Does Social Media Help Your SEO Efforts?

Social media marketing and SEO are two tightly interwoven strategies. Both are organic, inbound strategies that focus on building an appealing identity that naturally attracts visitors. Social media relies on high-quality content and a strong brand presence. The efforts you spend on SEO can doubly improve your social media reach. Most search marketers will tell you, your social media presence can greatly increase your search rankings

Why is Social Media Valuable to Your Dental or Medical Practice

If links were a way for people to vote in favor of sites, social media sharing represents a way for that voting behavior to continue. Social signals are emerging as ranking factors as search engines determine how to leverage our social interaction and behavior.

Using links as an Off-The-Page ranking factor was a great leap forward for search engines. But over time, links have lost some of their value for a variety of reasons. Some sites are stingy about linking out. Others block links to help fight spam. And links get bought and sold, making them less trustworthy.

Just as search engines don’t count all links equally, they don’t view all social accounts as being the same. This makes sense, since anyone can create a new account on a social network. What’s to prevent someone from making 100 different accounts to manufacture fake buzz?

Nothing! Fake accounts like these can often be easy to spot. They may only have a handful of “quality” friends in their network and few might pass along material they share.

Ideally, you want to gain references from social accounts with good reputations. Having your own social presence that is well regarded is important. So participate on relevant social platforms in a real, authentic way. Do this just as you would with your website, or with customers in an offline setting.

Social Engagement is Good!

Similar to links, getting quality social shares is ideal, but being shared widely on social networks is still helpful. Good things happen when more people see your site or brand.

Again, participation in social sharing sites is crucial. If you don’t have a Twitter account, a Facebook fan page or Google+ Page you’re missing out. You’re not building up a network that can help spread (share) your content, site and brand.

For more information on social media and search results, contact us here.