Why Should You Even Bother Integrating Social Media To Your SEO

Let’s go back and take a look at the elements of Search Engine Optimization. On-page and off-page SEO, where in essence, your all depend on your keywords. Successful off-page SEO mainly depends on link building, where among other factors, the main ingredient is your keywords. Same can be said about your on-page optimization, where again, the main ingredient is your keywords. There is no argument on that…

One way or another, you need to do your on-page and off-page optimization. However, one more factor gained importance after the latest Google update more than before; Google started (shall we say?) penalizing highly optimized sites! Well, not really penalizing, they actually started (as Matt Cutts said) leveling the playing field by giving a chance to the sites with good content.

What does “good content” mean…? Does it involve SEO? well, that’s another ball game! But I am sure, one thing we can agree on is that good content mostly relates to a credible source, and/or to an authority – not necessarily someone who has great knowledge on how to (highly) optimize his content.  I believe this is what Google intends to implement with the latest update.

So the question is “how are we going to make people, most importantly our prospects and the search engines, aware of our “good content?” I am sure you started getting the picture now. Among other tools such as RSS, the most important tool we have in our possession is Social Media!

“You May Need Social Media More Than Ever For Your SEO Strategies”

Let’s put one thing on the table: Contrary to the way most people perceive, social media does not automatically bring you credibility, or make you an authority. Just because you started your Facebook Page, Google+, or opened up your Twitter account, doesn’t necessarily mean people will be flocking over to become your friend or follow you. You have to put your credibility on the table first then the magic will start happening. In other words, you need to show your credibility with quality content that you generate, and implement Social Media as a tool to make them aware of it. In other way of looking at this is; you need to use Social Media as an SEO Tool to:

• Generate traffic to your site (to your content)
• Establish your reputation
• Create buzz for yourself on the net

This is actually the starting point why you should bother integrating social media to your SEO. Needless to mention, besides the points mentioned above, many other elements within the big picture of social media play a role in the SEO game to help you gain credibility.

• One important factor is the mentions in the social media, where search engines look to making you an authority. More mentions, better credibility…
• Another important factor is Google+. Before we get into this, you should note that none of the links from social media platform have any effect on your website’s actual SEO (all no-follow links). However, Google+ is a different animal. Google+ offers do-follow (for now!) and will generate SEO value for you.

So if we just look at the latest changes in the search algorithms, and pay a little attention to the path that search engines are taking (particularly Google) by indicating that they are weeding out highly optimized websites, and they are leaning more toward quality content (please note, this doesn’t mean that your content should not be optimized!!!), it would all mean that social media gaining more importance by the day, and should be implemented within your SEO strategy.

… interesting perspective of looking at Social Media and Search Engine Optimization! Do you have any other thoughts? Let us know…