There has been a lot of talk and debate surrounding the impact that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have on search engine rankings. Will having a large following on one of these sites actually help your website move up in the SERPs? There are some SEO experts who say yes, while others remain skeptical. This article will attempt to shed light on this debate and give you some tips on how to go about increasing your social media following.
Can Social Media Help Improve Your Site’s SEO Rankings?
Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing use advanced algorithms to determine where your site falls in the search results for your desired keyword phrases. For many years there has been little if any evidence that how many friends, followers, or subscribers you have on social media sites impacts your site’s search engine rankings. However, there are some NYC SEO experts who believe that having a large following can help your website move up in the rankings. This is because search engines take into consideration whether people are talking about you and sharing content from your site across social networks. If your site is getting a lot of mentions and discussions across various social media channels, this could be an indirect signal to the engines that you have some valuable content.
How Can You Use Social Media to Improve Your Site’s SEO Rankings?
As with most things in the world of search engine optimization, there are no hard and fast rules about how to improve your site’s SEO rankings by using social media. However, there are some things that you can do in order to get more exposure and attract a following across various social media channels:
- Create profiles on sites like Facebook and Twitter and actively encourage people to follow you.
- Provide unique and relevant content and update your status regularly with industry or site-specific news and information.
- Encourage people to leave comments on your posts and respond to what they have to say.
- Join groups and become an active member across various social media sites.
- Comment on other people’s posts and create a dialogue with them.
- Post photos and videos that your audience will find interesting and helpful, and give them the opportunity to share and comment on them.
- Invite other influencers in your field to connect with you on social media sites. For example, if you’re a restaurant owner, ask well-known food bloggers to follow you.
Don’t just take our word for it when it comes to using social media in order to improve your site’s search rankings. The opinions on this subject are definitely mixed, so take a look at what some other SEO experts have to say about how having a strong social media presence can impact your site’s search engine rankings.
How to Optimize Your Website For Social Media Sites?
When you are first creating your website, it is very important that you check the code on everything that will directly impact your SEO rank on social sites. If you have properly optimized your blog posts on WordPress, all of these things should be automatically set up, but it doesn’t hurt to check.
Twitter Cards: These are basically just more engaging twitter posts, that allow you to post images and videos directly into the Twitter feed itself. This is good for those who have a lot of video and image content on their blog posts. Facebook Open Graph: This allows your site’s link preview on Facebook to appear more visual and interesting when it is shared by doing things like showing images related to the article.
Google Authorship: This is a very important aspect of SEO, and if you haven’t already done so it will allow you to show up in Google search results with your picture and name (if you’ve allowed them to publish this information).
RSS and Email Subscription: Many social media sites offer RSS feeds that can appear in any feed reader, and allow you to easily subscribe without having to go through a third party.
NoFollow: If your blog post links from social media sites still give Google bad signals that could hurt your site’s SEO rankings , then you can use nofollow tags for them in order to stop the link juice. For example, when users share links on Google +, it adds a nofollow tag to those links so that the value of the link is not passed on.
What are the Benefits of Linking Social Media to Your Site?
It may seem counter-intuitive for site owners to encourage visitors to follow their business on sites that are directly competitive, but if done correctly this can actually boost your SEO rankings by sending traffic back to your website.
The idea is to make sure that when people visit your site, they will immediately be able to subscribe and connect with you on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. This way, when the user logs into their account they will see that there are already a number of followers for your business.
This can lead to higher engagement with your content, and will be a sign to search engines that your site is active and regularly updated.
Great content must do two things: entertain and provide value. If you don’t accomplish these two tasks, you’ll fail to engage the attention of your readership, and they’ll stop coming back. To make sure your blog posts and landing pages meet these requirements and perform well in regard to SEO tactics, follow this three-step process:
1. Write for real people instead of robots
Make sure that all of your articles are written with human readers in mind rather than search engine bots. The best way to do this is to imagine you are telling a friend about your business over a meal. You wouldn’t read them the “About Us” section from your website, would you? No, because you know that they’ve already heard it before. Instead, tell them what sets you apart from the competition and how you can solve their problems.
This will create a connection with your audience so it will seem more like they are having an actual conversation with you. Now, imagine that Google is listening in on the conversation and writing down every word so that the search engine can index what you’re saying about yourself online. This means that “About Us” sections won’t cut it anymore. Instead, you need to get creative with your writing and make sure that even though Google is listening, it will still be able to understand what you’re saying.
2. Find the correct balance between keywords and style
Using a variety of keywords in copy helps search engines deliver relevant content at just the right time. The trick is to find the right balance between keywords and style. A good tactic to help you accomplish this goal is by using synonyms for popular keyword phrases throughout your copy.
For example, “social media marketing” can be replaced with the phrase “online promotion.” This will provide additional context while also allowing you to broaden your keyword horizons. Another good trick is to reverse the popular phrase and use the keyword as a descriptor for something else. For example, instead of saying that “social media marketing is important,” say that “marketing through social media is important.” This will give Google bots (and your readers) more to work with.
In addition to balancing keywords and style, you also need to balance your content. Every website needs a mix of blogs, videos, images, eBooks and other formats that will allow the audience to interact with your company beyond simply reading about what you offer. Allowing your readers to be more interactive will enhance your overall SEO strategy. You can get ideas for what types of content to publish online by visiting your competitors’ websites and analyzing the market. You’ll find that not all companies are taking advantage of multimedia, which means there is still an opportunity for you to get ahead of the competition by combining various types of media.
3. Create landing pages for relevant search terms
It is important to have a well-structured blog. This is where many readers will start their journey on your website, so it’s important that you keep these people engaged by providing them with more compelling content.
One way of making sure that all of the time you spend writing great content pays dividends is by creating unique landing pages for keywords that are highly sought after. This will help you deliver the content in a way that satisfies your audience’s needs and keeps them coming back to your website.
With these tips in hand, you’ll be able to implement an SEO strategy that provides value for both Google bots and human readers. These tips will also help ensure that your website stays relevant in the ever-changing world of digital marketing.
Conclusion
The debate over whether having a following on social media sites can help improve your site’s search engine rankings continues, but for small business owners who want to increase their online presence in order to gain more exposure, it definitely makes sense to have a strong social media presence.
