The Indirect Role Social Media Plays in SEO Success
Have you ever wondered how the terms you enter into search engines influence the results that are listed? Search engine optimization has two key elements that influence these results and how they are presented. There are on-page factors, which include site content, usability and accessibility; and off-page factors, including different inbound links that influence the degree of which search engines think websites are important.
There is no evidence that social media has a direct impact on users search, as Google’s crawlers are unable to access password protected sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Similarly, users who share links on these social sites do not influence SEO page rankings. There is though a large indirect role that social media plays in the link-acquisition process and here’s why it’s important:
Link-Building: The Old Way
Acquiring inbound links has always been the hardest, most labor-intense tasks in off-page SEO. Because Google and the other engines prohibit publishers from soliciting links in exchange for monetary or other consideration, the only course open to a publisher is to provide original, link-worthy content, and then contact webmasters individually, usually using e-mail. While it’s possible to get legitimate links this way, the process is inefficient.
Link-Building: The New Way
Social media changes the process for the better. While individual webmasters from which links are sought can still be contacted when a new article posts, the publisher’s chances of acquiring links are vastly expanded. Publishers can now identify specific social media influencers and social groups relevant to the article topic, and notify them that a new page or article exists. While some targets of the notification may simply retweet, like, or favorite the notification (none of which convey any SEO value in themselves), some percentage of this audience may take the final, desired step of including a hard link to the publisher’s article in their blog or site.
Social Link-Building Tips
1. Identify appropriate online groups in your industry. The people most likely to respond — and link to an item you publish are those in your own industry. Take some time to find such groups, join them, monitor the discussion, and post a link to your article when it fits the context of the discussion.
2. Identify Social Influencers with blogs. Because you’re ultimate goal is a hard link that conveys SEO value, don’t chase after social influencers on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn who don’t actively maintain blogs (not all of them do).
3. Go where the reporters go. Reporters love Twitter because its real-time nature lets them jump on news events and develop sources quickly. If you’re doing something interesting (for example, releasing a new data-driven report), make sure you notify the groups where reporters are most likely to be lurking.
4. Resist the temptation to spam irrelevant articles into the conversational stream: any notifications you make must be relevant to the discussion at hand.
5. Think beyond articles. Articles you post on your blog may work as good link bait, but blog articles are pretty much a commodity today. Consider adding additional forms of content that provide more value, for example, e-books and slide share presentations. Although you’ll have to put more labor into these high-value content types, you’ll be creating content that’s more link-worthy.
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