As search engines make deals with social sites like Twitter, it’s obvious that social media affects SEO. Matt Cutts, who works in Google’s Web Spam team, once said:
I filmed a video back in May 2010 where I said that we didn’t use “social” as a signal, and at the time, we did not use that as a signal, but now, we’re taping this in December 2010, and we are using that as a signal.
But the question really isn’t if social media affects SEO. It’s more so on how it affects SEO, right?
The rise of Google’s social search feature
Now, before you think that the increased relevance of social search recommendations is some sort of new craze resulting from the launch of the Google Plus social network, consider that Google launched the first version of its Google Social Search tool back in October 2009 and rolled the service out to all users in January 2010.
If you look at the screenshot above from the launch, Danny Sullivan made a few interesting observations about this new functionality.
The first is that Google’s initial social search launch was rolled out as a separate tool, versus a full integration into a user’s main results page. In order to use the service, you needed to be logged in to your Google profile and actively access the “Social” feature in the navigation bar.
Danny also noted that the specific connections Google was recognizing to populate its social results pages included blogs in your Google Reader, any contacts in your Gmail/Gchat accounts and any contacts you were connected to via profiles listed in your Google Profile. For example, if you were connected to a friend through Digg and had listed your Digg account within your Google Profile, that friend’s content could appear in your social search results.
The implications of Google social search
Now, fast forward to 2011… not only are these social recommendations showing up on main search engine results pages, there’s evidence that they’re displacing results that would have displayed based on traditional SEO. And that an author’s authority on social networking sites is influencing traditional SEO.
Just for a minute lets consider the idea that social recommendations might shake up traditional search engine results pages through personalized search. In a test by Rand Fishkin, he noticed that when he searched “cupcake madness” while logged in to his Google account the results were different.
Logged in:
Logged out:
Do you know why the results were different? In the first image, the result from the Everywhereist blog shows up only because of Rand’s wife is the owner of the site. Once he logged out, the result is replaced by the site that earned the third place spot through traditional SEO.
The effects of this change are huge because if you only invested in traditional SEO you can be bumped from the search engine results in seconds. So should you even worry about conventional SEO anymore? Do things like backlinks, keyword-optimized content and on-page optimization still matter?
Although those questions are important, answering them doesn’t take into account the full impact of the newly increased influence of social media on SEO. To do that, you need to look at how Google and the other search engines are quantifying social networking authority as a ranking factor within the traditional search engine results page as well.
Author authority: The latest ranking factor?
In December 1st, 2010 Danny Sullivan interviewed Bing and Google representatives on how Facebook and Twitter may impact search engine rankings. One of the questions he asked was the weighting of Twitter users and links shared in their tweets…
Bing responded with:
We do look at the social authority of a user. We look at how many people you follow, how many follow you, and this can add a little weight to a listing in regular search results.
And Google responded with:
Yes, we do use [tweeted links and RTs] as a signal. It is used as a signal in our organic and news rankings. We also use it to enhance our news universal by marking how many people shared an article.
And in response to the question, “Do you track links shared within Facebook, either through personal walls or fan pages?” the search engines had the following to say…
Bing said:
Yes. We look at links shared that are marked as “Everyone,” and links shared from Facebook fan pages.
And Google said:
We treat links shared on Facebook fan pages the same as we treat tweeted links. We have no personal wall data from Facebook.
Based on their answers, you can assume that social media plays a role in influencing the search engine results by giving preference based on the authority of the author and the number of times a piece of content is shared on social networking sites.
In SEOMoz’s 2011 Search Engine Factors Ranking report almost 132 SEO and social media experts predicted that social signals at the page level and domain level would have a greater impact on search engine rankings than traditional SEO factors.
Specific social media and search engine integrations
Of course, it’s one thing to know that social factors are increasingly affecting search engine rankings, but it’s another thing entirely to see what integrations are already in place and influencing results pages. By understanding exactly how the search engines use this data, you can come up with a marketing plan designed to rank in this new socially optimized world.
