Exposure and reach are often at the top of every small-medium business’ mind. However, the problem is how to get that exposure. Should you start a blog, a podcast, a YouTube channel? Should you post multiple times a day on social media? Should you do all the above?
For every entrepreneur or business owner that’s wondering how to get started with digital marketing, it’s difficult to determine which steps are the most important ones for building your online brand or business. One of the most important steps for small businesses is being able to rank high on Google’s search results.
According to Wordpress.com, 77 million blog posts went live on their platform in July 2020. And that’s just on Wordpress. You still have to take into account the 1.7 billion websites that are on the web today. With so much competition online, how can you capture people’s attention? This is where the beautiful collaboration between social media and SEO comes into play.
How Does Social Media Impact Your SEO?
The burning question within digital marketing circles is, “Does social media directly impact one’s SEO?”
The simplest and quickest answer to that question is, “It does, but not directly.”
Social media likes, shares, and comments are not part of Google’s SEO ranking factors, but they still have the potential to give you the exposure you need to get your website ranking on search engines. How you ask? A few ways, namely:
1. Content Distribution
Before social media came along, the only way for blogs and websites to share their content across the web was through guest blogging and sharing links in the comments section. Even to this day, there are still spambots that try to fill your comment section with questionable links.
That distribution channel changed when social media came into the picture. Your content now is able to enjoy a much longer lifespan because you can repost and re-share your content repeatedly on Facebook, Twitter or a bunch of other platforms. Every post can continue to be discovered by those that have yet to hear about you and your business. This is especially helpful if you’re just starting out and are still trying to get Google to recognise and notice your website.
2. Increased brand awareness and reputation
More than anything, the exposure you get from the continuous sharing and re-sharing on social media helps you improve your overall brand awareness and recognition. In fact, traditional marketing research has shown that a person has to be exposed to your brand at least 7 times before they decide to make a purchase.
Social media gives brands and companies that opportunity for exposure, much more than TV and radio ever did. And, unlike TV and radio advertising, the best part about social media is that you have the ability and the choice to put your content in front of the right people, the people most likely to support your business.
Putting yourself in front of the right people increases your likelihood of higher engagement on social media, which, in turn increases your reach. This then increases your traffic, which becomes a signal for Google to take notice and maybe even bump up your ranking several spots higher.
3. Organic traffic and online visibility
Social sharing also helps you generate backlinks organically. Backlinks are instances when other websites reference and link back to your original post. They’re a sign that your content is exceptional enough to be shared repeatedly across the web. The more backlinks you accumulate, the more traffic on your website, the more authoritative you appear to Google.
Therefore it’s incredibly important to be able to create high-quality content that’s informative, engaging, and entertaining. The more engaging, helpful, and useful the content, the better. So while Google doesn’t count all those Facebook and Twitter shares as SEO ranking factors, they do contribute a great deal in spreading your content across the web.
The question remains, however, which social platform should you invest your time in (which is something we tackle in another post).
Overall, you don’t want to just optimise your website for the right keywords and content, you also want to be optimising your entire digital marketing approach. Social media is a powerful tool if used wisely and effectively.
The problem sometimes, is that it takes a lot of time and effort to create quality content that’s remarkable enough to be shared across the web. And that’s the benefit of being able to work with agencies like Search Marketing Experts. There’s nothing better, after all, than having a partner that’s committed to your success, and helps free up more time for you to take care of what matters, your business.