Do Social Signals Influence SEO?

Posted April 25, 2011 by DIYSEO Team (1 comments)

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This post is meant to be helpful for those new to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and looking to learn more about fundamental best practices that will help your Website generate more qualified traffic from search engines. You can also find DIYSEO posts classified by level of expertise on the following pages:

Yes, social signals definitely influence SEO! With the recent introduction of the Google +1 button, it seems that Google is taking social signals very seriously.

Other social signals have been used by the search engines for a while now. Things like Facebook ‘likes’, and Twitter links are all signals to the search engines about the current relevance of anyone’s content and are thus a great source for search engine promotion.

What’s a social signal?

Just as we’ve talked about back links being signals to Google as to the relevance of your content, things like Twitter links and Facebook likes are also influencing the search results.

If a link to your website is being tweeted, liked, and or shared, Google is sure to notice these recommendations to your friends. These links and likes coming from the social networks are strong indicators of relevance and, more importantly, they are real-time, current relevance.

It’s even possible to get your site indexed with zero back links and only Facebook likes or Twitter links.

Do some types of tweets and likes send stronger signals?

The quality of your tweeted link or facebook likes and shares is definitely taken into consideration. Things like how many followers a tweeter has, who they follow, and the authority of the tweeter are all taken into consideration.

It’s all very similar to how they determine if a regular old back link should carry more weight, they’re just looking at a different set of variables. You will find it better to have 50 different ‘tweeple’ linking to your site than 50 links from the same person. The surrounding content is also important, just like surrounding contest is important for a non-social link.

How do you get tweeted and liked?

Actually being social will help! You need to be active in your online community, following people you care about, sharing awesome links, sharing other people’s content (not just your own), and make sure whatever you’re talking about is engaging and worth re-tweeting or sharing.

Also, it’s very important that everything you create on your website be easily shared, liked, and tweeted. You need to make it dead-simple to share your content or people will get frustrated and not share. Checkout KISSmetric’s Twitter Marketing Guide, not only for the great advice, but look how easy they make it to share their content.

Getting Facebook likes is very similar to getting tweets, and you will find no shortage of creative ways to get likes if you spend a little time searching Google yourself.

It’s going to be interesting to see how far Google takes its new +1 button and how it will influence the search results, but the fact that they created the button to begin with shows you just how important social signals already are. Tweets, re-tweets, likes, and shares should absolutely be part of your SEO strategy. All of the things you should do to get this social love can also lead to the good ol’ back link as well, so it’s a winning strategy no matter how you look at it.