Social Media SEO: The New Backlink Strategy
Social media is of ever-growing importance when it comes to SEO, and the power of social signals when it comes to link-building could supercharge your SEO efforts.
Link building has long been one of the most important features of an effective SEO strategy. Over the course of the last few years, social media has become all the more important when it comes to SEO, and recently, the importance of social link building has gained a lot of traction.
How the New Google Panda Updates Change SEO
It is first important to understand why social media backlinks are so important now more than ever.
Google recently updated their algorithm to incorporate some major changes to the Panda filter. Much like a real panda, the name and appearance of the Google update might seem harmless, but the truth of the matter is that if a site violates any of the conditions set forth in the update, Panda will attack the site, removing backlinks and penalizing the site in terms of rankings. So, what has the result been? Many site owners have seen dozens of links they spent precious time building disappear, and their site rankings have suffered as a result.
So the big question is, how can site owners make up for this change with social media?
How Social Media Boosts Your SEO
In an article by Richard Petrillo, he suggests that the “social vote/social signal” can revive your SEO. Tweets, pins, +1s and Facebook shares are the new backlinks, and because they are effectively personal pseudo-recommendations, they weigh quite heavily into your rankings.
As people read and share your content, others are exposed to it. This works out similar to building links on other sites, but the fact that social media is so personal (at least, that is the intention) the weight of social signals when it comes to your link-building strategy is much heavier.
How to Build Your Social Signals
The simple answer? Produce engaging content that your audience wants to share. Dan Zarrella, social media scientist at HubSpot notes that the optimal number of tweets per day is roughly 20. But he makes it very clear that if you share content with which your audience wants to engage, then that number is irrelevant. The best way to do this is to monitor your engagement levels and take note of the content that boosts your brand’s engagement.
Second, make sure your content is social media friendly. A fantastic blog post is a great thing, but if people have no means of sharing it, then you lose the opportunity of adding a new social link. So in order to capitalize on the power of social media link-building, make sure you incorporate social sharing into your content wherever possible.
Lastly, share your own content outside your site in order to build your own links. It is one thing to rely on others to help you build your social links, but help yourself out wherever possible.
Social media offers us a number of new opportunities when it comes to SEO. Through social sharing and building social signals, you can improve your rankings drastically and much faster than every before.
How do you incorporate social media into your link-building strategy? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
Great article and awesome resource. I’ll be coming back here often. Interesting info . That would explain why I only get traffic when others submit my articles, and nothing when I do.