How Can Social Media Support Off-Page SEO?

Social Media and Off-Page SEO

Having a strong social media presence can provide a multitude of benefits for a company beyond social platforms. It can enhance other areas of a company’s digital marketing, including off-page search engine optimization. Gary Illyes, a webmaster trends analyst at Google, explains how Google uses online brand mentions for ranking by stating, “The context in which you engage online, and how people talk about you online, actually can impact what you rank for” (Clement, 2020). Digital marketers can harness the power of social media to enhance their off-page SEO strategies. 

As seen in Figure 1, although social media does not directly contribute to rankings, a strong presence across platforms ultimately supports SEO through social signals, extensive content distribution, improved online visibility and organic traffic, increased brand recognition, enhanced brand reputation, and boosted local SEO (Clement, 2020). When companies post relevant and quality content on their social media that resonates with their audience, followers are more likely to share. By optimizing social presence and consumers amplifying content, social media can drive website traffic, generate links, increase visibility, and improve credibility.

Figure 1: How Social Media Supports SEO (Clement, 2020).

Benefits of Social Media for SEO

Website Traffic:

            Posting quality content on social media will drive consumer traffic to your website. When brands release engaging content that appeals to their target market, consumers will be more likely to engage with the post and investigate websites and links to discover what value the brand has to offer. Building strategic partnerships and a strong influencer network on social media is a key tactic to enhance off-page SEO (Ruparelia, 2022). They provide unique and shareable content to boost engagement that drives website traffic. According to Leibowitz, “In some cases, influencers also encourage your target audience to create their own content with a branded hashtag unique to your business. This means the number of user-generated content increases, and there’s a higher level of awareness about your brand” (n.d.). Increased buzz on social media and active presence in online discussions can strengthen brand awareness and drive website traffic. 

Link Building:

Social media helps to generate valuable inbound links and backlinks for your website that significantly improve rankings and authority for off-page SEO strategies. According to Jones (2021), “With more eyes on your content, you increase the chances of someone linking to it. Backlinks are a huge part of SEO. They show search engines that other people find the content on your website valuable. Content can get ranked higher if it’s beneficial to users”. The use of influencers and partnerships also help to generate a diverse link profile, through organic links integrated within their content that lead directly to your site. By using the correct influencers and partners that integrate relevant links within their content, new markets and target audiences can be reached that help the right consumers find your website. 

Visibility:

A strong social media presence can indirectly result in increased visibility on search engines. According to Clement (2020), “The thousands of shares, likes, backlinks, and comments are valuable social signals that influence your SEO search rankings. Google uses those signals in favor of your site and can push it up in rankings”. It’s no coincidence that brands with social signals appear frequently within organic search results and at the top of SERPs on Google. Even Bing revealed within their Webmaster guidelines that Bing ranks pages with more social shares higher than others (Ruparelia, 2022). Not only do social signals contribute to improving visibility, but social media pages and social profiles appear in branded searches, ultimately increasing “SERP real estate” with more organic links relevant to the brand. 

Credibility:

A strong presence on social media can help to increase the credibility of a company. Authenticity and building trust for consumers through social media can be a huge asset for improving off-page SEO. Today, consumers expect businesses to have a legitimate social media page. If a business has no social media or has a poorly constructed account, consumers may quickly lose interest. Having an established presence on social media with engaging content and active followers can boost your reputation online. According to Ruparelia (2022), “Sharing actionable and valuable content on social media can help you establish credibility and authority in your niche. Boosting authority on social media helps drive engagements and social traffic, which in turn, has the potential to bring followers to your pages and drive website traffic”. 

How to Leverage the Most Out of Social Media for SEO

In order to fully harness the power of social media and SEO, there are a variety of strategies that can be used to make the most of your online presence:

• Companies can perform keyword research to determine what keywords generate the most success, and base content for social media on those results. 

• Companies can diversify their media used within their social media marketing strategies in order to reach more potential consumers on search engines, regardless of what types of media they search for.

• Companies should strive to maintain uniformity across platforms and websites by sharing similar content, such as using the same image from a featured article post on Facebook for the actual article on the linked website (Ruparelia, 2022).

• Companies should cross-promote on both marketing channels, such as “[promoting] your social media handles on your website and blog articles on all social media channels. A cross-promotional strategy will help you achieve your business outcomes effectively and faster. You can add different social media sharing links on your blog posts and even use social media icons on the images on your website” (Ruparelia, 2022). 

• Companies should optimize media for their website as well as for each social media platform (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Image optimization chart (Ruparelia, 2022).

Conclusion

Social media is a valuable marketing tool for businesses that extends beyond the platforms themselves. A strong presence on social media, accompanied by quality content that resonates with consumers, can contribute significantly to improving off-page SEO. The correlation between social signals and SERP rankings is undeniable, so marketers should integrate social media within their strategies to enhance off-page SEO. By releasing relevant content that reaches the correct target market, not only does engagement increase, but SEO improves as well. A successful social media presence across platforms contributes to increased website traffic, strong link building, improved visibility, and increased credibility. 

References

Clement, M. (2020, July 24). Social Media SEO: 7 Easy Ways to Use Social Media to Improve Your SEO. Semrush. https://www.semrush.com/blog/social-media-seo/ 

Ruparelia, D. (2022, April 12). How Combining SEO and Social Can Boost Visibility. SE Ranking. https://seranking.com/blog/seo-social-media/ 

Jones, K. (2021, June 29). How Social Media Helps SEO [Final Answer]. Search Engine Journal. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/social-media-seo/196185/#close