Social Media & SEO (Part 1)

How do social media affect search engine results? Do all the retweets, social media shares, and user engagements really have an impact on your SEO? The short answer: yes.

 For the longer explanation, let us look the researched conducted by HootSuite. They have a found a strong link social media shares and web rankings. That is why, it is no surprise that a specific content that has higher rankings also has hundreds of shares, retweets, and likes.

person using social media

However, experts remind the public that web rankings are not directly affected by social media activity.  So, how do we explain this phenomenon? Why do popular posts that get shared more and get higher rankings too?

It’s connected, but it is not the main cause.

Social media shares might help boost rankings, but it is not guaranteed. Your content could be liked and shared on Facebook, but that does not mean you would automatically gain a spot on the first page of the search engine results.

What is really happening when someone chooses to share your content? Here’s the breakdown:

  1. For one, if it gets shared more, it will be seen more.
  2. When a content is more visible, it has a higher chance of getting picked up by other websites. They would link your content to their content.
  3. It will now create more backlinks for you, and these links could directly improve your website ranking.
  4. So, when you have a better ranking, of course, people will engage more to what you are sharing. Thus, the cycle continues.

At the end of the day, social media activity won’t matter. It’s the result of the activity that makes a huge impact. For the best results, we should look for ways to effectively use social media in improving web rankings.

So, let us focus on the important things. What can you do right now to take advantage of the power of social media?

It’s should be worth it!

When your content is utterly boring, who would want to share that? How can you move people to share and talk about your brand if your website is NOT doing a job in posted interesting, catchy, and practical articles?

  • Don’t promote too much. Adverting your own products is given. Of course, you would do that. So, find other forms of content aside from promoting your products.
  • Self-promos won’t gain much social media shares. Instead, try to write about something educational rather than making it a sales pitch. One concrete example of an informative post is a tutorial. Write about the different ways your readers can use your products.
  • For example, your products are beauty and make-up kits. So, try to do a tutorial on how to upgrade their daily skin routine. Teach how to do a light and simple everyday look.
  • Doing this won’t cost you money. You just need time to strategize what content you will be putting out. Focus on writing in-depth articles like the make-up tutorial example. Go into details on what each post should have.
  • Think of a particular audience, season, and trend. Since it is already summer, you won’t have to write about winter clothes and activities. It is beach season once again. So, share some tips on how to perfect the beach attire and share some fun summer activities. More tips are discussed right here.