The following are the integrations currently in place between the search engines and each of the big 3 social media sites:
Although Facebook doesn’t make information stored on its personal profiles available for indexing, content shared on fan pages is fair game. In fact, according to an analysis of the data generated by TampaSEO, Facebook shares are one of the social signals most closely correlated with high search engine rankings:
And while the correlation doesn’t mean that Facebook shares by themselves lead to high rankings, it’s worth noting that Google and the other search engines also give preference to content shared on Facebook via annotated social search.
In the current Google Social Search implementation, content shared by Facebook contacts receives preferential positions in the search engine results, as well as with a picture of the person who shared it. By increasing the social proof of these results, Google increases the chances that this content will receive clicks.
One of the clearest integrations between social media and the search engines is the Twitter Search Engine on Bing. This tool enables you to search tweets in real-time from within the Bing search engine. And with the recent updates tweets are now in the Bing News feed, as well as a preferred treatment for content “liked” by a your Facebook and Twitter contacts.
And while the ability to search for tweets via Bing may not send much traffic to your social networking profile, there’s evidence that tweets or retweets of links by legitimate users on Twitter can lead to a bump in traditional SEO rankings as well.
Jennifer Lopez did a case study showing that after a tweet introducing her Beginners’ Guide to SEO was retweeted by Smashing Magazine, she noticed an immediate impact in terms of both traffic and rankings for a previously un-tracked keyword.
Google Plus
As Chris Brogan said:
A social network made by Google impacts search.
It doesn’t get much clearer than that. As a social networking service, as well as a search giant, Google has all the data necessary to implement changes to the search engine results based on social media. For example, they could hypothetically use the data generated by webmasters using Google Analytics, Webmaster tools, or their toolbar, plus the amount of traffic sent via social media sites by specific users. It’s not a big leap to assume that data from these services could be used to tie your website to authority social networking profiles and then increase your rankings.
And although evidence is difficult to come by as Google Plus is still new, you can already see the integration between the Google Plus network and the Google search engine results pages via social search annotations and the “+1” button that appears next to search results when you are logged into Google.
Conclusion
You need to get with the times and start expanding your presence on social media sites, instead of endlessly chasing the latest SEO tricks.
If you don’t believe me just think about the following quote from Matt Cutts in his keynote at Pubcon 2010:
Don’t look at us where we are today, but look at the direction we are moving and what we are focusing on, the big five are the mobile web, local search, social, blended results in the search engine results and HTML5.
Social media is impacting search engine results and if you want to get more traffic from search engines, you need to:
- Build an active, engaged presence on social networking sites – this isn’t exactly rocket science… if social media engagement is a new ranking factor, you simply can’t benefit if you aren’t there. If you haven’t already, now is the time to build profiles on these sites and invest time in connecting with your followers.
- Optimize your sites for social media sharing – if your sites are built on WordPress, installing a plugin like Sharebar to enable social sharing is something you have to do. Don’t rely on your users reading good content on your website and then taking the time to navigate to social networks to share it on their own. Instead, you have to provide them with the tools necessary to get the job done in the easiest way.
- Encourage your readers to share your content – smart marketers know that assuming people will take the action you want without you explicitly telling them to do so is a lost cause. You have to use strong calls to action in your posts, encouraging readers to share your content via social networks if they found it useful.
And most importantly, this doesn’t mean you should give up on traditional SEO. In March 2010, The Register reported that only 20% of searches on Google were personalized, and although that number is growing, there’s no way it will be 100% of all internet users.
There will always be people who hate social networking or refuse to build the Google Profile. These people will only ever see the traditional search engine results, so you still need to follow all of the regular SEO best practices.
There’s no doubt that traditional SEO is slowly fading in importance when you compare it with the new social optimization indicators. So if you aren’t yet active in the social media world, you better start running because you don’t have time to walk.
How do you think social media will impact SEO over the next year?
This amazing course will teach you, step by step, how to double if not triple your traffic over the next 30 days.
