The Role of Social Media in Driving SEO Traffic

It’s quite evident I think to everyone that social media is here to stay, short form engaging content is not going anywhere. 

It was thought before that SEO and Social media were two entirely different things. SEO was thought to be a tool you used to get in good favour with search engines and social media was just about engaging directly with your audience. 

Since social media is not going anywhere anytime soon, you as a small business owner should utilise this tool to not only boost your SEO but also build your brand awareness.

While social media doesn’t directly impact SEO, the influence of social media can be felt in several ways in your business. Ranging from the distribution of content to building up your brand awareness to driving traffic to your website.

Social Media’s Impact on SEO

The rise of social media brought about a significant change in the online world and has made a change in the way bloggers now have to write. You must make your content so that it’s quick and straight to the point as people's attention spans are rapidly decreasing. 

As mentioned before, social media is not a direct ranking factor when it comes to SEO. However, the influence of social media on SEO has become difficult to ignore. 

Best SEO practices have evolved to reflect this shift in the favourability of content. For example, content on websites is not solely for search engines but to actually be consumed and shared across multiple platforms. This change in focus on creating high-quality, shareable content has in turn positively influenced SEO by improving factors like site traffic and time spent on the website. 

Similarly, while backlinks continue to be heavily important (A factor in Google’s EEAT), the emphasis has shifted from quantity to the relevance and quality of the backlinks. Social media platforms have become valuable spaces for earning high-quality backlinks. 

See, it’s simple if someone sees on your social media that there’s actual relevant content. Your content will be linked to and shared more. 

In essence, the rise of social media has made a positive shift in the way content is curated online. It’s not just about the search engines now. It’s about the quality of the content you create for people to consume. Search engines prioritise user experience over anything else. 

An Overview of Social Platforms 

Social media platforms, each with their own unique features, user demographics and algorithms play a distinct role in SEO, here’s an overview of the major ones. 

Facebook 

• Key Attributes: Facebook’s main strength lies in its vast user base, comprising a wide demographic, making it an ideal platform to reach a diverse audience. 
• SEO Influence: Facebook’s strong point lies in its ability to engage users and drive traffic to websites. Shared links and posts can generate user engagement, promoting brand exposure with the potential for link-building

X (Formerly Twitter)

• Key Attributes: Twitter is a platform based on real-time updates. Have a thought? Twitter is the place for it. 
• SEO Influence: Despite the ‘nofollow’ attribute on outbound links, X’s real value for SEO lies in its capacity for content distribution, engagement and potential for virality. It can be a good platform for brand visibility and generation discussions around your content. 

LinkedIn

• Key attributes: LinkedIn is a social network for professionals, making it perfect for business-related interactions. 
• SEO influence: The platform is a great place for B2B companies to improve their business visibility and engage with a professional audience. If you’re a small business I would highly recommend LinkedIn to build the professional relationships you need. 

Instagram

• Key Attributes: Instagram is a visual-based social media platform, widely popular for sharing personal experiences and stories. 
• SEO Influence: While Instagram uses ‘nofollow’ links in post descriptions, profiles can include ‘follow’ links. Brands can use this to increase visibility, engage with users and drive traffic to their websites via profile links or ‘swipe up’ stories with accounts over 10000 followers. 

Overview of Social Signals 

While Social Media won’t put you in the number one ranking spot, it will affect several factors which can boost engagement and backlinks to your website. For example, running your social media effectively will have these benefits below:

Increased Online Visibility: More engagement on social media posts can lead to higher online visibility and more people seeing and sharing your content. This can indirectly improve your SEO as more shares can lead to a higher chance of people linking back to your website.

Content Distribution: Social media platforms provide an excellent channel to distribute your content to a wider audience. The more your content is shared, the higher the chances of it being seen and linked back to by other websites, blogs, or social media posts.

Brand Awareness: A strong social media presence helps improve brand recognition and reputation. A well-recognized brand may gain higher click-through rates (CTR) in SERPs, which can be a positive signal to search engines.

Social Media and SEO Ranking Factors 

• Link building: When your social media posts are shared widely, they can be seen by other bloggers, journalists and influencers. If your content is seen as ‘valuable’ or ‘relevant’ your content could be shared and distributed by means of mentions that you don’t have to work for. 
• Website Traffic: Social media can be a significant source of referral traffic. Sharing and promoting your content on your social platforms can be a way of driving traffic to your website and hopefully ending with people taking the right steps on your website.
• Brand Authority: A strong and active social media presence can help establish your brand as an authority in your field. While it’s hard to quantify the impact of brand authority on SEO. It’s thought that better-trusted brands rank higher in SERPs
• Content Indexation: Rapid sharing of a piece of content across social media can speed up indexation by search engines. This is especially true for X, where Google often indexes popular X posts quickly.

Using Social Media to Better your SEO

Link Building on Social Media 

Share quality content: Share your high-quality content on social media platforms. If your followers find it valuable, they are more likely to share it. It seems simple, which it is but it’s overlooked heavily. Quality over quantity.

Promote Guest Posts: If you write guest posts for other blogs or websites, share these posts on your social media. This increases the visibility of your guest's posts and can help drive more traffic to your site. 

Building Brand Authority Through Social Media

Provide Valuable Insights: Regularly share useful insights, updates and news related to your industry to establish your brand as a trusted source of information.

Engage with your Audience: Respond to comments and questions on your posts. Show that you value your follower's input or questions. 

Promote Positive Reviews and Testimonials: Positive reviews and testimonials can greatly enhance your brand's reputation. The more positive social proof you have for your business the better, 

Another tip would be to get Google My Business(GMB) set up, show the reviews, and encourage more reviews from your clients. This will also help with your Local SEO. 

Through social media, you as a small business owner can greatly enhance your online presence. You can get your content pushed to a wider audience, improve your brand awareness, and build stronger connections with your audience - all of these have a positive influence on your SEO efforts. 

If you’re looking for an agency to take care of your social media and get your SEO where it needs to be to drive the traffic you need to get to your website. Consider us at Conquer The Internet. Our SEO experts will help you get your business ranking in your local area. Or if you’re local to us in Horsham west Sussex, get involved with the best marketing agency for small to medium-sized businesses. 

Book a call with our founder Matt, no sales jargon just a friendly chat to see if we can get your business where it needs to be. 

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