There are 1.75 billion websites and 2 billion-plus facebook profiles. What do those two numbers have in common?
Many businesses obsess about how their Facebook ads value to their website (or at least its ranking). The question of if building social media presence helps with SEO is one that doesn’t have a lot of answers.
Google itself has answered the question three times and keeps contradicting itself.
So, since Google isn’t telling us anything, we thought we’d give the question a go. See what we think about the relationship below.
How Building Social Media Presence Boosts SEO
In this article, we’ll talk about the latest studies on SEO rankings and social (media) status. Some of the results aren’t as intense as we’d like, but they’re the most recent we have.
Before we start, let’s take a moment to talk about the ONE THING Google is obsessed with: engagement and value.
They treat those two things like their SEO bread and butter, for a good reason. Google’s mission statement and purpose aren’t catered to businesses. Their drive is to bring the best information to their users.
In fact, here’s their mission, word for word “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
Social media plays a large part in engaging your customers and giving them value. They can engage when they comment on posts and participate with your content.
They get value from you posting about sales, responding to reviews, or creating funny content. The happier your customer is, the better Google will treat you.
However – happiness is a hard analytic to measure.
Remember that if you’re using your social media to deliver value to your customers, it’s going to pay off at some point. It just may not be right away.
SEO and SMP (Social Media Platforms): What’s the Link?
Wondering why you should even try? Here’s our final answer.
1. It’s a Source for Linking
There have been three contradictory videos from Google addressing this very question. The first time someone was asked, they said yes – social presence counts for SEO.
The second time they said yes and no, we treat it like any other website when it comes to links/mentions.
The final and most recent time, they said no – straight out. Researchers think that when they said no, they were just rephrasing their answer from the second response video.
That’s what we’re going to go with too – since articles have and do go viral on Facebook.
The trick to writing the type of article that goes viral and gets shares is not to write it for Facebook. You need to write it for your blog and your target audience.
Then, share it to Facebook. If it’s high quality and delivers value (which is essential), it has a better chance of getting shared.
More shares equal to more links, which equals a higher SEO rating.
2. It Helps You Establish a Brand
If you’re still working on who you are as a company, chances are that’s not doing great things for your sales. Customers like to buy from brands that have a strong brand meaning – even a personality.
Let’s look at Wendy’s Twitter, for example. Out of all the people out there to have funny tweets – did anyone think it’d be a burger joint?
We didn’t. Yet the sassy Twitter presence of Wendy’s upped their sales by 49.7 percent in just one year.
Buzzfeed featured what they were doing and now “Wendy’s Tweets and Wendy’s Twitter” both have impressive search volume.
That goes to show that a strong social media presence can impact your SEO, but it has to be unique. They wouldn’t have seen that huge jump in sales if they didn’t pick a lane and stick to it.
The lane could have flopped – but they tried it and it worked.
What can you do to figure out what lane you should take with your content creation and your brand? Spend some time figuring out what your company stands for.
Then make a quick checklist for every post. Does this post:
1. Sound like a human wrote it?
2. Is it relevant to our audience? And so on.
Only post the things that check all the boxes. We can’t promise you fryer-fresh success, but you’ll work your way towards a more loyal following.
3. Audience Research
In a roundabout way, Facebook helps you figure out who your audience is, which helps your SEO targeting.
Built into your Facebook page are analytics that can tell you exactly who and where your audience is. Well, it’s less exact than before Cambridge Analytica, but the tools are still useful.
Use Facebook’s AB testing on different audiences, interests, ages, etc. Which one did better? You can pay someone to create audience personas for you – or spend time with Facebook, doing it there.
Once you know exactly who your audience is, you can write blog posts that are centered around their needs. And remember – Google loves when you deliver value.
4. It’s Good for Metrics
If you have a good sales conversion rate or click rate on Facebook, it can make your bounce rate better. If you’re posting things people really want to buy/read, they’re going to stay on your page for longer.
Not getting a high conversion or click rate through your socials? Click here for famoid, who can help.
Value Matters Most
When you’re building social media presence, make sure it’s strong and on-brand. Spending the time establishing your audience personas and your brand personality are the keys to social platform success.
If you do that, then you should see good conversions and clicks from your posts – which will, in turn, boost your rankings.
Want some more Instagram-centered tips? We’ve got them here.
