Social Media and SEO Relationship

As the digital age penetrates deeply into all areas of our lives, visibility is becoming more important in many areas. Experts working on the optimization of websites in search engines have to develop new ideas in a competitive environment that grows day by day. Many studies show that the first result that appears just below the ads in Google searches is clicked on by a very large proportion of users. Since SEO started to be used as part of the marketing strategy, developments in the world of technology have increased rapidly day by day. SEO techniques can provide a better user experience, measure the return on investment in advertising, achieve a stronger market position and better brand exposure. Getting more mentions of your brand on social media is also one of the foundations of SEO strategies.

Recently, it is seen that SEO-friendly content producers prioritize the questions that are sought for answers on social media while determining their topics. Although activities such as likes and comments on social media do not play a role as a ranking signal in search engines, they affect the visibility of content producers. The relationship between producing content that will attract attention and can be shared on social media and SEO searches is becoming more and more important every day.

SEO work to be done for websites must have continuity. It is important to remember that it cannot be done once and done well, that it is a process and that it takes a long time to get to the top. Likewise, brands using social media channels need to actively produce engaging content. This similarity has brought the fields of SEO and social media management closer together and led to the formation of new marketing strategies.

How Should Social Media and SEO Interaction Work?

Experts recommend first preparing a web page with SEO-compliant content for a brand and then opening social media accounts in line with the content. When creating content for social media, the targeted search group should be determined and SEO compatible titles should be selected. Likewise, it is important to pay attention to SEO compatibility when creating content and labeling the article. Keywords should be used in the title, profile and description sections of social media accounts or in the images added. However, it should be kept in mind that different strategies should be followed for each social media account of a brand.

Google generally gives more value to highly clicked links and ensures that they appear at the top of the search results. In recent years, the posts made from social media accounts with a lot of interaction are also listed in search engines. It seems that a new trend will emerge with the participation of SEO in social media and search engine interaction. For this reason, social media and SEO strategies should be given the same importance.

What is Social SEO?

Social SEO is when a website uses social media as an indirect tool to increase its visibility in search engines. Its basis is to make SEO-appropriate posts by utilizing all the opportunities of social media. Although it does not directly affect SEO, it contributes to increasing visibility and traffic through activities on social media. Social SEO can help you improve your ranking signals. A website content prepared according to SEO can increase its ranking in search engines if it is shared on social media channels and interacts with a large number of people.

What is a Social Signal?

A brand’s strength in social media will directly affect the traffic on its website in a positive way. Google can highlight the links shared by accounts with too many followers by recognizing them as social signals. The most important social media signals are shares, comments, likes, evaluations, followings and links. It is not clear how effective social signals are, as Google does not provide much information about the ranking criteria that affect search results. However, it is known that the quality of posts made from social media accounts affects search results.

The Contribution of Social Media to SEO

Google has stated that social media is not a direct ranking factor and that it crawls social media sites in the same way as any other site. For this reason, SEO searches are not effective on social media accounts, but a viral post has a chance to reach the top of Google searches. For many brands around the world, the number of visitors they receive from Google is important. Even the social media profiles of big brands are on the first pages of Google searches. It is thought that the relationship between Google and social media channels will become closer in the future, thus social SEO will become more important. Although the impact of social media signals on Google searches is debatable, understanding both SEO and social media marketing will play a big role in helping companies reach a wider audience.

Impact of Social Media Traffic for SEO

The question of how effective social media traffic is for SEO is related to the working principles of browsers. For example, Bing’s web guidelines indicate that it ranks social media pages with more traffic higher, whereas Google explained that it crawls social media sites on the same principle as other sites and that shares do not matter in ranking. Since search engines do not clarify this issue, the relationship between social media traffic and SEO is tried to be explained through research. A 2016 field study revealed that social signals are effective in Google rankings. However, this effect is that social media does not directly increase SEO rankings, but has an indirect contribution.

Social Media Helps You Know Your Audience for Your SEO Content

Using social media and SEO together allows you to increase visibility, get the content you want to publish on social media indexed faster, and help you get to know your target audience. Audience research on social media is important in creating the right SEO and content strategy. Monitoring followers’ discussions on content allows you to analyze what kind of searches they are doing and makes it easier to create targeted SEO content.

Backlinks from Social Media

Backlinks, one of the most important SEO factors, are links that direct users’ attention from one site to another site on web tools or social media channels on the internet. Linking websites with backlinks from social media is a way to rank higher on Google. Directing your followers on your social media accounts to your site through backlinks will have a direct impact on your ranking. But the most important point is that original and creative content is needed to succeed in both SEO and media.

Social Posting Helps Your Website Content Get Indexed Faster

When making a promotion, it is an effective method to share it both in your website content with a focus on SEO and on social media, and to highlight both. Many large companies use their social media accounts to get a new piece of content on their website indexed faster. The purpose of these simultaneous posts is to get Google to crawl the post and signal that it is a page that should be indexed.

Social Media is a Great Place to Discover New Keywords

One of the most important advantages of social media accounts for companies is that they allow them to conduct keyword research for their target audience. New keywords can be discovered through a Q&A interaction between users and the account manager. Knowing what users want to follow or read is important to be able to rise to the top.

Social Media Brings Traffic Faster Than SEO Efforts That Don't Give Fast Results

Although SEO content to be produced for the website is important to rank high in search engines, it is not possible to ignore the speed of social media. According to the 2021 World Internet Usage and Social Media Statistics, the average time spent on the internet by users around the world is 7 hours per day, of which 2.5 hours are spent on social media. Therefore, producing content that will go viral on social media is more advantageous than SEO content that does not provide quick returns.

Hashtag using

Many users use social media sites as search engines. They can search for the information they want to reach within the social media channel with keywords. For this reason, many brands aim to stand out by using hashtags like SEO. The use of keywords obtained for its target audience will make your page stand out in searches made on social media channels.

Use SEO and Social Media for Better Results

It is recommended that social media and SEO work together for best results. Improvements to be made in social media should be linked to SEO and should not consist of independent teams. Developing an SEO-focused social media strategy gives your brand visibility as a trusted and expert resource. The biggest advantage of this is that when a post is created that gets traffic on social media accounts, it can be paired with other content on the website. Many experts recommend having a link on social media profiles that leads directly to the website.

Share Your SEO Content on Social Media

SEO and social media experts recommend simultaneous posts on all accounts. SEO content should be reorganized according to the social media channels to be shared, thus creating a social interaction. Considering that users’ social media preferences may vary, all accounts should be given the same attention.

Make Sure Your SEO Content is Optimized for Sharing

Since the working principles of social media vary, sharing SEO content prepared for a website in the same way on every platform will not yield very good results. For this reason, social media should be taken into consideration from the moment the content is prepared. Whichever social media channel the content will be shared on, it should be optimized accordingly and subjected to a visual revision. This way, the content will be more successful in both search engines and social searches.