I have seen SERP differences of 8-9 positions, completely shuffling the entire first page. What interests me is the scope of the SERP injections. I see it as moving over the social graph like ripples across water. The more influence the person has who shared your content, the more SERPs are impacted. The network effect means that, among your first and second order connections, you could have a dramatic impact on search rank with a single piece of optimized, shared content.
All true, thanks for the tips and pointers Scott .
“The more influence the person has who shared your content, the more SERPs are impacted.”
Just wanted to add that this seems to be true for me as well, prominent people that I follow always have their shares ranked more highly than my other “regular” connections.
Great article Neil. Superbly explained. Thank you.
Glad you found it helpful thanks Vinay.
Great content as always Neil. Thanks for putting this together as the SEO/SM landscape is constantly changing.
Definitely, glad I could help .
Should I have a FB share button my homepage, or a FB fanpage on FB? What’s more important?
It’s really up to you, and it’s based upon your product.
I don’t know if this helps Jon, but I have found that when my Facebook fan page shares a link to my blog, that share can rank on the front page of Google even when I am logged out of my account. I am a firm believer in having my own fanpage share a link to each of my blog posts for SEO purposes.
Why make it either or though? No harm in giving the reader of a post a button to easily share on his Facebook wall as well.
Tammi, you mean have both a personal page *and* a fan page, and then have both buttons on your site? I never thought of that. I wanted to make sure that’s what you meant. (I don’t think I’ve ever seen both buttons on one site, though.)
I think that would be over doing it to have both? You want to make it easy for your readers to click 1 button or link, like or google +1. If you give them two options for the same personal and fan page, I wonder how many would do both or one or the other?
Hey Neil… nice post… good info to process.
Thanks Jessie, good luck!
Nice article Neil. I like the way you did your own research and backed up your findings with real results and case studies you did yourself.
Thanks for sharing!
Glad I could help Mike
I was not known all this. Thanks Neil, You are always Helpful.
Glad I could help, good luck
Nice post Neil, One thing is very true keywords put much effect in SERP result if we are using perfect keywords for our site then it’s sure they will give to us positive response.
Beside that we should follow rules of SEO, this option can help lots for us.
Thanks, I hope you utilize the tips I provided.
Social Media is definitely one of the ways forward online, and it’s a must for any business that want to succeed and build an online presence. At the moment more business still need to understand the importance of social media as aprox 47 Percent of SMBs Still Not Using Social Media. Many of business just need educating, or someone in house to be trained to manage their social media presence.
Definitely, having the tools and resources is definitely essential.
According to my analysis Facebook generates more traffic than twitter. I think it is conencted with that fact that users on Facebook have more oportunities. In Twitter you have limited characters to type and IMHO this is the problem for many.
As for me, I’m pretty sure that Google+ social network will give Internet users something new because it has a viral effect as you can see
BTW, thanks for detailed research!
I agree with your points. We will definitely have to see how Google + works out.
It was a nice step from Google on “Google social search” . Social Network is very useful for getting targeted traffic, if you have a business and you want to promote it through online then networking will helpful. Increase your webpage/site traffic by social activities
Right on point! Thanks for the tips
It works in SEO, I opened a Facebook page and immediately we jumped up two places in the SERPm from 7 to 5.
That’s Awesome. Congrats!
According to this article if you are not optimizing your social media properly, You are planing to loose your audience as you will not be visible on the popular search engines. Thanks neil for this neatly explained article. I am one of them who is not getting too much traffic thus till now was bot bothered to optimize social media.
Definitely, I am glad I could be of some help
Good information, maybe I will try and crack open a twitter account….maybe!
You should
Nice article, Neil
Thanks, much appreciated
Social Media is one of the most powerful term of today’s and it helps in many ways today there are more chances of getting good traffic from social media sites and i personally have good experience of it.
Great points, I completely agree. Good luck!
Great article on this moving landscape. one thing that i like about SM is that you can get the message out fast w/out relying on the search engines. (if you have a huge following)
Definitely, it works better than email sometimes.
