social signals Archives

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!

t2social social medis marketing strategies

When it comes to SEO, social media is of ever-growing importance.

Social media is a major factor when it comes to SEO. In fact, within every one of your social networks there are small details that are referred to as social signals, and these are extremely important when it comes to improving your rankings.

One of the major differentiating factors with regards to social media when compared to other forms of search engine optimization is the fact that social signals are updated in real-time, and as such, your SERPs (search engine results page) can rise much quicker than they did with conventional methods of SEO. So, in order to ensure that you are being found on search engines, it is important to understand what factors contribute to your improved rankings when it comes to social media.

Below are 25 great tips and hints that should help you optimize your social media activities to factor in how your actions on social networks will impact your search rankings.

An engaged audience is the cornerstone of successful social media SEO; keep your audience engaged with your content and your rankings will skyrocket.
A big audience is nice, but a smaller, targeted audience is much better.
Your employees can be crucial to helping you spread your content across social media channels, which helps bolster your rankings.
Going “viral” is something that happens naturally, not something you can plan. (So don’t!)
Social signals are admittedly important to both Google and Bing.
Social sharing (i.e. Facebook share, re-tweet, Google +1) are more important social signals than direct signals, like optimizing your About Us section on Facebook.
Captivating images with Alt Tags are easily shared and great for SEO (particularly when it comes to Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Google+.
Build your boards on Pinterest! These register as social signals but individual pins do not.
Of Facebook, Twitter and Google+, Google+ is the best network in which to engage with influencers in your industry.
Authorship authority on Google is important to improving your rankings, and a good way of doing that is with Google+.
Three important criteria for your Facebook EdgeRank are affinity, interaction and timeliness.
Facebook Graph Search (in these early stages) is most beneficial to the entertainment (movies and TV), fashion, restaurant, travel and hotel industries.
Twitter is an arena important to customer service – engage with your audience when they are reaching out to you and you will be rewarded in your SEO.
Create 5 different tweets for the same blog post.
Don’t be afraid to post tweets linking to the same content on Twitter more than a couple of times per day; your followers are not going to be watching everything you post throughout the entire day.
Keep creating content – the more content you create (both on social channels and on your blog) the higher your rankings will increase over time.
Engaging, share-friendly content should always be what you strive to post.
The most clicked content titles consists of: “How To”, “Do/Do Not”, “Top 10/25/100”, Tips, Reviews, etc.
Creating good titles for search engines is nice, but creating compelling titles that intrigue your audience is much, much better.
Links in SlideShare presentations can be crawled and registered with Google (as a social backlink – among the most powerful ranking criteria).
Google auto-complete is the feature most beneficial to registering your keywords.
Optimizing a mobile app/site/piece of social media content is a crucial feature to engaging with your audience, particularly now with Google’s Universal Analytics.
Be sure to optimize your website and all of your social media profiles (especially Google+) for your address; this will benefit your local rankings significantly.
When it comes to mobile search, the only engine that really matters (well, matters more than anyone else) is Google. (#AppleMaps)
Be active in the conversation! Optimizing social media channels and blogs for SEO are one thing, but to really see your rankings shoot up, make sure people are familiar with your brand (and you!) by engaging in the conversation online!

Overall, the one thing to remember is that in order for social media to factor into your search rankings, you need to have an engaging brand. And that works both ways. It doesn’t happen overnight. Social media might be a faster means than any other when it comes to driving traffic and increasing your rankings, but it still takes time and plenty of commitment.

How are you optimizing your social media channels for SEO? Have you seen any results? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!