How Social Traffic Influences SEO

Since the dawn of social media, digital marketers have taken social media marketing seriously. The idea has always been that better “social signals” (followers, likes, and shares, indicating a profile’s overall influence) contribute to improved SEO. 

A robust social media presence can do wonders for your brand’s SEO. Stick with us as we break down why!

How does social traffic impact SEO?

Google’s Matt Cutts may have denounced the importance of social signals in 2014, but that was six years ago, and things may have taken a 180 since then. According to Optinmonster, they may have—their 2019 research found a correlation between social popularity and rankings on Google.

Social media presence drives traffic.

A website’s traffic has long been one of the most influential ranking factors of all. Social media converts your content into traffic, thereby boosting your brand’s SEO. 

We know that Google takes traffic seriously, so if even one piece of your content goes viral, you could see a massive upward jump in ranking.

Speaking of content… We all know content is king, and that’s largely thanks to social media! Content is how we boost our brand’s visibility and authority, and having a strong social media presence allows you to do that while increasing your web traffic and SEO.

Social media gives your website valuable backlinks.

Backlinks are another point of contention when it comes to the relationship between social media and SEO. We know that backlinks help SEO, but does Google consider links to your website on social media viable?

Most likely, the answer is yes! Matt Cutts said in that same 2014 video:

“Facebook and Twitter pages are treated like any other pages in our web index, and so if something occurs on Twitter or occurs on Facebook and we’re able to crawl it then we can return that in our search results.”

Social profiles give you more ways to rank.

Google has said nothing to contradict this statement since. And if Facebook and Twitter pages are treated like any other pages, there’s no reason backlinks to your website on social media would help your SEO any less than backlinks to your site anywhere else.

Your social pages show up on Google, too! That means they give you even more visibility than your website could alone. 

Also, don’t forget that social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are search engines in and of themselves. That means you can reach new users (and boost your website’s traffic, thus increasing your SEO) through those search engines.

Social media boosts local SEO.

If you run a local brand, your SEO goals are a little more niche. You aren’t trying to rank #1 for “ice cream parlor,” but you might be for “ice cream parlor denver.” Traffic on your social media pages can help with that. Facebook sorts business pages by city, and Instagram allows users to geotag content, meaning users can look for what they need in a specific location. 

For small, local businesses, gaining search engine credibility is more of a concern than it is for big, global brands. Social media allows small businesses to gain credibility by matching their NAP (name, address, phone number) across their pages. Yep, if you didn’t know, matching NAP is a key determiner in local SEO rankings.

In conclusion

Ultimately, while we can’t know how exactly social traffic influences SEO, we can be sure it does and pretty sure that it won’t be taken out of Google SEO’s long list of considerations anytime soon. 

The Internet, with or without social media, is about interacting with others and sharing ideas. There’s no reason to exempt social media from SEO metrics, especially since the main goal of optimizing search engines is to make the internet a better place to interact with others.

Social Media Management and Consulting – Rose Marketing Group

If you’re looking for a high-quality social media management company in Atlanta, you’ve come to the right place. At Rose Marketing Group, our social media consultants in Atlanta GA, are committed to ensuring that your business is represented in an engaging way online.

Have any questions about what we can do for you? Interested in getting a free social media consultation? If so, don’t hesitate to reach out to us by scheduling a virtual meeting or filling out our contact form.