By Jim Clanin
A few weeks ago we posted Part I of How Social Media Affects SEO and demystified the often misunderstood notion of how social media can benefit an SEO strategy. Having lots of social media activity will not have a direct impact on your search rankings, but it will have a positive indirect effect. Some of the ideas we discussed in the last post included creating link potential; how likes, +1s, tweets, and comments help; how Google + activity personalizes search results; and how brand awareness increases search. Today, we’ll discuss a few more ideas including website traffic, profile ranking, and search engines other than Google.
Website Traffic
Social media activity can increase the amount of website visitors, which is an important factor to search engines in ranking your site. So basically, website activity begets more website activity. It’s important that the website content is interesting enough to keep visitors on your page long enough to watch your full video or read your entire blog post so that the visit isn’t considered a bounce. Bounce rates, pages per visit, and the amount of time on the site is measured by search engines, and that information is used to influence ranking. It’s also important to consider crafting intriguing titles in your social media posts to lure more people to your site. Just be sure that your catchy titles hold true to the page content.
Profile Ranking
Having social media accounts helps control what turns up for an organic search of a particular company. For example, below we show a Google search for Starbucks. What shows up includes (in order) an ad, the company website, locations nearby, news, and then…. their social media accounts! Not only that, but on the right-hand side is their company Google profile. Starbucks has better control of their search real estate by having social media accounts. This gives them the best brand coverage possible and increases visitors to the company website rather than somewhere else.
Google Isn’t the Only Search Engine
Yes, Google is the most popular search engine with 5.74 billion searches per day, and a beast to be reckoned with. However it’s not the only search engine to consider, and on top of it, search engines are not the only tool used for searching. Every social media network has a search function, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and more. Just consider Twitter which has 2.1 billion search engine queries each day! If your company wants to draw traffic in, it’s important to show up in as many places as possible for Internet searches.
Search engines have become more sophisticated in order to deliver the best quality results possible, and in today’s Internet, social media plays a huge role. Don’t underestimate the power of how your company’s social media activity can affect yours search engine results. Start out by being strategic and knowing how the activity will help, and then be consistent.
Do you need help with your company’s SEO plan? Contact DoubleDome today at (888) 799-6067!
