Does social media influence SEO?

Are social media presence and SEO connected?

We are asked from time to time if social media benefits SEO.

Professional opinions on the topic differ. What we know, is that there have been responses from Google over the last few years that social media profiles are not being taken into consideration in page rankings.

However, what we can do is run tests and check. That is what I like about SEO: everything needs to be always proven with data. It’s not a matter of opinions as a matter of facts and figures.

And there is data to show that there is a correlation between social media and ranking position.

Proof of a connection between social media and SEO

If you check the top-ranking websites on Google for keywords in your niche, in your industry, you will see that these websites ranking in top positions display social media signals which are stronger than competitors.

Yes, there might be some kind of reciprocal effect, an overlap between the brand performance, the social media presence and the ranking position as they do influence each other. It’s not easy to see where is the limit between the influence of social media interactions with ranking or vice versa, but there are some things that you need to consider.

We had a few clients in the past who did not want to use their website blog because they tended to find Facebook, Twitter or Instagram much easier than writing blog posts. Blog posts take time to research, write and possibly optimise. However, businesses should plan a complete strategy that touches all the possible acquisition points.

What we recommend is for a company to use their website as its content headquarters.

Storing your content on your website can help with ranking on Google because the pages will be indexed and ranked.

Creating content on your website is also fundamental for user engagement and customer journey.

However, social media can let your business be found and linked to from third-party websites.

These backlinks can strongly influence your ranking position and increase your domain authority, which greatly benefits your SEO efforts.

To achieve this, you need to consider using your social media as a source of distribution of your content, which will be originally hosted on your site.

A site is easier to be browsed than a social media feed, if in the future you want to find an article or if you want to link articles internally to each other – please do so, because linking pages and articles helps your SEO, your user experience, and your website performance!

Which content to produce on social media and on your site

Sharing content should never come from a promotion perspective but from a service point of view. You are trying to help your users and open up conversations with them.

Producing content on your site and sharing it via social media keeps running like a feedback loop because you provide customers with material and they provide you with insight into what they need. If you pay attention by reading comments, posts, hashtags, and discussions in groups and communities where your ideal customers are, you will find an abundance of valuable content ideas.

If you would like a free consultation on what your business could achieve with an SEO plan, get in touch, so we can discuss how to make you Be Found Online.