

But can you really use Pinterest even if you don’t have an obviously visual business? I think you can – you might just have to get more creative about how you do it!

I would always recommend approaching Pinterest with a strategic view. What do you want to achieve through the platform? More website visitors? A higher profile for your blog? Greater visibility for your brand? Developing your brand’s personality and tone of voice?

It’s also important to think about who your target customer is and what interests them, as well as how that connects to your business. Once you’ve got a good handle on this, you might want to create:

  • Themed boards
  • Inspiration boards
  • Boards about your blog
  • Boards about your services
  • Industry expert boards
  • Music boards
  • Company ethos boards
  • Portfolio boards
  • Testimonials boards

Pinterest provides some handy analytics that let you monitors stats such as your average daily and monthly impressions and viewers, your best performing pins, where your audience lives, what language they speak, whether they’re male or female, and how the pins from pages on your website are performing.

By keeping a close eye on this data, you can quickly build your presence on Pinterest and bring more visitors to your website who are primed to buy and spend time there. As we’ve discussed, this can only be a good thing for your SEO efforts.

Case study

Giraffe CVs is a professional CV writing company, i.e. not a business that obviously lends itself to Pinterest as it’s all about words, not images. However, when you visit Giraffe CVs on Pinterest, you will find 46 boards and more than 1,800 pins covering topics such as Free CV Tips (presented in a visually appealing, branded style), Customer Testimonials, Graduate CVs, Unusual CVs, Career Quotes, Infographics to aid your job search, and Pins linking to The CV Confidence Coach podcast by Giraffe CVs.

In addition, Giraffe CVs uses humour a lot in its marketing and some of the boards reflect this. Check out the Spoof CVs, Celebrate your new job board or Work-related tunes boards for a bit of a giggle.

Knowing that fashion pins are incredibly popular, Giraffe CVs even has ‘Interview chic for women’ and ‘Interview chic for men’ boards.

Giraffe CVs think outside the box on Pinterest. It’s a company that understands its customers and its brand and plays to this, creating a visual feast even though it doesn’t have a single product to showcase.

Giraffe CVs on Pinterest

What type of images can you use?

If you sell products, then it makes sense to have a board or boards on Pinterest featuring good quality images of these products. You can include a short product description and call to action to encourage people to click through to your website and buy (apparently, a call to action noticeably increases engagement).

The Digital Marketing Ramblings stats have also found that images are:

  • 23% more likely to be repinned if they don’t include faces (less than 20% of images on Pinterest contain faces)
  • 20% more likely to be repinned if they are light, not dark
  • Best pinned between 1pm and 2pm on Wednesdays (although they’re likely to get the best clickthroughs between 8pm and 10pm)

If you don’t sell products, then you may need to be more creative about the images you use. In the case study above, Giraffe CVs presents free CV tips on a branded background with a different tip number on each one – it almost looks and feels like collecting top trumps or baseball cards, which is a great way of encouraging people to pin the whole series.

If you write a regular blog, you can pin it using any of the images in the blog. It is essential that you have permission to use any images you pin commercially, otherwise you could be in breach of copyright. Look for images that are covered by a Creative Commons license with commercial use allowed if you simply want to use an image on your website or in your marketing (you may need to credit the photo and link to the license). If you want to adapt the image in any way – perhaps by adding an inspirational quote – you also need to make sure that the license allows modifications.

Quick SEO tips:

Finally, here are ten quick Pinterest tips that should help your SEO efforts:

  1. Create a Pinterest business account, so you can access the analytics and it’s easier to get your website verified
  2. Under your Account Settings, make sure that your privacy settings allow search engines to return your pins in search results
  3. Include your full business name in your Pinterest URL
  4. Include your main keywords in your ‘About’ section – you only have 200 characters, so plan what you’re going to say and make sure you include your web address where prompted
  5. Verify your website (this will have a red tick next to it once it’s been verified)
  6. Name your boards with keywords, instead of using Pinterest’s default board names
  7. Use your keywords in your board descriptions
  8. Use keywords in pin descriptions
  9. Keep your most important boards at the top of the page
  10. Use hashtags (up to three per post)

Do you use Pinterest for your business yet? Why not share your profile in the Comments below so that we can all have a look? Have you stayed away from Pinterest because you don’t sell products? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

How your social reputation affects your SEO

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Just how important is it for your business to be active on social media? Is it essential for SEO purposes to have a presence on all the major platforms or are there platforms that are more important than others? Can you overlook social media altogether if it doesn’t feel like the right fit for your business?

