In recent years, many people have started to use social media on a daily basis. Some of the more popular social media sites in the world receive millions of hits daily and their users sometimes spend hours every day using them. Because of this, search engines have started to pay more attention to the social media craze and it has even begun to affect search engine rankings. As a webmaster, it makes sense to become aware of social media trends and how they affect search engine optimization practices.
Social Buzz
Search engines have used hundreds of different factors to determine how to rank pages in their results. While factors like keywords and inbound links will still play a role, many search engines are now starting to put increased emphasis on what is happening in social media. This is sometimes referred to as “social buzz” and it can have a direct impact on how your pages are ranking.
If a page on your site is being linked to in many posts on social media sites, it can increase that page’s search engine rankings. If people are mentioning your site or brand name on social media sites, this can also be picked up on by the search engines in a short period of time. Search engines realize that when people talk on social media sites, these topics are often important. Because of that, the search engines tend to bump up sites that reference these topics in the search engine rankings.
Getting Involved
As a website owner, it is important to get involved in social media as quickly as you possibly can. Because of the added importance of the effect that it can have on search engine rankings, you need to sign up for accounts with all of the major social media sites. Once you do, you can start interacting with other people on the site. This can be a very effective way to develop relationships and get people talking about your products, services and brand. Once you start to get involved, you might be surprised what kind of an effect it can have on your site’s traffic and search engine rankings overall.
Quality Content
Ultimately, you cannot control whether people talk about your site or products on social media. You can do your best to get the conversation started, but after that it’s up to the community. Because of this, you have to do put an emphasis on creating quality content that will get people talking. It’s your job to create the best content and then get it out there to people through social media sites. If you do a good job in creating content, it can get people talking and then help your search engine rankings.