How Social Media Influences SEO
Newell Ledbetter Advertising knows that search engine optimization or SEO is growing and changing at a light speed today. Just a short nine years ago, all that webmasters needed for their online marketing efforts were links from pertinent article directories, on-site keyword density, and a basic knowledge of HTML Meta tags to merit a high rank on Google.
Google then decided to change its algorithm and link building in a quality manner wound up being the secret to obtaining the number-one spot with Google. Today’s webmasters learn quickly that these old methods of years past are no longer as effective for obtaining rank as they were at one time. Search engine optimization has grown and changed to such an extent that engagement is now the new measurement of a website’s quality.
Old Ways of SEO Are Passé
Newell Ledbetter Advertising communicates with clients regularly, and through this discovers that these business and website owners often share the same misconception that search engine optimization is just being about backlinks and HTML Meta tags. These are the old ways of search engine optimization, and they have been passé for quite a while for ranking purposes.
Companies and webmasters must engage their target audience today to drive traffic, leads and ultimately sales to their websites to obtain desirable ranking with Google through SEO. What does this mean? It means that all the marketing content needs to be interesting, helpful, and pertinent to the needs of the target audience. Where is the main place that people share this content on the Internet today? Of course, the answer is simple, as it is the social media sites. Next up is how social media sites affect search engine optimization!
1. How to Distribute Content
Webmasters and business owners need to understand that HTML Meta tags, backlinks and other on-site search engine optimization are still important, as they build the foundation for the rest of the strategy for search engine optimization. Today, instead of the traditional link-building techniques of years ago, it is now about distributing content in a more natural manner when it comes to online marketing. Using social networking sites to share content delivers two important benefits:
• The content often goes viral, and this increases traffic to the desired website. In addition, the realization of additional Google searches helps to reinforce the authority of the website owner.
• News sites and bloggers also will notice the content, and will most likely link to the owner’s website. Action such as this provides effective backlinks that still count towards rank.
2. Companies Can Control Their Brands Using Google
When a web visitor searches for a business on Google’s search engine they typically discover not only the company’s Google+ profile page, but also its Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn pages along with any other social media sites the company may have a page on today. Obviously, Google gives priority to those businesses that develop social networking pages. Luckily, it is not that difficult to create meaningful, effective social networking pages to increase searches for their brands. This is how companies will control their brands in Google.
3. Search Engine Optimization Reaches Further Than Just Google
Even though Google is the reigning king of search engines at the moment, businesses and webmasters in general should not forget about Bing. Bing also analyzes signals from social networking such as Twitter followers to rank websites. For this reason, social networking will also influence rankings at Bing.
In addition, people each day search the social networking sites, such as Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and more to discover information on businesses and relevant content. Businesses overlook an effective means of SEO, improving rank, and marketing when they ignore the usefulness of these sites. Newell Ledbetter Advertising recommends that all companies and webmasters learn how to engage people effectively through social media websites to increase their brand visibility and rank with the search engines, such as Google and Bing.