How social media signals work as ranking factors seems to divide expert opinion. Certainly, the answers are not as cut and dried as we might imagine.

Is it essential to be active on social media?

Indexing social media sites poses challenges for search engines

Back in January 2014, Google’s Matt Cutts said in a video on the Google Webmasters YouTube Channel that you can have “this many followers on Twitter or this many likes on Facebook, to the best of my knowledge, we don’t currently have any signals like that in our web search ranking algorithms”.

In the video, Matt Cutts explained that Google is already attempting to crawl an imperfect web and that there would be issues with collecting data from platforms such as Twitter and Facebook because they’re fast moving and liable to change. To use Matt Cutts’ example, imagine Google indexed a Facebook page right before a wife blocked her abusive husband from viewing it and yet suddenly she found her page being returned in search engine results pages (SERPs) for him to still see. Google would have no way of knowing her data had changed until it next indexed her profile; this presents major challenges around identity.

Google would also be hesitant about adapting its algorithms to cope with the complexities of indexing a major social media site when it could potentially be blocked from crawling the site at a later date.

So, as things stand, it would appear that Google does not use the popularity of your profiles or individual posts on a specific social media platform as a direct ranking factor.

Pages with social media likes tend to rank higher

In the 2014 Moz local overall search ranking signals survey, participants said that social signals account for 5.8% of the overall general ranking signals that affect where a website appears in SERPs. These ranking signals included Google+ authority, Facebook likes and Twitter followers as three examples.

Similarly, in the 2013 Moz Search Ranking Factors study, which is carried out once every two years, the results suggested that website pages with Google+ likes, Facebook likes, comments and shares, and Tweets tended to rank higher in SERPs.

But are these social interactions the direct cause? Not exactly. Instead, Google looks at them as a clue that a page has good content.

Forget search engine optimisation when building social reputation

It helps to take search engine optimisation out of the equation and look at social media and social reputation from a different perspective. Ultimately, ‘social’ media is just that: social. For all its pros and cons, when used properly social media platforms are about making human connections, sharing things about which you’re passionate and that other people will want to see. Get that right and people will want to spread the news.

If you know your stuff and share that knowledge, you can raise your profile as someone who is influential, respected and an authority in their field.

When creating content, think about what would add value for your potential customers:

  • What do they want to know about?
  • What keeps them awake at night?
  • How can you make their lives better in some way?
  • What can you share?
  • How can you reassure or uplift them?
  • What do they care about?
  • What is their driving force and how can you support that?

If your web pages and blog articles answer these questions and people connect with them on an emotional level, the chances are they’ll tell their friends about it on social media – in the form of likes, comments, shares, pins, tweets and +1s via the social media sharing options on your page – or by linking back to a specific page from their own website.

In turn, this activity will drive more traffic to your website from a variety of sources and the search engines will notice this increase in virtual footfall. Also, if your content is good and people want to read what you have to say, they’ll spend more time on your site.

The search engines take this information and reason that you must be providing high quality content because people are staying on your site and visiting other pages while they’re there instead of bouncing away in a matter of seconds. This means that your page is likely to be featured more highly in subsequent SERPs because, as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, the search engines are in the business of returning to most relevant and high quality results.

social media and SEO

Links to your site act as recommendations from influencers

I mentioned briefly above that if you create content that people connect with, they’re more likely to talk about it – with a link to the appropriate page – on their own website or on one or more social media platforms.

If someone who has a popular, high authority domain and a large social media presence is prepared to share what you do with their audience, the search engines take this as a vote of confidence or recommendation from an influencer. Just as you’re more likely to secure an interview if you come with a personal recommendation from someone respected in your field, you’re more likely to be taken seriously by Google if high authority domains are shouting about your content.

This is why the quality of backlinks matter far more than the quantity.

Your presence on Google+

As Google+ and YouTube are Google products, it’s likely Google does take your presence on these platforms into account. In the 2014 Moz local overall search ranking signals survey I mentioned above, the authority of shares on Google+ is listed as factor 46 out of 50 localised ranking factors.

