How Important Is Social Media For SEO? A Practical Guide For Small Business Owners
It’s not always clear whether social media improves SEO performance. A lot of small businesses still ask the question “How important is social media for SEO?” and are ignoring the potential it has. In this article, we’ll cover if social media impacts SEO, how it helps SEO, and how to incorporate social media in your SEO strategy.
If you’re interested in other ways to improve your rankings outside of your website, I’d recommend you to read my full off-page SEO guide, which gives you a blueprint to increase your website’s authority.
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Does Social Media Impact Your SEO Performance?
You might have heard that social media doesn’t directly affect your rankings, and that’s partly true. Google doesn’t use social signals as a direct ranking factor. But social media can still indirectly boost your SEO performance in multiple ways.
Social media won’t take your website to the top spot in Google, but it’s a supporting player. If used correctly it can make a key difference in your rankings.
How Social Media Helps SEO
Increases content’s reach
When you share your content, or your content gets shared, your content will be visible to more people. Each share you get, will make another person read or see it. This way, people discover your business who might have never found you through Google.
The more people will see your content, the higher the chances of attracting visitors and backlinks to your site.
Grows website’s traffic
Social media can drastically increase your website’s traffic. If you post an Instagram story with a link to your website, and people click to your website, it sends strong user signals that search engines will notice.
Over time, these clicks help you build authority online. Regular posting encourages clicks from loyal followers.
Improves your backlink profile
When your content performs well on social media, people start linking to it naturally. Owners of websites often discover your content through social media and decide to link back to it if it’s valuable.
These backlinks are incredibly important to build long term authority.
Increases your brand awareness
Being consistent on social media help people recognize your brand and remember it. If you have a certain design, people will recognize it and become familiar with your services and products.
The recognition leads to more branded searches in Google, which are positive SEO signals.
Expands local search visibility
For small businesses, local visibility is crucial. Social media helps you connect with nearby customers, share updates, and showcase your location.
This extra attention leads to more local mentions, reviews and website visits. You’ll engage with your local community through comments and hashtags and you’ll build a stronger local presence in Google map pack and local search results.
How To Incorporate Social Media In Your SEO Strategy
Align Social Media Goals With Your SEO Objectives
Start by defining your SEO goals. After defining them, align your social media content with it. Create content on social media that gives a little call-to-action to check out the full content on your website. This way, you drive traffic to your website and make your content more visible. You can, for example, share snippets of your blog posts and invite readers to learn more on your website.
If you see particular types of content doing well on social media, use similar topics to create content around on your website. Consistency across platforms helps search engines connect your brand’s online presence.
Use Social Media to Amplify Content and Earn Backlinks
Social media is one of the easiest ways to generate clicks to your website and make it more visible. When you share a blog posts on your social media channel, you increase the chances of people discovering it. With more people discovering your content, you’ll get more shares and backlinks.
You don’t need a big following to make an impact. Focus on sharing quality, useful content that answers your audience’s questions. Tag relevant businesses or creators to reach new networks.
Optimize Social Profiles for Search Visibility
Your social profiles rank in search engines just like your website. Make sure each profile is fully optimized with consistent branding, logo, and accurate business information.
Add a clear description that explains what you do and who you help. This doesn’t need to be long, it’s even better short and clear. Include your main website link and location if you serve a specific area. If it’s possible, use the same username across platforms, or at least similar ones.
Leverage Social Signals to Drive Organic Traffic
Social signals (likes, shares, and comments) don’t directly affect rankings, as I mentioned above, but they have indirect SEO benefits. When your content performs well on social media, it attracts more people, and can generate more website visits.
The more engagement your posts get, the more people see your content, click your links and share them. This growing visibility is a positive signal to search engines that your brand and website is trusted by many and deserves to be ranked highly.
Consistency is crucial here. Post regularly, respond to comments and join discussions related to your niche and expertise. As your audience grows over time, so does the traffic to your website (if done right).
Identify High-Performing Keywords Through Social Listening
Social media is full of conversations between people that care about a certain topic. Use social listening tools like Brand24 to find trending topics, questions, and phrases your audience might use. These insights help you identify new keyword opportunities to include in your website’s content.
This approach helps you stay ahead of competitors as you can react on emerging search trends early. Combining listening tools with keyword research gives you a clear picture of what will actually drive traffic to your website and will help your audience.
Repurpose SEO Content for Social Media Platforms
Creating fresh content takes time. If you write an article, you have a solid pool of content to create social media posts from. You can turn that article into short Instagram posts with a great visual, or you can create a short LinkedIn update. Make sure to filter the key insights that add quick value to your audience.
Every time you repurpose content from your website, you reinforce your key messages across multiple channels. This creates brand familiarity and drives more click back to your site.
For each channel, you create a different kind of format. The goal here is to optimize each post for each channel to get the most out of it.
Conclusion: How Important Is Social Media For SEO?
Social media can give your SEO indirectly a boost. Especially, the increase of visibility is amazing. By sharing your content, more people will discover your content and might share it, or link back to it.
Backlinks are amazing for search visibility and website’s authority, but also the increase of traffic and engagement on your website is important. These are positive signals to Google that your content is great and should be ranked higher.
