How to Leverage Social Media to Increase SEO

by Anna McHenry January 7, 2014

There is a large amount of evidence indicating the importance of social signals when it comes to SEO. There are several ways of leveraging social media as a tool in order to improve your rankings. It’s about time that you turned your website social by looking into social media management. Your end goal should be to increase your website’s number of likes, tweets, +1’s and shares on varying social media platforms.

Harris Schachter well know Richmond SEO has this to share about this subject:

“Social media I’ve found provides an additional way to establish domain credibility. For sites which consistently generate social shares from a diverse pool (not the same accounts over and over again in a detectable pattern), there is a better chance newer content will perform well in organic search. The influence of social media provides a more direct effect on SEO when it comes to personalization, such as Google+ and search results, and even using paid social methods to influence organic search patterns. So, I don’t think social media actually influences organic viability, it can accentuate other signals of quality and serve as a type of validation through a human layer. ”

Twitter 

Twitter is a great social media tool that is mainly used conversationally. However, it can also be used as a type of RSS feed in order to promote your website’s content. In order to do this, you should utilize interesting copy as well as a link to your website’s particular content in order to drive traffic to your website. As long as you keep your tweets relevant to your particular audience, you may create posts about your website multiple times a day.

Pinterest 

Pinterest is a great social media community to share your website’s visual content, as well as a way to link your website in order to increase your SEO. In order to see the most likes, repins and comments on Pinterest, it is wise to use compelling imagery and utilize tags that are commonly used.

Facebook

One of the top social media platforms for SEO ranking is Facebook. It is a great move to create a Facebook page relating to your website in order to foster a following. Make sure that you regularly post links to your website on your Facebook page. You should be using compelling pictures in order to increase Facebook engagement such as comments, likes, and shares as that will directly aid your SEO ranking.

Google+

Because the majority of people around the world perform their online searches using Google, it is quite savvy to get comfortable with Google’s social media platform. Google+ should be used as one of your top ways of increasing your website’s traffic. In order to successfully use Google+, ensure that you create a profile for your website, and began fostering a following. Once this is done the links posting back to your website will start to generate website traffic. Because engagement on Google+ contributes directly to your SEO ranking, make sure that you use strategic social media practices like posting a copy with interesting images in order to increase user engagement. This, in turn, will increase the +1s as well as the comments written on your page.

LinkedIn

Not only is LinkedIn an amazing platform to build up professional contacts and networks, but it is also a good way to show off your website to professional peers. LinkedIn is a great place to link to your website through broadcasts and will help build an awesome SEO ranking.

Anna McHenry
Anna McHenry is the Director of Client Services here at McKremie. She tweets from @McKremie so stop by and say "hi" on Twitter.

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