Introduction
Social media is a very integral part of our lifestyle. Nowadays, our everyday life is somehow related to our social media . Be it posting our stories, commenting on a video, or checking in at a restaurant, social media has followed us everywhere. Improving social media presence and interaction is important for businesses and organizations based on social media platforms. Not only business, but various other sources of interaction may be based on social media platforms. This makes social media a very powerful tool to use.
On average, there are about 6000 new tweets on Twitter every second. The activity on the internet solely around social media is more than it ever was.
Be it any social media platform, Google rankings show URLs and pages according to a definite set of algorithms. These algorithms are a fool-proof way of Google presenting its user with the most accurate and reliable sources of information.
At One Nought One, we provide all social media solutions to strategize best for the ultimate social media reach. We use social media strategies and algorithms to optimize your brand to deliver the best results.
There are 5,027,715,768 internet users in the world today with nearly 1,720,831,909 Google searches so far. The priority of web page searches to people who access the internet has brought Google to determine which web page ranks topmost in its search results.
Although Google does not view social media links and URLs as a ranking signal, there is a slight correlation to search result rankings.
How Does Social Media Affect The Search Engine Results Page (SERP)?
As mentioned earlier, social media might not directly affect your ranking in SERPs, but on a superficial level, there is an important connection. Google does not officially consider social media links as a ranking signal . However, there is an important role of social signals in the rank of a social media profile and its contents in SERPs.
Informative and authentic content is published which is shared and linked to social media pages. Social media gains followers whilst the webpage gains traffic. A community of target audiences grow around your brand. Consistent interactions through social activity in the platform and authoritative SEO make sure the brand reputation grows. This boosts social media rankings and the search engine index of the profile goes higher. This is how social media indirectly influences search result rankings.
Google determines the rank of social media pages by measuring various factors of the website concerned.
Social media is governed by 5 ranking factors. Thus, if the ranking factors change, it will lead to a domino effect.
Top 5 Ranking Factors In Social Media Optimization
From content authenticity to usability, here are the top five ranking factors that have an impact on SEO. Every year Google updates its system to provide a better ranking of websites to its users. In 2016, HTTPS was declared as a ranking signal. In 2017 it was mobile usability and mobile-friendliness. Shifted content development, mobile page speed, and other factors surfaced more prominently in the years ahead.
Google evaluates sites based on many ranking factors and prioritizing your social media optimization strategies will help you rank well in search results.
Social media deals with its own set of ranking factors that affect your presence on the internet. These factors are based on algorithms of specific platforms. These algorithms, in turn, rely on machine learning and AI to provide the best user experience. Though social media is related to SEO in subtle ways, the effects of it are quite hefty. Seasoned marketers tend to invest in social media marketing for the same reason.
Although social media ranking factors are far more than five, the five highlighted are the top factors in the recent trend.
1. Providing High-Quality Content
SEO has evolved a lot since its initial stages, and now social media marketing is not what it used to be. Search engines understand content better now and this has affected results in relevance and quality.
Publishing good quality content is important. Content is still far superior to most factors when it comes to SEO rankings. Producing and posting high-quality content, however it may be, will boost your social media search results for sure.
Based on the content and the value of said content will greatly affect your reach on social media platforms and its rankings in search results. Creating inauthentic content and valueless content will result negatively.
Creating high-quality content posts will result in users spending more time on your social media and will have a lower bounce rate.
Understanding your audience and creating content based on real research will affect your social reach positively. This will increase your chances of more interaction with your readers and followers.
Networking other posts and content is also a great way to get more exposure. Reposting your content and adding more valuable key points is another way to get more engagement from your target audience.
Posts and blogs such as this are great examples of how SEO is affected by the superiority of quality content.
2. Sharing Your Content
It is important that your users can easily share your content with whomever they want. The target is to connect with more people and to share your brand message. Reaching out to more consumers will give your brand or service more leads. Hence, making your content easily shareable is one of the key factors in social media rankings.
Try to add elements such as social media share buttons, call-to-action phrases, and other engagement elements to keep readers and followers engaged to your content.
Having these elements will help your social reach grow and effectively initiate more sharing of your content.
Helping your followers share your content for their benefit will eventually broaden your reach and result in more engagement. Brand publicity will seemingly increase if you get a healthy amount of shares from your posts every day. Appealing and engaging content drives followers to re-share your content helping you reach out to your ideal target audience.
Appealing headlines, catchy captions, compelling visuals, and useful content is the key to get more shares out of your daily posts.
3. Optimizing Social Media Profiles
Almost everyone will research your profile a bit before reaching out to you. Many potential connections check out your profile page before hitting the follow button. Hence, it is important to have a compelling and attractive social media profile page to secure the most out of your reach.
One of the most important factors that most people look past is social media profile optimization. This will negatively affect your brand and your social media rankings if not done correctly.
A properly optimized profile will always secure a follower or a subscriber every time a potential client comes across it. The target is to make sure your ideal market finds you online. Maintaining consistent profiling through social media platforms and actively updating your profiles according to need is important.
This way your customers and target audience can not only find you online but eventually benefit from the information you share. Following the above steps will make your profile more attractive, reachable and find you a better social media ranking in search results.
4. Optimizing Images For SEO
Visuals are important when it comes to social media communication. A lot can be represented through visuals and images alone. Images are considered the most powerful marketing tools in social media platforms. Communicating your posts with images is a more efficient way to share content. Adding great visuals to your posts and blogs will eventually increase your engagement as well.
Therefore, visual content is a more practical way to communicate with your target audience. Studies show that images are a better way to engage viewers in social media than any other format of content.
Since 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is actually visual, adding images to posts and blogs is the best way to attract more people to your social network.
Adding appropriate visuals is a very smart marketing strategy that is applied to almost all sectors. But to make the most out of your images, you need to optimize them. Optimizing your images can effectively increase your popularity and consequently improve your social media ranking.
So, the question arises how to optimize your images?
These are the key points to make sure your images are optimized before you decide to upload your content online.
Use relevant keywords to name your file
Use the appropriate image format for the best speed
Responsive images are ideal
Reduce image file size for faster loading
Create appealing captions and tags with images
Have appropriate call-to-action in visuals
Having good quality images which are innovative and attractive will definitely boost your following. Optimize your images and post relevant content with your images to secure better results in social media rankings.
5. Build Actual Connections
The best way to increase your engagement with your audience is to build connections with them. Building actual relationships with your followers or clients will establish more credibility and authenticity with your brand. Moreover, you will better understand your audiences’ pain points, requirements, problems and even get valuable feedback.
The target for this approach is to create a better sense of authenticity and understand your target buyer. You may interact on social media through channels, groups, forums, live sessions, or even personally.
The more you engage with your clients, the more clients will engage with you.
How to better connect with your users?
Take initiative and strike up conversations
Ask relevant questions to gather feedback
Ask about your posts and what they think of it
Ask how they perceive your brand
Provide them with solutions to their problems
Respond to their comments and messages
Create polls, host sessions, and interact more
These will help you interact better with your audience. Moreover, interacting through social media will increase your chances of engaging more people eventually. All of this will ultimately help your brand or service grow and gradually improve social media signals which rank your social media profile.
Conclusion
Hence, for a person looking to grow on social media, it is extremely important to go for a long-term strategy and understand the ranking factors if you want to rule the social media network.
Social media is a very integral part of our system now. Not only businesses but organizations revolve actively around social media. Ranking in social media platforms is already a steady competition that can only be expected to grow. Reviewing all aspects of social media ranking factors and optimizing your social to its requirements will enhance your business.
To know more about how social media algorithms restrict the reach of your content, check out this blog!
