Social media influence is gradually growing as most individuals and brands use social media for numerous functions. We can use social media platforms to connect with friends and share numerous educational, informative, or recreational things. You can also use social media for sharing links to different events or programs going viral.
With the growth of social media as an entertainment and marketing tool, the main question most individuals ask is; does social media affect SEO? Read through the article to get the perfect response to the question and how it may affect SEO.
Can Social Media Affect SEO?
After learning about the importance of social media in marketing and branding, the common question is; does social media affect SEO? Yes, social media generally affects SEO. It affects SEO positively by using an indirect mechanism to boost your SEO and website visibility. Most brands and individuals are using different social media platforms to get more organic traffic for their websites, thus increasing the rankings on the search engine results.
However, to achieve the best results from your SEO strategy, you need to have the proper mechanism to produce and post quality content for your target audience. After which, you can use different social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and many others to share your information. Let’s look at how social media can affect your SEO.
How Does Social Media Affect SEO?
Social media plays a vital role in improving your website’s SEO, though the impacts are usually indirect. It becomes essential for positively impacting certain SEO factors like organic traffic, which later affects the ranking of your websites on the search engine results. Below are the primary ways on how social media impacts your SEO:
1. Drives organic traffic
Having good organic traffic is a significant determining factor when seeking to get higher ranks on search engines. Having active social media accounts improves the visibility of your websites, making more audiences view your content. If you’ve got an extensive network of friends on social media platforms, they can share your website’s links or content within their networks. Sharing the content helps drive more organic traffic to your website, which later helps boost your rankings. Experts reveal that when your website links or content is trending on different social media, you might have even more than double the usual traffic on your website.
2. Profile ranks in the search results
When having your social media profiles, it’s essential to understand that they aren’t confined to social media only. The profiles will also be beneficial for helping to boost your ranks in the search engines. When you have an easily visible and branded profile, they’ll help your page appear on top pages of the search engines.The appearance on the top pages of the different search engines results will be essential to enhance your brand’s visibility and growth. Lastly, the profiles can be important to guide your targeted audience to find valuable content and enhance the brand’s personality.
3. Improving your content reach
When seeking to boost your content reach, social media can present the perfect opportunity for achieving your goals. You can reach the majority of your targeted audience with just a single post on your social media platform. Unlike the search engines where the audience will only get your content when searching for the relevant keyword, social media allows everyone to see your content. Importantly for most users to click and read your content, you must draft well-researched and designed content. Engaging content can also entice your networks to share it, thus improving its visibility and enhancing your rankings.
4. Acting as search engines
It’s important to understand that individuals also use different social media platforms as search engines. These platforms come with certain robust search functionality and features, enhancing their ability to enable the audience to use them as search engines. Most individuals or populations can easily get information about your page, profile, and even content through social media searches. Thus, when having your social media platforms, it’s imperative to optimize your content and pages with relevant keywords properly. Optimizing your content and pages will be essential for improving your visibility and driving more clicks to your website.
5. It affects the local SEO
Different social media platforms can affect your local SEO in different ways. Importantly when seeking to have higher local rankings on the search engines, it’ll be imperative to consider the name, phone number, and your business’s address. When you have this information constantly, Google will recognize your business or website as an incredible one, which translates to boosting your rankings. In addition, on some social media platforms, you can have the luxury of geo-tagging posts and stories. The geo-taking of stories will be essential to enhance your visibility among the local audience, thus leading to more traffic.
6. Youtube SEO
The emergence of youtube accounts for various functions has increased the use of youtube among most users. When having a youtube channel, it’s essential to understand that those videos can help you get higher ranks on the search engines. If you’ve got relevant and popular videos, they’ll show up first after the users make a particular search. Therefore, to get a higher ranking on the search engines, it’ll be essential to consider optimizing your video and channel for SEO. When optimizing, it’s good to consider optimizing the video titles and descriptions using the relevant keyword. It’s the best strategy to enhance your visibility.
7. Improving brand recognition
When seeking a proper way to improve the recognition of your brand and have a proper reputation online, optimizing your social media platform will play a key role. The presence of a sound social media platform and profile is proof of having a trustworthy and legitimate website, thus winning the trust of most audiences. The Google crawlers will use these factors to rank your site on its pages. Additionally, the reviews you get from different customers will also be instrumental in helping to create a proper connection between social media and Google search, thus boosting your website’s ranking.
Final Thoughts
With the gradual growth of social media usage among most users for the marketing and improving brands visibility, the common question has been; does social media affect SEO? Social is an essential factor for your SEO strategy as it helps boost your organic traffic track indirectly to help your website.
It works primarily by enhancing your content and brand’s visibility, which helps drive more traffic to your websites, boosting your search results ranking. Apart from the social media platforms and profiles, youtube also ranks among the most regular search results of a certain keyword. Therefore, it’s imperative to consider optimizing your social media platforms to improve your SEO strategy.
