Does SEO Affect your Social networking?

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, Technorati – social media tools are swarming the net, becoming the main way to get in touch, keep in touch, socialize and monetize.

Written Feb 27, 2010, read 3657 times since then.

That depends on who you ask....On places like Twitter, individuals and businesses alike have begun posting links to their blogs, sites and articles. LinkedIn has a way to plug into your blog so once you post, it shows on your LinkedIn profile. With Digg you can have a link back to an article on your site, or on an article directory, etc. In other words, you can have a website, a blog and ten social media accounts, and have them all leading to each other.

The question arises, however: does all this do any good for search engine optimization? And if it does, how much good does it do?

In reality, social media can be intergrated into your online marketing. If you are not paying attention no matter how small or large your company to social media, then close the doors and rethink your marketing strategy. One of the reasons why so many businesses use social media tools is because they realized very quickly that these tools give them the ability to talk to their customers. In addition, these tools allow business individuals to reach a new target audience.

Once you can nurture and grow your social networks with Credibility, Trust, Respect, Experience, Rapport, Influence, Connection, Social Proof, Reputation, Accountability, and Google (for the geek in me) then you know you are on the right path towards success.

All this socializing does have some benefits for optimization, but perhaps not in the way you think it does. Thousands of people post links on Twitter, for example, thinking that these posts will link back to their site, and raise PageRank and search engine results positioning. However, Twitter specifically has a “no follow” for your links, which means that the search engine crawlers won’t follow the link back to your site; in other words, the links themselves have no optimization value.

Now, people are selling eBooks on how to gain followers and whatnot, pushing all the benefits and making the buyers think this book will grow their business, but how does social media work for site optimization, PageRank and SERPs?

1.    You post your links.
2.    People (not search engines) follow those links and read what you’ve written/posted.
3.    Of those people who liked your post/article/idea, some will talk about it and add a link to your site where the information is.
4.    The new links will generally have a “follow all” tag, telling the crawlers to follow them.
5.    Those inbound links will bring in organic traffic and add authority to your site, which, in turn, will raise your search engine result positioning and PageRank.

All in all, social media is like MLM (multi-level marketing):

You post ten links with no results on PageRank, placement or anything else; you may as well have thrown them into the wide unknown. However, five people read your links and re-post (or link back) to those ten posts, and you now have fifty (free!) back links (not reciprocal!) leading to your site. Five other people find those re-posts and re-post again – 250 back links, plus the original 50, adds up to a whopping 300 links leading back to your site.

All those links will normally be posted on sites relevant to your site, which gives your site authority, which raises your PageRank. All that traffic and the resulting commentary can raise your positioning in the SERPS.

So – while social media in and of itself isn’t that helpful with SEO, the resulting links are. How do you get people to repost, comment and write about your site, article, blog, etc? That’s another blog entirely!

Learn more about the author, Gabriella Sannino.

Posted by Diana Bourgeois, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina | Feb 28, 2010

Great points! Social media is the ultimate connection to SEO especially as Google makes a turn toward real-time indexing of social media sites.
Posted by Jahnelle Pittman, Kansas City, Missouri | Mar 01, 2010

It's hard for a lot of people to understand, with "everyone who's anyone" pushing for or against SEO, that search engines aren't everything. If you're diving into social media, the important part for SEO is to make sure your website is optimized so that when people do come to your site from social media efforts and link back to it, your site is ready for the search engines. Ultimately, though, social media is about people, not search engines. Great article!
Posted by Nate Balcom, Auburn Hills, Michigan | Mar 04, 2010

I have my blog set up to automatically post to a group of social networks every time I write an article. I would say that it is a part of SEO and I cater to each. With the advent of Google live if you're not posting to social networks your missing out on traffic. Thanks for the post. Good points!
Posted by Gabriella Sannino, San Francisco, California | Mar 04, 2010

Hello everyone, thanks for your support and great comments. It's going to become obvious in our society and business models that we need to connect, communicate & ultimately engage with our clients. No need to be left behind. Reminds me of a 70's show I think it was called the "Soul Train" lolol I am calling mine the Social Train.
Posted by Laura Woodworth, Kansas City, Missouri | Mar 04, 2010

Great things to keep in mind. I'm trying to make the most of our social media efforts... and love it when the buzz starts happening (yes - viral marketing!).

Thanks for the article, Gabriella!
Posted by Maximus Kang, Issaquah, Washington | Mar 04, 2010

Hey Gabriella! Great article! Your example of the MLM thing is one that I always use too. :) I think leveraging social media with other link building strategies that do happen to use do-follow links can really help with the indexation of your social media sites. One of my clients is in the wedding industry (yikes) and we managed to get their facebook fan page indexed in the top 10 within 3 months. Might as well get the most out of their high domain authority eh?

