How to Use Social Media for SEO (Post-Penguin)

As a business owner and marketer nowadays, you should know how to use Social Media for SEO purposes. This article will show you how.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and social media marketing shouldn’t exist in separate planes. Marketers know that there should be an element of SEO in every online activity. But as social media marketing matures, it is becoming clearer and clearer that it has an impact on a site’s SEO.

It is common knowledge that Google now incorporate “Social Graph” in their algorithm. In fact, Eric Schmidt of Google has confirmed that social media activity is a ranking signal for Google search. Many SEO gurus already predicted that soon it will be one of the main factors in the Google algorithm as links become less and less reliable.

Social Media plays an important role in how people use the internet these days. In the next couple of years, it is estimated that 65% of all US Internet users will use social networks. So it is not surprising to know that Google’s crawling, indexing, and ranking are directly influenced by tweeted links, public Facebook shares and likes, and Google +1’s.

Now that Social Media has established its importance in SEO, “How should we use social media to improve our rankings?” The better you understand the nature and strength of the connection between the two, the better you can focus your efforts on activities that get results.

Create accounts and manage

It wouldn’t hurt to create accounts and profiles in different social media sites. Of course, those accounts should ultimately link to your site and pages via your profile or status updates or tweets or whatever you call it. Make “real” accounts and use them as a real person would. If it is still not happening, sooner or later Google will easily disregard spammy social media accounts.

Install social sharing buttons on pages/posts of your website

People do not have the right to complain that social media does not work for them when they do not even have social sharing buttons on their web pages. The point of social media is…well… to become social and share. If your personal Facebook account is full of musings of life, the universe and everything in between, why not give others the opportunity to easily share your posts and pages?

Content and Credibility: The King and Queen of Social SEO

It is very important to interact with your followers, friends, and subscribers in a fairly personal way. This creates credibility and may, in turn, cause some seriously beneficial social signals. Google likes very credible sources and they judge webpages/sites based on those signals created through social media. It should be mentioned that if your content is great, rest assured that people will create floods of social signals to your benefit. Google will eventually pick up the trend and consider positively.

Why Social Media is not that much of a huge factor in SEO yet

The main reason why Social Media is still not the main factor for determining search results and rankings is the fact that it can be “gamed”. Google may consider social signals but still struggles to identify spam shares, tweets, and +1’s. However, it is certain that they are working on it.

Penguin and Panda updates may not be intended for Social Media control but it is best to get used to ethical social media practices as the next update could impact the Social-SEO connection.

SEO is not dead but social sharing is merely in its infancy and will continue to grow. Human nature of being social makes it unstoppable and internet search companies have no choice but to adapt. As for us, marketers and SEO’s, we need to keep tab and continuously update ourselves on how to use social media for SEO.

Article source: http://www.bestwaymakemoney.org/how-to-use-social-media-for-seo