Does Social Media have an Impact on SEO?

While it’s no secret that social media and SEO work well together as a marketing strategy, the exact science behind why they work well together and whether social media has an impact on SEO has been highly debated. It’s generally agreed that social media doesn’t have a direct impact on your SEO, however, it does have an impact on factors that affect your SEO such as traffic and rankings. This means that it does have an indirect effect on your rankings. In this article, we’ll be explaining some of the ways that social media impacts your SEO.   Social Media Profiles Rank on Search Engines Social media profiles extend far beyond just the social networks themselves as they can appear in many other websites, such as search engines. These social profiles, whether it’s a personal page or a business page, can appear in branded search results. For example, when you search for Odyssey New Media, one of the first results is the company’s LinkedIn page. On social media networks that allow reviews, search engines can also pull these review snippets through onto the search results which enables you to see ratings of the company. According to BrightEdge Research, 68% of online experiences start with a search engine, which emphasises the importance of being found on search engines. Your brand is key for increasing visibility on search engines and one of the ways you can do this, is by ensuring that your business has a presence on all of the right social media channels.   Generates More Traffic Sharing high-quality content on social media is a good way to generate more traffic to your website. When your post picks up more views and shares on social media, you tend to get more traffic to your website as a result. A study by Hootsuite suggests that there may be a correlation between social engagements and SEO rankings. Social can be a very useful channel for getting your content out and placing it in front of as many people as possible. Through the use of hashtags, you can increase the chances of your post getting seen, whereas compared to search engines, people may only discover your content through specific keywords. Traffic has always been known to be one of the main factors when it comes to SEO rankings, which means that if your social media posts are able to generate more traffic to your website, you have a better chance of ranking higher on search engines, therefore, having an indirect impact on your SEO.   Increasing Visibility Within Social Media It’s hard to ignore social media these days, given how popular social media platforms have become. With a rapidly growing userbase using these platforms every day, you would expect users to not always use your typical search engines to find things that they need, but instead use the built-in search engines in these platforms. All social media platforms have some sort of search engine functionality built into them which enables users to search for people, businesses, and information. This is why it’s important that your social media pages are found for the right things. Optimising your social media profiles and posts means higher chances of people finding your business, which could then lead to more traffic to your website.   Supporting your Local SEO If you are familiar with SEO, you may also be familiar with the acronym ‘NAP’ (Name, Address, and Phone Number). NAP consistency is essential for any business that wants to rank well in local search results. If you do well in maintaining the consistency of your business name, address, and phone number across all of your local listings and website, search engines will see that your business is established and credible. The consistency of NAP also applies to social media as you can add these bits of information onto the company profile page. Clearly defining your name, address, phone number, opening hours, services/products across your social media platforms is essential. Some social media networks also enable you to ‘geo-tag’ your posts which means that you can add a location to the post. This helps your content be more visible in specific locations and appeal to a local audience.    Contact Us for Social Media Marketing If you need help with setting up your social media channels, managing your social profiles, or if you would just like to consult our experts to see where you can improve your strategies, please get in touch with us.  We have years of experience in managing social media campaigns. Call us on 0121 439 5450 or you can send us an email here. Share Social Media SEO

For more information on Does Social Media have an Impact on SEO? talk to Odyssey New Media Ltd