I was actually quite confused about the impact of social media on website traffic. This article has very well explained the reasons for using social media and its impact on website traffic.
Glad I could help Abhishek
Thorough and timely as usual. Good work. Thanks
Thanks Dave, I appreciate the kind words
Thanks Neil I will take it into account.
Awesome! Thanks David!
Here we go again…
Earlier this year we did a case study that showed no evidence that Likes were the new Links (http://truth.thehoth.com/seo/likes-links-case-study-results/).
With that said, there is no denying that results are being personalized so here are a few theories I have on the impact of social on SEO.
#1. If your product or company serves a niche, you will greatly benefit if its share by a bunch of people in that niche. Think startups, for instance. Everyone in the startup world is probably 3 degrees of separation, tops. So if you have about 50 reasonably well networked starters share your site, there is a very high likelihood that you’ll reach a crap-load more starters because of the closely knit community.
I’m not sure how much weight the volume of social signals has. Meaning, if something is shared by 1000 accounts with no relevant connections, I don’t know that it’ll have any SERP impact.
#2. SOCIAL SHOWS AUTHORITY, NOT RELEVANCE. Read that again.
Let’s say you have a page trying to rank for “car insurance” and you get 1000 likes, 1000 shares and 1000 tweets and 0 links. Will you rank for “car insurance?” I’d bet a decent amount that you wouldn’t.
Why?
Because how are the search engines supposed to know WHAT to rank you for? On-site SEO, and relevant links are still going to be absolutely crucial in deciding who ranks for *what terms*. Social signals, at best, will only signal that something is “rank worthy.”
So don’t declare “traditional SEO” (e.g. optimized sites & quality links) dead. If you’re trying to rank with social alone you’ll be fighting an uphill battle.
In general, I think this is the direction the search engines are going, filter layers as opposed to outright new ranking factors. I think the on-site seo + link profile model worked well for a very long time and the SEs know that. They have no reason to just throw it in the trash. So they’re adding filter layers to clean up some of that model’s imperfections.
I’d be glad to discuss this idea of filter layers more.
Wow, very well said! That just made a lightbulb light up in my brain — that explains why numerous times, lower page rank websites rank *higher* than those of higher page rank — because in a case like that, perhaps the SE’s know what the site with lower page rank is about, but not quite sure what the site w/ the higher rank is about. Makes sense!
The jury is still isn’t out. However, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your comment
thanks!
Excellent! Thank you for sharing Neil.
Glad you enjoyed it Laura
Thanks for the post: I am fairly new to the blogging world and SEO is still a bit of a quagmire. However, everything I read seems to suggest that social sharing is becoming increasingly important for ranking.
Definitely. Just keep reading articles and soon you will become a pro
This is a relief to hear that traditional SEO could slowly phase out. I prefer social influence traffic over competing with companies who have a bigger and better budget than ours. (As a small business, I feel like it’s a small way to ‘stick it to the man’ if I had to use cliche terms.) We considered for some time to pay for sponsored tweets, and a sponsored space on Google. But then I wonder if that works. Clearly, they look like paid spaces. I never click on them, does anyone else? I wonder how many other people out there spend as much time as I do trying to figure out the magic formula recipe it takes to get major traffic to our website.
It’s funny because you think what you have to offer is so important and will sincerely make a difference, but without the secret ingredients it amounts to nil.
As far as next year I feel the difference from traffic from Twitter already. But I feel like Google + will be on the forefront.
Definitely, I can’t wait to see how Google Plus actually pans out. Cheers
This is actually one of the best articles that I’ve read so far on this site. I guess everyone reading this will see the undeniable rapport between social search, search results and search engine placings. Adding those figures and illustrations really makes the picture quite clear.
Thanks, that really means a lot. Glad you take the time to read the articles
Great and interesting article! I believe sponsored tweets and gaming social media will be an issue in the future…btw sharebar was a great tip, thanks.
Thanks Tomas, glad you enjoyed the article!
