Does your social media actually help your SEO?

These days, your online marketing strategies have to include both search engine optimization as well as social media marketing. There are many so called experts out there, including some of the major search engines, that will inform you that your social media has no affect on your SEO. This, however, simply doesn’t seem to be the case at all. There are so many ways that you social media marketing can actually help, and boost, your SEO efforts.

Too many businesses are looking at social media and SEO as separate entities that really don’t affect one another. Because of this perceived separation, many small companies are really not getting the search and traffic mileage that they should be getting. Any company that is getting some high volume engagement at their social media platforms are going to benefit from an increase in traffic. One doesn’t need to check the latest research to figure that out.

• One benefit that may not be immediately apparent are the profiles you create at your chosen social media platforms. The reason that filling out your profiles as extensively as you can is that they are quite likely to come up in a SERP thus strengthening your SEO efforts. You can go out to any search engine you wish and when you type in a company or product you are likely to see that company’s Facebook and Twitter profiles at the very least. Optimizing your social media profiles will help boost your SEO, your rankings and your traffic.
• As you extend further into your social media marketing efforts you will find that there is much more you need to do beside your profiles. When you fully engage with your social media audience, when you provide them with quality content that they are interested in, then you bring them into your company and your world. You make them care about you and your company by engaging with them and by providing quality content that enhances their lives or solves particular problems. Doing this on a dedicated basis enhances your SEO as well as increasing your traffic and your brand awareness.
• Remember that by posting quality content you can also attract high quality backlinks and don’t dismiss the other major search engines such as Bing and Yahoo. They hold a solid market share on traffic and searches and, unlike Google, they place serious consideration regarding social media authority. Your SEO is your lifeline to customers and you simply can’t afford to ignore any tool that may help give you an edge over your competitors.

-Written by Kevin Sawyer