How SEO and Social Signals are Connected
Look out, Search Engine Optimization. Going into 2019 the social media channels, the hundreds of them, are fast turning into the best way for enterprises to get to and stay at the top of the SEO mountain — and they do it by using customer feedback in the form of social signal. This is a fairly new procedure that is becoming a huge factor in the continuing success (or dismal failure) of companies in ways that don’t even start to compare with fusty traditional ranking scores; so let’s try some other local marketing tactics like SEO
What is meant by ‘social signals’ is the votes, pins, views, shares, and likes on social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Facebook, and all the other social media platforms that work to filter the numerous search engine algorithms. That means, of course, that social signals will indicate just how much a particular brand is being talking about by potential customers. It goes without saying that this kind of interest and activity will definitely improve a brand’s SERP ranking, since all search engines are programmed to view social signals as legitimate and dependable recommendations.
For many years the standard SEO network of strategies were considered the one and only way to completely ensure a top search engine score for a social media site. This included backlinks with keywords in a mathematical paradigm, with text links, that would ultimately create all SERP rankings. But with the dozens of Penguin and Panda Google updates in the past few years, the goal is now shifting more towards the intrinsic value of content on-site, and now going into 2019 it has shifted once again to include consumer’s feedback into the whole mix and been redefined as ‘social signals.’
And just what do social signals do?
The connection between the proper social signals and a reduced bounce rate is making marketers who haven’t invested in the theory and practice of social signals very nervous. It seems obvious to even the most traditional social media users that social signals are creating greater repeat visits to sites.
A single page with good social signals is able to impact many other pages in the same domain, which in turn is likely to improve the rankings criteria.
And when a web page is liked or voted for, this is guaranteed to start replacing backlinks. The tag team effect thus engendered is bound to increase brand visibility and move it higher in the SERP ratings.
The growing use of social media platforms to disperse information or merely to keep people and communities in touch is changing how the world communicates, and the new phenomenon of social signals are the logical outcome of this communication revolution. Experiences shows that most people now prefer to visit particular platforms not simply for their lofty search engine ranking, but because peer recommendations, especially through social signals, have led them there. This also means that websites that are socially linked can see an improvement in their conversion rates, with in turn means higher brand loyalty as well as better brand awareness. Once this loop is in place it only promotes more and better consumer reviews and other social signal messages that keep building the brand, with the potential to make it explode like a nuclear reactor gone critical — or, in this case, viral.
Companies that are in the thick of things when it comes to social media will have very little major work to do to start taking full advantage of social signals. Those companies that are still lagging behind on their social media engagement need to make a major effort to catch up with their competitors and contemporaries, try some other local marketing tactics like SEO or risk losing a major amount of business in 2019.