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How does social media affect my search engine ranking?

There are some misconceptions regarding social media ranking in todays’ SEO. Google insists that social media is not a trigger point for SEO rankings (at least for now); however, staying active on social media adds value to SEO. Recent data shows that roughly 81% of the population of the United States has a social media profile. That’s a large percentage of people who might be searching for your product or service. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits social media ranking can offer.

Increase Backlinks

The more often potential customers share your page on social media, the more your exposure and visibility increase. If people like your content they may be more inclined to mention you in comments or share a link to your website. Those links to your website will benefit your search engine rankings. All of this activity builds brand awareness, loyalty, credibility and the visibility you need for successful business rankings. As a Portland SEO Services provider we have found that there is a direct correlation between backlinks and SEO ranking. Keep in mind that many social media sites are much like search engines and can increase traffic to your website.

Enhanced Brand Recognition

With your shareable content appearing more frequently in social media, people will become more familiar with your brand. Once people search for a product or service and recognize your brand in the results page, they will be much more likely to visit your website. From an analytical standpoint Google Analytics is a great tool to show you how much traffic social media is directing to your website.

Engaging Content

Social media can be ruthless and is useful as a testing ground to determine which content is more engaging. It is worth noting that just because content goes viral on social media does not mean that it will rank well with search engines but it is a good starting point. You can easily repurpose old content by adding to or changing it. Once you repost the search engine will look at it as new data to analyze.

SEO and Social Media

At this time, social media does not directly influence ranking but it does offer passive benefits that can help rankings, so it is still important to maintain an active social media presence. Google is always changing and one day it may integrate social media into returning better search results thereby giving your site a nice boost in rankings. The underlying goal of SEO and social media is to increase awareness of your brand. As visibility of your site increases so does, your traffic and predictably conversions will increase as well.  Be an engaging presence on social media because your continued participation and interaction will help to establish your brand and increase visitors to your website. So, be sure to continue your social media efforts because even without Googles help social media will help you to establish your brand, loyalty, and increase visitors to your site.