Search Engine Screwdriver: Utilizing Social Media for SEO Gains

Key Takeaways

• Sharing blog posts on your social profiles will boost your search engine rankings.
• Quality content is key to increase engagement and better rankings.
• Social media is just one of many tools you should use to optimize your website for search.

In our last edition we discussed the importance of having a mobile friendly website and how it could affect your search engine rankings. In case you missed it, check out Tiny Screens, Fat Fingers & The Demise of Your Website in Online Search Results.

When you are posting on your social media channels, is it by whim or do you have some thought behind it? Do you have a strategy in place? Most importantly, are you seeing an uptick in customers or visitors to your website? What if I told you that you can use your social media channels as a way to gain traction in your search engine rankings?

Google “rewards” businesses that provide and share content from their website on social media with a “boost” in their rankings if they showcase the following characteristics in their posts.

• Quality Content – What is quality content? Quality content can be defined in many ways depending on the industry, target audience, etc., but they all share the same common characteristics. Does your post contain information that your audience will find valuable? Does it answer a question that your audience is seeking an answer to? By providing your audience with solutions to real problems that they may have, you are creating quality content.
• Social Sharing – By providing social sharing buttons on your blog posts, it shows to Google that you are creating quality content that is worth sharing to the world via social media. The simple addition of these sharing buttons and the social engagement of your audience that follows, can make a huge difference in your search engine rankings.
• Visual Content – Infographics, images and video are all valuable when it comes to producing quality content. Text that is rich with graphics gets priority in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) over web pages that contain just text. Using YouTube as a video marketer can bring in valuable links and social sharing traffic to your website. (Be sure to include your entire URL in your video description for the added linking: https://proximomarketing.com)
• Social Not the End-All – Using social media as your standalone search engine optimization (SEO) tool is not the wisest decision you could make. As we discussed in the last issue, having a responsive website is another important tactic in piecing together the search engine puzzle. You can produce the best content, but from where will it attract potential visitors and customers – and will they be able to interact with your content on all devices? Use all the tools in your toolbox – they all serve a different, and important, purpose.

While these characteristics are not guaranteed to boost your placement to the top of search engine rankings, it will immediately benefit your current and potential customers looking for answers to their questions and ultimately valuable information on the products or services you provide. You should always focus on serving that purpose as over time is will contribute to your success in search engines. Nothing happens overnight; it will take time to reach your goals, but consistent action will lead to great reward.