However, many SEO experts argue that social media, whilst a ranking factor, doesn’t have any significant influence on your SEO performance.
So which one is it? Do social media signals influence your search ranking or not?
I believe the correlation is stronger than most people think… but it’s easy to be misled.
In 2014, Matt Cutts published a video saying that social metrics, such as Twitter followers and Facebook likes, which indicate a profile’s influence and authority, don’t directly affect search rankings.
However, if you dive a little deeper into what Cutts actually says in this statement, the answer isn’t so black and white.
The rest of this article will form a battle tested case for why SEO focused marketers should consider social media signals in their search strategy.
Let’s go back in time to be able to predict the future…
In a more recent statement than the above video, Cutts stated that social signals are among the ranking factors that Google consider. This was said during an interview with Danny Sullivan to learn how search engines consider social signals as a ranking factor.
During this talk, Cutts said that “who you are on Twitter can definitely impact how well your page ranks on a regular search page”. This somewhat confirms that social media signals are one of Google’s ranking factors.
To add to this statement, research by Searchmetrics found that social media signals have a strong correlation with articles that rank well. Is this just a coincidence?
Evidence that affirms this fact is an infographic published by Moz that indicates that social signals contribute almost 4% to the efforts of getting a web page to rank high in Google search results.
SEO and Social media are two interwoven marketing strategies. Both are inbound and organic strategies that concentrate on building an appealing identity which, in turn attracts visitors naturally.
Since social media heavily relies on a strong, visible brand presence and high-quality content, the efforts you will spend on SEO will no doubt increase your social media reach and vice versa – your strong social media presence will greatly increase your search ranking.
Unfortunately, when asked how social media can directly influence your Google rankings, most marketers don’t mention the details.
Instead of discussing exactly why and how an increased social media presence can improve your SEO; it is always written off as a generality, leaving marketers to wonder whether or not their strategies are actually working.
To fix this, I have made a list of social media practices that will almost certainly improve your SEO.
Let’s take a closer look…
1. Develop a content marketing strategy
Content marketing is almost always the answer! Especially when it comes to SEO and social…