This is Great,
Thanks Neil for this good research,
Kind Rgds
Glad you found it helpful Peter, good luck!
Another nicely written article. The topic stresses me a little bit because lately I’ve been so short on time. And when I see how important getting involved in some of the newer social networks are, I get a bit worried I won’t have the time to develop any of that. I guess we just do what we can.
You should register yourself with Neil. And you will get updates directly in your mailbox.
I’m going to do that right now, I didn’t know I could do that. Of course, now that I look closer, there’s a huge “subscribe” window on the right, I need to pay closer attention to details! Thanks!!
Hahaha, thanks guys. Much appreciated
Yes, now logged in account makes the difference, if one of your friend +1 any website then it will show you on top in SERP when you searched with login account. And this social media feature make a huge impact on SEO, on other hand sharing link on Gplus profile is not make any difference right now, but again if someone tweet with huge followers profile will make the difference for 1 to 2 days…
Yes, perhaps. It definitely has an impact
This is so true! social media is an effective tool to get exposure and for creating brand awareness. the best part of social media is that you can have others opinion about your product.. i guess this is the only reason why we are seeing such a huge turnouts of companies in media’s like FB & Twitter
Online Business Virtual Assistant
Definitely Shilpi. Thanks for your input as always.
Hello Neil,
I also checked the SMO effect on my sites. After get involved with SMO , I got results then before.
You’ll have to tell me how that worked out for you
I was hoping for an article like this to come around. So social networking site are now crucial to business but that was to be expected in an ever changing and challenging environment of the internet. Thanks for the timely advise.
Glad you found it useful, good luck with your optimization efforts
Twitter is losing down, too much of spam on it.
Not sure that is entirely true, but thanks for your input
Social media is the biggest generator for new content. No wonder Google had a tie up with Twitter to feature their tweets on its SERP. But considering the fact that tweets need not necessarily be factually correct, did Google ensure relevancy of content? Anyone?
That’s a great comment. Perhaps I’ll write a blog post on that topic
hey niel good article. am not still sure that google will search facebook profiles or links in thier search results which is a big minus as far as search for social goes. but who knows there es could be search right within facebook which matters more than anything else
Very true, that is an interesting twist on the situation. Thanks for your feedback mukesh.
the is an excellent post with so much details. now i am paying more attention to social media well i have to i guess…..
Good luck Ray!
I had a doubt about Social media impact on SEO, thanks for making that doubt a history.
Glad I could help
Wow great thread book mark it, here lots of tips and information about seo thanks pal for sharing very help full for me!!
Glad you found it helpful Sunny. Good luck with your efforts, and thanks for sharing.
If you have most of your info blocked on facebook does that affect it? Should you lower some of the privacy walls so as to be more able to be crawled.?
I don’t think that factors in as much, but transparency might play a small factor in the game.
This is one of the clearest explanations of the impact of Social on search I have seen in one place. Thanks for making a clear explanation with back-up data.
Glad I could help, good luck David
I hate to be a parrot, but great article! Also, impeccable timing! I have a client who wants to improve SEO, but refuses to believe Social Media has a place in her business. Hopefully this will help!
Thanks Julia, thanks for the kind words of support!
The only thing I have doubts about is Google+ and it’s influence over rankings. The only reason I say that is because they require people to login in order to have their search results influenced by the people in their Network. I just don’t see that happening. I do however like the fact that Google is using signals from Twitter.
BTW, when did J Lo start doing SEO? (haha was that joke made already?)
I haven’t heard that joke lol.
Very interesting and informative and yes I definitely agree about how social media affects seo.. Thanks Neil for sharing some tips for us to follow and hope to build social media presence.. thanks.
Thanks, glad you found the tips helpful IT
Sometimes I get discouraged. If someone book marks my site on a social site, or whatever, I think wow that’s cool, my site got a mention. But then I get discouraged when I visit other websites similar to mine, and see that they have 5,000 or even 10,000 book marks or shares or whatever. What’s one to do?
