It’s the question on everyone’s minds, does social media affect SEO? What are the SEO benefits of social media? Does posting on social media help SEO?
Well, the answer is yes but not in the way you think.
While Google claims that their search engines don’t use social media as a ranking factor, there are various indirect ways that social media can affect search performance.
So, how do social media posts affect SEO?
What they primarily do is to help increase the spread of your content, i.e., backlinks. If you don’t know what backlinks are, we have a post where we talk about the various SEO metrics right here.
But as a quick refresher, backlinks are links you get to your website from other websites. It’s a way to show the authority of your domain and is one of the things that Google considers while ranking your website.
So, in the case of social media, more shares mean more people looking at your content. If the content is good enough, other websites will start linking to yours. The keyword here is “social signal.” Thousands of shares show that there are people interested in your content. While there’s no direct causation, there’s plenty of correlations between well-performing social media pages and high-ranking domains.
While social media may not directly affect SEO, it can definitely help nudge things along.
What other things can social media do for my SEO?
First of all, you should be using social media to share the best content on your website. Social media can be a great tool to drive traffic to your website.
Secondly, social media’s importance as a tool to build brand awareness cannot be understated. People are more likely to click on a brand they know on search results as opposed to an unknown, generic brand.
It’s also important to know that social media platforms also operate as search engines. A person who searches for hashtags related to custom print shirts is going to find posts about businesses that do custom prints. So make sure that your business is right there with the right hashtags or “keywords.”
Today, social media is not considered a factor for search engine rankings. But that does not mean it might not be in the future. Social media, if done right, can be one of the best sources to drive growth for your website. A good social media plan and an SEO strategy go hand in hand.
If you’re interested in knowing more about social media and SEO, we’re always available at +971 4 580 3378.