What the survey also shows us is that the mismanagement of your Google My Business page might have more of an impact in terms of negative ranking factors. Things such as listing a false address, the wrong business category, having multiple pages with the same business number, your account being associated with supressed listings, keyword and location stuffing the content of your page, and negative reviews are just a few of the factors that are harming SEO efforts in the US since the rollout of Google Pigeon. Experts are recommending that people in other countries, including here in the UK, get their Google My Business pages in order before they’re affected by Google Pigeon too.

Be real and authentic

My conclusion is that if you build your social media presence in a real and authentic way it can only ever help your SEO efforts.

To answer the questions at the beginning of this article, I think it is important to be active on social media in order to grow your audience and engage with potential and existing customers. Of course, if your customers aren’t using social media, then this might be less pressing.

An infographic by Search Engine Journal at the end of 2013 showed that 72% of all internet users are active on social media. More recent figures from Browser Media, Socialnomics and MacWorld in July 2014 suggest that 11% of the Earth’s population is on Facebook and that 98% of 18-24-year-olds regularly use social media. Even 43% of silver surfers aged 65+ are using social media. If you plan on finding your customers online, it seems foolhardy to ignore social media altogether.

However, I don’t think you have to be everywhere all the time. The best thing you can do is to work out where your customers are hanging out and what sort of content would appeal to them and be an active participant in their online community.

If you feel like your business isn’t a good fit for a specific platform, then it probably isn’t. To be on the safe side though, just as you use Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools to track your SEO efforts, I’d always recommend using the insights provided by the social media platforms. This will show you which posts are popular, what’s being shared and talked about, and what your customers can’t get enough of when it comes to your content.

Is social media an important part of your marketing strategy? Have you noticed your social media efforts improving your rankings? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in the Comments section below.

Social Signals and Why they Matter for SEO

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Social signals refer to the amount of engagement you, your brand and your content generate on the various social media platforms. This engagement can be measured in lots of ways including the following:

  • The number of @mention tweets you receive
  • Links to your website and content on Facebook, Twitter and other social media Platforms
  • The number of people who have circled you on Google+
  • The number of likers who like your business page
  • The quantity of Facebook shares and re-tweets you receive etc.

Now you might be wondering why I’m talking about social media marketing on a blog that’s focused on SEO. The reason is simple. Whilst it’s tempting to see the two as separate and unrelated, that’s no longer the case. That’s because there’s an increasing amount of evidence to suggest that search engines such as Google are actively using social signals to help them rank websites.

The noise started as far back as 2010, and in December of the same year, Matt Cutt’s admitted that Google do take social search into account. Unfortunately, there’s no definitive guide to explain exactly how they do this (although there’s a lot of speculation and discussion), BUT it’s clear to see the reasons why social search is becoming so significant to how your website scores in the organic stakes.

 

Social Media Marketing supports SEO
Social Media Marketing supports your SEO strategies.

Let me tell you why…

The search landscape is changing

One of the main reasons for this shift is because social search is changing the way that people find information via the internet. No longer are we solely reliant on search engines to help us find content, we’re also increasingly influenced by what’s being discussed and shared on social media. After all, how often do you discover a new blog, article or business after seeing what someone you follow has tweeted or posted on Facebook or LinkedIn?

So because we’re taking more note of the information that’s socially shared, it’s logical that Google and the other search engines would start to take this into account – especially because of the wealth of information they can glean from social behaviour.

 

Social signals, authority and relevancy

Social media can give powerful clues as to someone’s authority and relevancy. And when you consider that Google’s primary aim is to return useful, relevant websites in its organic listings, it’s easy to see why they’d be interested in social.

Social signals such as engagement and sharing are often a good indicator of someone’s relevance and authority. For example, if content (or a website) generates a lot of engagement, or a website owner gets a lot of mentions, this is a clear indicator that other people think they’re worth listening to. In turn, it makes logical sense that the content produced by these people is looked upon more favourably in the organic listings.

In addition, rel=”author” represents a HUGE sift in Google’s acknowledgement of the importance of authority. rel=”author” allows Google to track what authors have published across domains. So if you’re guest posting on high quality sites, Google knows it’s you and this in turn can help boost the visibility of your own website (and it’s not just because of the link back).

 

Content is king

Another key factor in social signals is the role of quality content. The old reasons for keeping your website fresh and constantly updated remain. Google still loves fresh content and a regularly updated blog for example can be a powerful way to attract new visitors to your website. In addition, it’s great for tapping into those long tail keywords. BUT blogging also provides material which you can share via your social media platforms and encourage people to talk about and engage with your brand. What’s more, if people like what they read, it’s possible they will link back to you – and these sort of natural links are good news for your page rank and domain authority.