Just keep it up! I’ve learned first hand that even at low levels, as long as you keep it up and be consistent, you’ll be “discovered.”
We don’t get many shares yet we met a publisher on Twitter and have a book deal with one of the largest publishing houses in the world. She sought us out!
Thank you for the encouragement! I’ve never known what kind of posts I should make on Twitter to get the word out about myself, so I had a “to-do” list with a message to myself to figure out how to improve on my Twitter account. Your reply is perfect timing — I’ve moved that “message to myself” up to top priority! I’ll check out yoru website tonight, too. Thanks again Kim!
Great advice guys. It’s true just keep it up and work at it. Eventually you’ll see a big push.
Thanks for this up to the minute post, I am new here so really appreciate refreshing ideas.
Glad I could help you out Kay
I’m so glad you shared this. I was noticing how my searches changed when I was logged in and logged out of my Google account.
This also is redeeming because I was sharing in my Mastermind group about sites such as Klout where you can see your authority and the mediator cut me off, saying, “I only want to hear about sites that’ll make me money. I could care less if I have any authority or who retweets me.” So I guess he should care!
Definitely, next time you should challenge the mediator
I can simply say thank you. Your wonderful explanation made it much clearer that how Social Media would and is impacting the SEO. Insights backed up with real findings and proofs are appreciable. Thanks for sharing.
Glad I could help, Thanks Shahid!
Interesting stuff. I had already seen some time ago that one got different results based on not only where you were but whether you were signed into a Google account or not; that’s kind of freaky in general.
The other thing I know is coming is with this Google +1 thing because they’ve been big on trying to link people, at least on Android phones, and if you’re looking for something that one of your friends has given approval to, that site might come up first for that reason only and not necessarily because it’s the best authority site for your needs. And in my opinion there’s no way to optimize for that and the game becomes trying to encourage people to click that little button to make your site more Google friendly, at least to people you know. I’m not sure that’s how it should work.
There are many tips and tricks, some great some bad. You really have to find a middle ground.
I bet G’s search algo will always put more weight on it’s own attempt at social features (ie G +) more than proven social sites that already have reached critical mass. But if they really wanted to improve search quality they would just let Fbook, twitter etc hold these positions in their algo rather than them trying to create something in house….which will probably never be as valuable as the ones already out there.
Definitely, I completely agree. Thanks for reading Dan!
I am new to this whole SEO stuff. Have to say that I love this post. Lots of fresh perspective going beyond the often repeated advise of article marketing and blog comments. Well done
Thanks Gabi! Good luck and welcome
“You need to get with the times and start expanding your presence on social media sites, instead of endlessly chasing the latest SEO tricks.”
I totally agree with you. This is what I’ve been doing.
Thanks Neil
Joan
Awesome, good luck to you Joan!
It is true that more popular peoples post have a greater ranking that why it is good to make sure that you monitor and grow your social profile. It is like everything when you start out your small but once you get more active you draw more attention and as long as you are providing great information you will gain credibility.
Definitely, credibility and truthfulness matter
Not surprised that this will make some impact somewhere…. It all goes back to authority
Definitely, thanks for the read.
Neil, thx for the great post…
Do you think the authority of tweet or facebook share is effected by the number of followers/friends by that particular account..I have already witness SEO’s trying to “game” the system.
Not sure all together about that, however, I am sure there is some correlation however minute.
amazing. thanks for sharing I will keep in mind all your advices.
Thanks Aja, glad you took the time to read
Great article. I have been using social media quite a lot, but did not realise the impact that it had on search engine results. Looks like Google is using Social media as more ‘votes’.
Definitely, that is probably why they rolled out G plus.
Hi Neil, I had a break from being up since 4:am and finally had some free time to myself to read other blogger sites, and that’s when I came across your blog, it’s just full of valuable content and resources I just had to bookmark it for another free time
to myself break. My question is what do you do when you come across a blog for later use and can’t keep your word, or remember to read it?