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts Gabriella!
Posted by Jed Share, Seattle, Washington | Mar 04, 2010

Thank you Gabriella, it just goes to show that CONTENT is king. Valid points and a helpful article. I'll be looking out for you next post!

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Posted by Gabriella Sannino, San Francisco, California | Mar 04, 2010

Hey Max, we actually had a bunch of broohaha at calling it MLM. But in reality the concept is deep seeded no way around it. I am still trying to figure out this FB fan page. The problem is I don't have time to look into it let alone start a new list without family (from the old country) or friends that (come out of the woodwork) in it :) thanks for sharing Max!
Posted by Russ Alman, Olympia, Washington | Mar 04, 2010

Great article and also great comments!

As you use social networking, make a point to talk about your key concepts for your business. As those comments are picked up by the search engines, it will help associate you with your business and your products and services. When people search on your topics, you name will keep popping up over and over again, increasing your relevancy.
Posted by Gabriella Sannino, San Francisco, California | Mar 04, 2010

Hey Russ, most of the times I enjoy reading the comments more than the article. lol Especially, when you write the article. Now with Google real time search your name your company name anything you put on the web gets indexed.

Speaking of Content is king Jed, it may take years for people to find your great content....Or we have had clients asking about comments or content they wrote years ago, or that someone wrote about them (usually nothing nice) and how they can push them down in the search results. Point is, be careful what you do say... One of these days it may very well come back to bite you.
Posted by Russ Alman, Olympia, Washington | Mar 04, 2010

Amen to that :) I always use the "grandma and kids filter" whenever I post something online in public, whether it's business or personal. If I would be embarrassed if my grandma or kids read it, then I shouldn't post it!

That being said, if there is old content out there, being active in the social media will push the older, unwanted comments farther down in the search results so that people are less likely to find it. Active participation in the social media allows you to "own your space" in the search engines.
Posted by Roxana Nunez, Sanford, Florida | Mar 05, 2010

Hi Gabriella, Thanks for your point of view. In the last couple of days I have received a lot of info on social networks and their harm or good.

I personally use my twitter account and FB Fan Page to share information with others. The information is not only what I post on my blog. I include links to anything I find interesting, staying within two general areas, women issues and business. Your article will be retweeted also.

My strategy has not much to do with SEO, which I am still trying to figure out. My strategy is all about getting to know my customer and having a "conversation". If I can be honest, I write blog posts about those issues I find interesting and have never purposely filled my articles with certain words to raise my rankings.

I am well aware that the more information I published, the more possibilities I have to show up in search results. I guess that is not my priority right now. To me, spreading the information is more important than where I am in rankings at this time. As time goes on and I move towards other business goals (or maybe when I understand all this techie stuff better,lol), I might be more focused on SEO.

Thank you for explaining your point of view so simply though. Part of the reason why I have such a hard time understanding what is going on is the fact that many people are too technical.
Posted by Graeme Gibson, Seattle, Washington | Mar 08, 2010

The major flaw here is that many important items get skipped on the reposting, but the junk gets shared and spammed all over the place.

Many items have just become the new version of a email forward, so people are either continuing in the practice, or ignoring altogether.
Posted by Laura Crest, Bellingham, Washington | Mar 09, 2010

This is probably one of the best explanations of the true value and nature of S.M. links for SEO that I've read in some time!

It is so much a matter of the quality of your inbound links - which all leads back to the quality of your content. No matter how you choose to slice that SEO sandwich: Content is King, and thank some entity for that!

Thank you, Gabriella, and may the "geek" force be with you : )
Posted by Gabriella Sannino, San Francisco, California | Mar 09, 2010

Wow I disappear for a few days and come back to some wonderful comments! I really do love this community. Everyone is so supportive, generous with their thoughts and so engaging.

Roxanne, while I completely agree with your position, I'm a die hard believer in making SEO, and natural flow work hand in hand. SEO can be technical sometimes and that is a turn off to a lot of people, so I get it. But what I strive for is a seamless, yet natural approach to gaining better SERP's. It takes time and the way you are going about it is perfect.

Hey Graeme, thanks for the comments. I have to agree. the reposting of "information" has become more like email chain letters (RT this ten times and good luck comes to you!). All we can do is try not to pass on trash ourselves - make a stand and change the world! lol

Laura, you had me at "may the geek force be with you:" yeah another geeket!
Posted by Siya Jain, Bikaner, Rajasthan India | Mar 25, 2010

SEO as the primary need is getting a website in front of the right viewers. By having social networking, traffic generation to your website becomes easy.

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