Why Social Media Engagement is Critical for SEO

Most people search the internet by using search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. All results on search engines are ranked based on how relevant the website, video, or image is considered by the search algorithms. Search Engine Optimization or SEO helps you make the most of these algorithms and ensures that your content always gets ranked highly.

There is a lot more to SEO than just stuffing your content with keywords. In fact, keyword stuffing or using too many instances of the keyword in your content, is punished by Google. How much you gain from your SEO depends on your social engagement strategy.

Visibility on Social Media matters to Search Engines

Let’s look at the facts: over 1.5 billion people use Facebook, 40 million or so use Vimeo, over 1 billion people watch YouTube videos, over 350 million are on Twitter – this clearly shows that Social Media is a thriving enterprise. The importance of Social Media has not gone unnoticed by search engines such as Google. Today, link building is no longer the only important ranking factor for Google – the strength of your presence on social media is equally important.

Search engines are very much interested in finding out how many people tweet, blog, or share info about your business. The more the merrier – that is why it is very important to ramp up your social media engagement significantly. It’s not enough to claim that you have the best online store in the world; your store should be talked about actively in social media as well.

Search Engines Hate Spam – Even in Social Media

If there is one thing search engines detest, it is spam. Search engines work hard to ensure that their users get information of the highest quality, without getting spammed.

So, when you have a social media account that only has links to more links and is nothing but click-bait – this is not taken well by search engines such as Google. What Google cares about is not just how visible you are on social media, but how authentic is your visibility.

So, it is very important to have organic social media content, and not to use your social media accounts to spam or just to have links back to your website. Your social media strategy should be to engage, and not to spam.

Social Media Users Trust Each Other, Not Marketers

The reason social media is so powerful is that it is much easier to trust a recommendation from a friend than from a marketer. Most people would buy a product or try a service if a friend on Facebook recommends it. That’s why it’s so much more effective to use social media to do the marketing for your business.

People who use social media exist in interconnected webs, online as well as in real life. When you penetrate a social media circle, you don’t just connect with a couple of people, but with a whole circle of family, friends, acquaintances, admirers, and fans. Using social media as a part of your marketing efforts will certainly increase the traffic to your website and also increase your position on search engine results pages significantly.

The Bottom Line

Social media is one of the easiest ways to get more traffic for your website. It is also the best crowdsourcing tool for SEO. Use social media effectively to grow your audience online. Your social media engagement strategies should be authentic and highly visible – this not only improves the trustworthiness of your business, but also ensures a much better brand recognition for it.

Are you using social media for SEO?  If so let us know how.

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