Search engine optimization (SEO) has come a long way in recent years. Google’s algorithms continue to change and advance and now content has become king. These days, social media has become an integral part of any SEO Brisbane strategy. Here are five important ways that social media can affect a social media strategy.

1. Social Links Might Affect Search Rankings, or They Might Not

Social signals might not impact the authority of your website, but what about the links published on to social media? Are these considered credible backlinks? Do the links for a blog post posted on social media affect its search ranking if it goes viral?

Marketers believe that the links on social media do impact your overall search ranking. These links help a search engine to understand the credibility of a website. Google themselves have kind of said that how often a link is shared on social media does and doesn’t impact search engine results. So it likely does. At least Bing have admitted that they do consider how often links are tweeted and retweeted for their rankings.

2. Social Media Profiles Rank in Search Engines

While it’s true that social shares might not affect how a search engine ranks a page, your social media profiles themselves will definitely impact how you appear in search engine results. Social media profiles rank among the top results when people search for a specific brand name, for example.

Social channels have the benefit of being more personal than a webpage. They give consumers a good idea of the personality of a company. People are likely to check out the Twitter or Facebook page of a brand to earn more about them. So you want to have a good social media presence ready to greet people who search for you, as well as to get another visible channel in search engine results.

3. Social Media is a Kind of Search Engine

People don’t just use Google and Bing when they want to find something. Lots of people take to social media to get what they need. Search engine optimization must include what happens when people search social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter.

If you have an active presence on Twitter, then people will likely discover your new apps and products when they search for you through the Twitter search engine. On a similar note, brands that have lots of great visual content benefit from having that content up on Instagram and Pinterest. Make sure everything is properly organized and that you’ve used hashtags too.

4. Who Knows What the Future Holds?

Google may claim that social signals don’t impact search engine rankings right now, but that doesn’t mean things won’t change in the future. Social media is only becoming a more important part of daily life and an important part of every brand’s online presence. Given that other link-building strategies such as guest posting are less reliable at indicating how credible a website is, it stands to reason that search engines will inevitably look for more ways to determine the authority and value of a website.

Summary

Google may claim that search engine algorithms don’t include social signals, but this shouldn’t be seen as a reason to outright ignore SEO. Rather, you should broaden your concept of what social media, search engines, and SEO as a whole are. Think about the benefits of implementing a solid SEO strategy and do it. At the very least, you can expect to see an increase in traffic and potential sales, so what’s the harm?