Maximize SEO and Social Media

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays an important role in any digital marketing strategy as it helps people find your content. The higher your content ranks on the SERP (search engine results page), the more visitors it will attract.

Social media marketing has become another highly effective way to drive people to your website. And all of this depends on having an effective social media strategy that drives brand awareness and ROI. The sweet spot in a digital marketing campaign is ensuring that your social media, content marketing, and SEO strategies complement each other.

In this article, we’ll help you understand the complex relationship between SEO and social media, and offer 5 tips on how you can maximize both.

Does Google look at social signals?

Social signals are actions such as likes and shares on social media. So, if your content generates a lot of social signals, will this improve its ranking on Google? Well, Google has been giving mixed signals about this over the years.

In 2010, the search engine giant regarded social signals as a ranking factor, with a focus on quality over quantity. This means that Google looks at the reputation of the author or creator on social media sites to determine ranking.

However, in 2014, Google decided to no longer rank these social signals: in other words, likes or shares cannot be used to boost your rankings from an SEO perspective. However, that doesn’t mean you should abandon your social media strategy as it’s an important part of any digital marketing campaign.

Ultimately getting a good search engine ranking is about getting high-quality backlinks from reputable sources. Shares on social networks can also help get your content seen by a new audience.

Pro tip: Check out our article on how to generate backlinks to your websites.