If you mention the word “SEO” to most business people, their ears will perk up. Everyone is concerned about how well their website performs on search engines and are even willing to pay mucho bucks to show up on the first page (but for what keywords?). A more cost effective method is to use social media to boost your SEO, which, if done properly, can also improve your reputation with customers and potential buyers as well.
Social Media has SEO Impact
Search engines have started to incorporate social media into the results. By being more active on social media, there’s more opportunity for you to show up in these results. For example, in this search for Biggby coffee (a regional coffee shop), there are some results from my social circle:
Build Reputation
People are more likely to believe the opinions of their friends and colleagues. Using social media increases the chance that people will see your brand, as well as increases the opportunities of having conversations about your brand (which then show up on search engines). Since social media shows up in search engines, people will see if people in their social circle are talking about your brand when they search.
Increase Incoming Links & Traffic
Creating and posting great content and sharing it out via social media also increases the opportunity for people to see that content and then share it out to their own network. The more your content is shared, the more opportunity there is for people to see it and click on links to view the full content, as well as post to blogs or websites which builds the links to your site (which are used for building your reputation with search engines).
Thoughts?
(photo by Ryan Wick)