You just have to write it down somewhere, I usually send an email to myself.
social recommendation are a good way to find quality stuff
It definitely is. Thanks for reading Jemois
Thanks for this. I’m starting out and found this unbelievably useful. I’ll be reading quite a bit on here in the next few days/weeks. I really appreciate your expertise. – Larry
No problem Larry. I hope you start implementing some of the things you learned from this blog post as it will help you increase your rankings in the long run.
Well, don’t you think Google has become a marketplace of its own?
You make a good point. That is indeed what Google has become.
Hey Neil great blog post. Well, in today’s time social media websites plays a huge role for promoting the business online. I quiet surprised when I see the businesses that are not active on social media sites. To gain more traffic as well as profit it is highly essential to remain active on the social media websites.
Definitely,
I agree. Social media can be a huge asset to a business, if they know how to work them.
A business could utilize social media to produce great traffic and profit, like you said.
Thanks Neil for this good research,
Kind Rgds
Always a pleasure,
Glad you enjoyed it.
plz help me how to know the performance thru social media sites.
I would say keep updated with my post and learn what you can from them.
If you do that as well as read other blogs and articles, you should be just fine.
I still have my doubts about social media. Notice how you have 700+ tweets, 95+ fboook shares and 60+ plus 1′. With so much shares you should be ranking so high if social media is so important. At this time you rank #1 for “how social networks helps you rank up” but notice that this is really not because of your sites social network affiliations but more to do with your meta tags and content here. In fact, t this time even your Page Rank is O and what does that tell us? If you changed your met tags and found the keywords outside them, you will no longer rank1 1 for the keyword. Never the less i am not disputing the power of social networks, they are great for marketing and my add points to the optimization process but I just don’t get why so many people seem to place importance on it. So far I’ve noticed its effects are not durable. There needs to be more research. In any case thank you for the post.
Great content as always Neil. Thanks for putting this together as the SEO/SM landscape is constantly changing.
Thanks,
I agree, the landscape of SEO/SM constantly goes through changes.
I usually use social media as a point of contact for my audiences specially if my updates are not visible in search engines yet. In that way, it gives me an initial traffic from it.
If that works for you then stick to it. Thanks for your input.
Social media website play good role of massive traffic for promoting your online big business. I quiet surprised also social media website help to your business keyword ranking in SERP. To gain more traffic as well as profit it is extremely important to remain active on the social media website.
Yep, social media is a huge benefit in business. It can really expand your business to a more vast customer base.
I think Google is trying to get these features into their algo but they don’t have enough data or the ability to do it themselves as of right now. They could always use Facebook and twitter, but then they wouldn’t have the personal data that they are probably trying to gather on their own social services. If they used Fbook and twitter, I think people could game the SE’s much easier.
This is definitely a wave of the future.. something to get in on now
Interesting, it is certainly possible. I would strongly suggesting trying it out and seeing how it works out for you. Definitely something to join in on.
Now i see why is my website ranking on google`s first page when i seach for one of my keywords … Thanks for informations , but can you tell me how to stop that ? Because if i search it with other browser or on other pc i see different search results . I have logged off from google account but still the same thing .
You actually have to go into your google account and delete the history. Google saves your search history and the sites you click on the most ‘usually your own’ and shows those results on top, even though they don’t rank on top.
I searched my name last year and it appeared on the 10th page of google. Being a social junkie I made my twitter profile and was quick to adopt to Google plus. Thanks for social media, my twitter and google plus appears on the first page ahead of a number of bigger names and companies out there.
Good, happy to hear you were able to learn to use such social media sites to your advantage.
many sites SELL “”likes”" for facebook etc .
is it same same as organic ? would it hurt seo ?>
thanks
It’s not the same as organic as those people probably won’t be as engaged compared to when someone organically likes your page or story.
It shouldn’t hurt SEO.
Interesting topic, though it’s obvious that Facebook and Tweeter does have the strongest impact. It all boils down to Authority.
