As of today, there are about 520 different factors Google looks at when it decides what it will and won’t serve you for a particular search query. What’s among those 520 factors? You guessed it: social signals. Of course, social signals and social media still play a role in SEO, but you may be wondering just how important they really are?
Likes and Shares
Anyone with experience in SEO knows that it’s truly a behemoth. With so many factors at play and ever-changing algorithms, it’s no surprise that there are a TON of differing opinions out there on what works and what doesn’t. As an SEO agency, we always like to keep a focus on social media because we know the power behind likes and shares. We understand how these social signals can boost the relevancy of new content/pages in the eyes of Google.
Just like everything else in the digital arena though, testing plays a critical role in determining what’s working and what isn’t. If you want to know what works for yourself, test it out. With A/B experiments, you can see what happens for yourself. Of course, most small businesses don’t have the time for intricate testing. So here’s what you need to know: social signals will help improve your SEO efforts.
Traffic from Social Media
As important, if not even more important, is traffic coming from social media to specific content/pages on your site. As an experienced SEO agency, we’ve seen first hand how powerful this traffic can be. Not only, are off-page links to your site helpful in general, but links to pages on your site from social media send Google their own special type of signal.
Nowhere is this more crucial than when focusing on Local SEO. The more traffic that you are getting from a local area that you’re targetting (e.g., the area around a storefront), the more Google may start to understand that you are important to that geographical area.
As SEO experts, we often run paid ads to new pages and content on a website in an attempt to rank for this very purpose. As with everything, testing is a key component here to find what works.
Wrapping it up
The reality is that you could ask ten SEO experts the same question, and you will get ten different answers. Why is this? Well, everyone has tested different things. People get information from different sources and people have been in the industry varying amounts of time, so with that comes differing opinions. The long and short of it is that social signals are still important because a solid social media strategy will play into your overall online marketing efforts. While the SEO benefit may be up for debate among some, from a branding and online marketing standpoint, our agency has found that it’s worth the effort. So if you’ve been debating incorporating social media into your strategy, you might as well implement it with the hopes of some additional SEO benefit as well!