Finally, when it comes down to whether your competitor scores higher than you, the amount of social engagement could be the differentiator.

 

SEO is changing

In the past it was relatively easy to get found on Google. Create keyword rich content and nurture links and your organic rankings would soar. However, as I’m sure a lot of you have experienced first-hand, Google moves swiftly and the recent Panda and Penguin algorithm changes stung a lot of business owners who were reliant on Google for their traffic.

In short, so called “black-hat” tactics no longer work and business owners (and SEO professionals) need to explore new ways to prove to the search engines that their website is useful and relevant.

So whilst there are still fundamental on-site SEO tactics that you need to get right and securing high quality, natural links are still relevant, it’s important that you embrace the power of social to support your SEO strategies.

Here’s how…

  1. Get Google Authorship

Embrace the growing power of rel=”author” and ensure all your content is linked up and attributed to you. Then wield the power of guest blogging and content marketing to increase your profile and reach out to a new audience.

  1. Explore Google+

Whilst many people say it’s a graveyard, there’s no denying that Google+ is a force to be reckoned with – not least because it’s from Google! And with the recent launch of vanity urls, it looks as though steps are being made to make it even more attractive to non-converts.

I wrote a series of post about the benefits of Google+, so if you want to learn more about how this platform could benefit your business, you can take a read here.

  1. Build your authority

Google loves authority and relevancy. It means you need to get out there and embrace the power of social to spread your word and build your reputation. For example:

  • Consider who you’re connected to
  • Identify prime opportunities to guest post and extend your reach
  • Take a stand for something and aim to make an impact in a niche

The more people who see and engage with your content via social, the better this will be for your rankings.

  1. Embed social share buttons on your site

Make it super easy for people to share your stuff by embedding social share buttons onto your website. And actively encourage your readers to hit the tweet or like button if they’ve enjoyed your stuff – in fact, get into the habit of asking people to share as one of your call to actions.

  1. Get social

There are lots of reasons why social media is good for business. But be aware that you can’t just rush up a profile and expect to see a big impact on your organic rankings. Instead you need to work on your strategy and ensure it’s designed to encourage engagement, boost the amount of shares and raise your profile.

But what do you think? Have you been seeing an impact on your organic listings as a result of your social media activity? Please let me know in the comments below.

And if you’ve enjoyed this post, please share. You know what to do!

 

Google+ Pages – what your small business needs to know

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In this third post on Google+ I’m going to:

  1. Reveal the benefits of a Google+ page for your small business
  2. Explain how this links with Google+ Local and local search
  3. Provide you with a five-step guide for getting started.

Google+ page for business

Here goes…

The benefits of a Google+ page

At first glance, it may feel that setting up a Google+ page means more work and more content. And whilst that’s true, the benefits could make the effort worthwhile for your business. Here are three reasons why:

  1. Engage with your customers and audience:

Google+ pages have inbuilt social features (just like your personal Google+ profile). It means you can create and share content to engage your customers in conversation around your business.

To learn how to write great Google+ posts – CLICK HERE.

  1. Build your brand profile:

Unlike a Google+ profile, which is all about you, a Google+ page allows you to talk through your business as a separate entity. In addition, if your business page is a Google+ Local page, customers will be able to post reviews and rate you on a scale of one to five – perfect for collecting highly visible testimonials for your business.

  1. Earn SEO benefits:

Lots of business owners don’t realise their Google+ page listing is a search result. And just like your Google+ profile, smart on-site SEO optimisation means your Google+ page can be quickly indexed and found – ideal if you want to score well in the organic rankings.

  • SEO title: This is derived from your page name followed by Google+
  • Metadescription: This is taken from your page name PLUS tagline PLUS the initial part of your profile
  • Dofollow links: Your introduction and other links section are dofollow links that can attract link equity (although your official linked website is set as nofollow).

 

Do I really need a Google+ profile AND a Google+ Page?

Great question. In my opinion the answer depends on the nature of your business and your online strategy.

Google+ profiles are for people. You can’t collect reviews BUT its link with Google authorship will help build your authority. Therefore if you and your business are indistinguishable, (and you lack the time and energy to create content for both) you could argue you have no need for a separate business page.