It is obvious to some people who are use to using social media. For others who are new to it, may not understand the full impact of these sites.
As an SEO analyst I got very useful information for me in the above post, Thanks for sharing Neil….:)
Great, happy to hear it helped.
This is really interesting. I had been burying my head in the sand about social media and not thinking that Google etc would place such massive importance on it, but this has really changed my mind.
thanks
I am glad you have a new perspective on the matter. Social media really can create a huge difference in the level of success you reach.
Thanks for the share and I’m glad I made some fan pages for my site. And I didn’t notice that google has social search features.
No problem, happy my information was useful to you.
So does it mean that placing a link in the YouTube description and all the comments with links will be picked up by Google?
Anytime you place a link on any site, google will pick it up. At the end of the day it is up to them to determine whether they will count it or not.
Thanks Neal for this post. Found it very interesting and clear.
), thought it didn’t or just in little part.
Didn’t know Google could give this importance to social networks (that it means making my job harder
Should begin to put more effort on social networks than I have been doing till now!
Happy to hear you found it helpful. I would definitely recommend putting more time into social media if you haven’t already been doing so. You will be surpassed at the impact it can have.
Good article Neil, good introduction and confirming the fact that social cannot be ignored. It is slightly different in Czech republic where I am from where Google+ and Twitter have very few users but Facebook is big and is and will be impacting search seriously.
Thank you Petr,
Interesting I didn’t know that about the Czech republic. Thanks for sharing.
Neil, I appreciate you shining more clarity on the subject of social media and search engine optimization. The two go together like peanut butter and jelly, ham and cheese, cookies and ice cream…you get my point. On a serious note, I have enjoyed the dynamics of increasing the S.E.O. of my sites via social media.
Best,
Stacie Walker
Woman in Leadership
Thanks Stacie,
Glad to hear that this post has been useful to you.
I think G+ is the best way these days to get good rankings in Search Engine as it also shows your friends shares and +1. Being in a large circle can surely give a benefit as they say +1 your skills to become a SM Expert ..!
That is definitely one of the main reasons to get on it.
Thanks for another helpful article about Social Media.
No problem, happy to help.
Thanks for your Post. You have provided Very Informative and interesting information. Glad to get such a great information. As far as my Knowledge, Google Plus, Twitter, Facebook Play Important roles to get higher Rankings on Search Engine. Thanks for your Updates.
Yep, you are correct.
Not only are social shares and social signals impacting a sites’ authority and page rank but when you consider how important rel=author has become since G+ has become main stream, the longer you wait to create a body of work in your niche that has your rich snippet connected to it, the longer it will take for you and your site to attain “thought leadership” status. I for one have been building my “social shares seo” mantra since the early days of G+
Definitely, I agree completely Neil.
hey neil,
i liked this post very much. thanks you for posting such an informative article.
Thanks.
Matt
I began to create accounts for my site on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc… because I read that the socializing could help me to get more traffic. Indeed, as soon as I created them and invited friends, the graphics on Google Webmaster tools showed great increase of visits. Your article confirmed what I read in other places, but you explained this subject in a more detailed manner. Thank you!
Thanks for the share and I’m glad I made some fan pages for this site. And I didn’t notice that google has social search features.Your article confirmed what I read in other places, but you explained this subject in a more detailed manner. Thank you!
Thanks for the share and I’m glad I made some fan pages for this site. And I didn’t notice that google has social search features.Your article confirmed what I read in other places, but you explained this subject in a more detailed manner. Thank you!
Thanks for the post: I am fairly new to the blogging world and SEO is still a bit of a quagmire.Thank you so much!
This is very fascinating, You are an excessively professional blogger.
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post. Also, I have shared your site in my social networks
Thanks, glad you find it helpful
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Gaining an improved level of traction on social network platforms, particularly if that traction proceeds from profiles with a bigger ‘author authority’, might have got a real impact on your SEO rank.
Great point. Thanks for reading!
Great article. I have found social media a huge part in SEO, would never look back!
Great! Thanks for reading