Social Media Impact on SEO

Every website owner wants to improve his/her site’s rank. Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to rank higher because Google’s algorithm is quite tricky. When it comes to SEO, this topic has evolved. Lately, however, more and more businesses are emphasizing on the social impact on SEO as a part of Internet marketing strategy.

Years ago, keyword density was the best way to rank higher for a certain keyword. With the recent changes to Google’s algorithm, SEO has been replaced by intent and focus on improving user experience.

But some are still wondering how social media can impact SEO. With the popularity of social media marketing, it’s no wonder that almost every website owner emphasizes social as a vital part of SEO strategy.

When it comes to the impact of social media on SEO, Matt Cutts of Google announced in 2014 that social signals do not affect search rankings. However, he did admit that Google’s spiders crawl the pages of social media the same way they crawl other web pages.

These days, SEO experts know that the search engine giant does rely on Twitter in discovering new content. So, the number of tweets and re-tweets can play a role in the indexing process. The faster your site is indexed, the faster you can build your organic traffic.

On the other hand, moz.com concluded that social media plays an important role on SEO. Its correlation study stated that the quantity and quality of tweeted links, Google +1s, and Facebook shares are correlated with better search rankings. Although the study isn’t a proof, it shows the characteristics of web pages that tend to rank higher.

In terms of link building, social media can help search engines in understanding how to rank a certain website for a particular set of keywords. Google crawls several social media websites for data. As it crawls, it puts emphasis on the links and profiles, which are seen as credible.

Because Google wants every site to be credible, building a social media influence can be an ideal way to establish your site’s credibility. The number of likes and shares may help in improving your profile’s influence.

Although Google didn’t confirm the social media impact on SEO, you can’t deny the effects of social media in relation to search engine results. Those top-ranking websites have more social signals compared to those that don’t rank well. Even though there’s no direct proof yet that social media does impact ranking, it’s already enough to integrate social media marketing into your SEO campaign.