Ways You Can Use Social Media To Improve Your SEO

Social Media, Search Engine Optimisation and Content Marketing all go hand in hand when it comes to building online visibility, driving traffic and conversions. What are we going to discuss today is how you can use social media to improve your Search Engine Optimisation.

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A number of ranking factor studies, including this 2015 study from Moz, have found a correlation between social media signals (likes, shares, etc.) and high rankings in the search engines. One thing you need to remember is that correlation doesn’t equal causation. The way social media influences, and can help you with, Search Engine Optimisation is much more complex than simple vanity stats like the number of Facebook likes. The way where social media can make the biggest impact on SEO is by amplifying your content which in turn can drive traffic to your website and earn you inbound links. This is hugely important as inbound links remain one of the most important ranking factors. It was confirmed in one of the recent Google Q&A hangouts. You can watch the whole video here or read the summary.

Share your content.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. One of the main advantages of social media is it’s huge reach.
It is a great way to put your content in front of as many people as possible (ideally people within your target audience). This can have two great benefits for your SEO campaigns. It can drive traffic directly to your website and if people really enjoy your content, it can get you these all important natural links and mentions. Of course, it is easier said than done and simply sharing your content on your social media may not result in loads of traffic and links. Social media is a very complex beast, you need to know what you are doing, from carefully selecting your target audience to such details as psychology of colours.

Make your content easily sharable.

You will of course share your content via your own channels, but why do all the hard work by yourself. Let other help you by making your content easy to share. There is a number of ways in which you can do that. I will outline some of the most effective below.

Add social sharing buttons to your website.

These can make sharing much easier, depending on the layout of your website and your preference you can have floating buttons or you can have them at the top and bottom of your posts. I suggest you test to discover which one works best for you in getting the most engagement from your visitors.

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Make your content look visually appealing.

Use high quality visuals, it will captivate people’s attention and increase your click through rates. Implement Open Graph Markup and Twitter Cards on your website. This will make your content look much better when shared on Facebook and Twitter. The implementation of these is pretty simple, it’s just a matter of adding a couple lines of code to your website.

Engage with influencers

Influencers can make a big difference when it comes to SEO and content marketing. They can amplify you content by putting it in front of their audiences. They can also link to your website directly. Social media is a great platform to find influencers in your niche and to talk to them.

Blogger Outreach

This is another important part of off-page SEO and one of the areas where social media can help. Finding and contacting bloggers via social media channels can be more effective then email.

Summary

The list above is non-exhaustive, but I hope it will get you thinking and you will start using social media to the benefit of your SEO campaigns.

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  • Mike Smith

    Nowadays, Social signals have great impact on SEO. We’ve progressed from asking whether social signals contribute in organic rankings