BUT…

If you want to promote your business as separate entity OR you’re keen to collect reviews or benefit from local search, you’ll want to set up a Google+ page too.

 

How can my Google+ page help with local search?

(And how’s this different from Google Places and Google+ Local?)

This is where it gets interesting (and more confusing!) The launch of Google+ just last year, and the ongoing process of integrating Google services into one dashboard, means existing services still have relevance – one of those being Google places.

Google defines Google Places as “a central location where you can review, edit and add business listings”. In essence it’s your business listing. Prior to Google+ being rolled out, Google Places was the method by which businesses could get a listing on Google Maps – an invaluable tool to help you feature on page one for local search terms.

 

Google Places has gone all social

The arrival of Google+ has allowed businesses to set up Google+ Local pages. These are simply Google+ pages that have been classified under the category of Local Business or Place. These pages integrate the listing functionality of Google Places with the social functionality of Google+. It means that businesses with a specific geographical location can create a page that’s optimised for local search, appears on Google Maps, collects reviews AND shares content to encourage customer engagement

 

Google+ Local has replaced Google Places.

New users can just create a Google+ Local page, whilst businesses who have an unverified Google Places profile can verify, it to automatically add Google+ social features (simply enter a pin contained on a verification postcode that Google send to you). It means you’ll spot two types of Google+ local listings for now:

    1. Google+ Local pages and verified Places listings have four tabs
    2. Unverified listings have just two tabs

And whilst both can collect customer reviews, only the Google+ Page contains the social features.

 

So what profiles do you need for your business?

In this post I’ve talked about Google+ profiles and pages as well as Google+ Local and Google Places.

So what do you really need to benefit your small business? Here are my conclusions.

Google+ Profile: Perfect if you are your business and you want to grow your individual authority through Google authorship.

Google+ Page: Essential if you want to promote your business as a separate entity (although you’ll need to commit to a content strategy as an empty page looks unloved and will undermine your brand). In addition, if your business operates from a physical location, you’ll want a Google+ Local page (you’ll get one if you categorise your Google+ page as a Local Business or Place).

Google Places: Not necessary if you’ve set-up your Google+ Page in the Local Business & Place category as this will automatically connect up with local search and create a Google+ Local Page. But if you’ve got an old Places account that you haven’t yet verified, it’s probably worth doing this – especially because Google is starting to upgrade Places listings to add the social functionality associated with Google+ pages.

Google+ Local page: Google+ local is Google’s local search initiative that’s designed to help users discover and share places. For geographically based businesses it’s really important to have a presence here. To do that you need a Google Places listing OR set-up a Google+ page that’s categorised as a Local Business or Place.

So now we’ve discussed the various options, here’s how to get started with a Google+ page.

How to set up your Google+ page in five easy steps

  1. First ensure you have a Google+ profile, as your page will link to this.
  1. Create a page: This starts by selecting from one of the following categories:
    1. Local business or place (becomes a Google+ Local page)
    2. Product or brand
    3. Company, institution or organisation
    4. Arts, entertainment or sport
    5. Other (for everything else)

You’ll want to give your choice some thought, as the subsequent options for customisation will vary depending on your category. Most importantly, if your page is for a business with a physical location, it’s really important you select the “local business or place” option as this will allow you to claim a physical space, get found on Google Maps and appear in local search.

  1. Add the basics: Now you can start to claim for page your public profile. Choose a name for your page and link it to your website. Next consider if your page has any age appropriate content and finally read and confirm you’ve agreed to Google’s T&Cs.
  1. Customise: Now move onto customise your page. You can introduce your page and add a ten-word tagline. These fields are important, as they will form the meta-description for your page in the SERPs. You can also change your cover picture (which is HUGE) and add a profile image. You can also add in contact information so customers can get in touch as well as adding links to pages that interest you as well as your other social networks.
  1. Add content: This is the fun bit! Just as with a Google+ profile you need to have a think about your content strategy to build your audience and initiate conversation and engagement. You can share thoughts, photos and videos as well as sharing links to other interesting content you’ve discovered. You can also determine who to share content with (remember Google’s circles allow you to segment your audience) meaning you could make your posts highly targeted to specific sections of your audience.

 

How will you use the Google+ page functionality for your business?

What features have you signed up for and benefiting from? What questions do you have about Google+ pages? Please let me know in the comments below…

And do join me on Google+. You can find my personal musings here, or view my business page and write a review here.