The ultimate goal of SEO is to gain visibility, and in turn, customers by driving traffic to the company’s website. Social media is becoming a key component of that process. According to Pew Research Center in 2014, 71% of online adults used Facebook, 28% used Pinterest and LinkedIn, and 23% used Twitter. Each year, the percentage of users on various social media increases. These statistics go to show that social media usage is prevalent among most of the adult population.
Due to the growing numbers of people on various social media, these social mediums are becoming search engine themselves. For example, if someone is looking for a local plumber, they may use the Facebook search tool to find people or pages that are plumbers in their area. If a company is active and using social media, their profile or page will show up in the Facebook results. This is a direct way for many local companies to gain visibility and potential customers.
Social media is an effective tool to drive traffic back to the company’s website. This will increase the clicks to the website and therefore, improving and increasing SEO prominence. One of the basic principle of search engine results is the more popular a website is, the higher up on the search engine results the website may end up. Social media provides a perfect outlet to link to the company’s blog or other pages on its website. People are able to quickly and easily share these links, providing a greater reach and probability that the website link will be clicked.
The partnership between Google and Twitter that was established earlier this year could make for changes in Google’s algorithms and how social media exposure plays a part in search engine results. We can make assumptions that a company’s social media credibility will play a part in how high on the search engine results they will rank. It may also potentially take into consideration a company’s social media presence, meaning how many people view and engage with the content, how large the following is, and even how relevant the social media content is to the brand image. It is best to prepare now for this potential change becoming active and engaging on social media platforms.
Social media and SEO go hand in hand and when they are working simultaneously, they can help the company achieve its online marketing goals.
