Did you know that 70% of digital marketers find that SEO is more effective at driving sales than paid ads?
Yup. It’s true. And that is why I am on a one-woman mission to empower creative business owners with a simple and effective SEO strategy.
SEO has such an enormous impact on a business’ success. It’s how people find you. I mean, there are 6 billion google searches per day, your clients are legit looking for you, SEO is the bridge that Google uses to connect YOU with the 6 Billion searchers.
Even further, 67% of clicks go to the first five organic results on the SERP, you’re essentially missing out on two-thirds of the traffic if you neglect SEO.
One struggle is that SEO has a bad rap. It’s not fun and it feels very overwhelming and it changes a lot and it seems expensive.
That is why I am here. I am here to help you reach the zilllions of people that are looking for you.
SEO isn’t a magic traffic button.
SEO is a part of your overall marketing strategy.
When effective SEO tactics are combined with branding, marketing, social and a whole lot passion — a traffic machine is born. Remember, good business is good SEO.
In this post, we are going to dissect one aspect of this traffic machine, specifically the relationship between social media and SEO.
Social Media And SEO: Everything You Need To Know
The first thing you need to know about social media and SEO is that both social and SEO are layers of your overall marketing plan. They shouldn’t be done in isolation and they are MOST effective when combined.
So, the question remains – does social media directly influence your findability on Google?
The answer is yes and no. It’s complicated.
Consider the fact that in 2014, a representative from Google explicitly states that social signals, such as likes, followers, and reposts do not influence SEO ranking. That wasn’t even entirely true, back then.
On the other hand, consider this infographic from Quicksprout on the current state of SEO. On the infographic, Social Media Marketing is the #3 priority for SEO. It’s even ahead of keyword research, which is one of the most long-standing and established SEO traditions there is.
So which one is right? Let’s take a look at the history of social media and SEO to help give you an idea on how social media and SEO integration operates today.
A History Of Social Media and SEO
Let’s start by considering that 2014 Google video again. Website owners and digital marketers were confused when Google came out with that statement. Hadn’t Google just come out with an algorithm update where it was stated that social signals would influence SEO?
Determined to get to the bottom of things, digital marketers undertook their own research to see how social media and SEO interact. Hubspot conducted a market study in 2018, analyzing the impact of social media. While social media might not have influenced SEO directly, content with digital shares received an average of 22% SEO boost due to social media.
Part of the reason for the confusion was Google themselves couldn’t get their message straight. The very same Google spokesperson, Matt Cutts, had released a video in 2010 stating that social media does impact SEO ranking. Then in 2014, they said that it doesn’t.
As we can see from that Hootsuite study, however, clearly social media is having some form of impact on a site’s SEO ranking. Let’s delve in a bit deeper and see if we can’t figure out what’s going on.
How Social Media Impacts Your SEO
1. Social Media Links Count As Backlinks
The 2014 Google video makes it pretty clear that social signals aren’t factored into a website’s SEO ranking. Social media networks are crawled just like any other website, though. If you have a piece of content that gains some traction on social media, that reads as a healthy number of backlinks pointing back to your homepage.
Considering how challenging it is to get legit backlinks this reason alone is worth focusing on social media networking if you haven’t been.
2. Social Media Accounts Show Up In Search Engines
Think about a time when you were looking something up on Google. Have you ever had a Tweet or an Instagram post show up as part of the search engine results? Clearly, social media profiles and content get crawled and indexed by Google’s spiders, just like any other digital domain.
When you look up a popular corporation’s name on a search engine, it’s not uncommon to get their top social media accounts alongside their homepage. Look up Glossier on Google, for instance, and you’ll get links to their Twitter and Facebook on the front page.
Social media can play a hugely important role in swaying a potential customer’s opinion. They’re just as likely to click on your social profiles as your homepage. If they like what they see, they may click through to your main site via your social media links.
3. Social Media Networks Are Also Search Engines
It’s an often-cited statistic that YouTube is the second most popular search engine on the Internet. People are almost as likely to turn to a social media network as a search engine. DID YOU GET THAT?
Social media IS SEO, to some extent.
In reality, it just means that you should be coordinating your social media strategy and you content strategy and use both to point back to your website.
4. Things Are Always Changing
Just because Google isn’t explicitly factoring social signals into their rankings now doesn’t mean that will always be the case. Look at their conflicting messages from 2010 and 2014 for an example of how much things can change, and how frequently.
Social media marketing can impact your SEO in more subtle ways, as well. Social media activity will increase brand awareness, brand loyalty, and trust. It’s impossible to overstate the importance of this.
Social Media and SEO: Final Thoughts
Hopefully, this is enough to get your wheels turning about the interaction between SEO and social media.
Social and SEO are 2 pillars of an effective marketing strategy. You can’t just have one, you should really be using both. As creative business owners, we need to consistently show up on social and continually point our social posts back to our website.
A lot of people ask me which social channel they should invest their time in if they could choose just one.
My answer is always, go to where your audience. If your audience is on Insta, go there. If your audience is on Facebook, go there, if your audience is on Pinterest, go there.
Social media is fun and forgiving and fast and can produce immediate engagement.
It can drive an intense amount of traffic to your website when it’s done right, though, as well as rack up conversions and build your audience at the same time.
Are You Looking For SEO Services?
SEO is the blueprint that the Internet is built on. It’s the single most effective way to expand your audience in the digital realm, as new viewers discover your website via search engines. SEO can be tricky, though, as it’s always changing and increasingly difficult to master.
If you want to understand the latest trends and evolution of SEO, like social media and SEO, contact me today and find out what SEO services and workshops I offer!