What does social media provide in terms of SEO? At MWI, we get lots of questions from our current and prospective clients. Social media is a fast expanding marketing channel that many companies have only started using in the past few years, however it’s crucial to make use of – especially if you’re investing resources in search engine optimization. While the advantages of social media are not immediately apparent, they are essential for SEO support. Below are five reasons why social media is vital to SEO.

1.) Social Media Signals

It’s not difficult to see that Google, Bing, and other search engines utilize online conversation as part of their algorithm for ranking. When people tweet, like or comment on the content they like that is known as a social engagement. A piece of content that has more engagements on social media will be able to show more social signals. Search engines analyze the social signals they receive, and then use them as a quality factor when ranking content. It’s a method of determining what content people find useful in comparison to what their algorithm determines to be top-quality. If the content you’re looking at receives a lot of social engagement the content can be indexable.

2.) Link Building

It is long past the period when you could just get hyperlinks from other sites. With the emergence of Google’s Panda and Penguin algorithm, SEOs are forced to create links in the old fashioned way to create quality content that is worthy of linking. But how do you reach websites willing to link to your content if asking them directly is considered an «unnatural» link building practice? Social media is the answer. Social media enables you to put your content in front of relevant audiences that may be attracted to link to it if it’s worth linking to. These users will then be able to share your content with other people and increase your reach.

3.) Content Amplification

It doesn’t matter how high-quality the content you publish, it will not be popular unless you amplify it. Yes, Rwx.quest/wiki/index.php/Five_Reasons_Why_Social_Media_Is_Important_For_SEO email marketing is an excellent way to increase the reach of your content, but it can only reach the people in your marketing database. Social media lets you connect with new audiences through your content. If you post your content to your followers, they’ll be sure to share it with their own followers in the event that they find it helpful. Then those people will also share it with their friends which will increase the reach of your content. In addition, you’ll gain relevant traffic, inbound linking as well as social signals and brand recognition All of which are used by search engines for content to determine the quality of your content.

content amplification lifecycle

4) Brand Awareness and Signals

Brand identity and awareness can inform search engines an awful lot about the overall quality of your website as well as how much it is respected in their ranking algorithms. Aside from amplifying your content social media also aids in create brand awareness. Google calls this co-citation. These co-citations are built by using social media to boost Google’s trust as well as aid with branded searches.

5.) Social Indexing

Since the search engines index social media accounts these profiles are now showing on search results pages. This allows your company to be displayed on search results when you type in branded search queries , which is more than just your company website. This is even more effective. Tweets on their own from Twitter could be indexed and displayed in search results. This allowed your content to rank higher on the results of a search. This was just temporary for a few months before Google took the decision to end it , up to now. Google will once again show tweets in search results, so it’s important to leverage it for getting your content ranked.