SEO and Social Signals: Can Shares and Likes Help You Rank Higher?

Social media may not directly impact your search rankings, but there’s a definite connection between social signals and SEO.

The connection between social media and search engine optimization (SEO) has become a critical component in robust marketing strategies. After all, search rankings are still important for businesses looking to be found online by potential customers.

Most Google searchers only look at the top few search results when looking for something online, and less than one per cent of users click on anything in the second page of search results.

While social signals such as comments, likes and shares of posts aren’t direct ranking factors for search engines, they do influence SEO.

Your social media activity can help boost your website’s search performance by driving traffic, raising brand visibility and fostering engagement among followers. Being able to understand and leverage the connection between these channels can have a significant impact on your ability to rank with search engines.

How social signals impact your website SEO

Social signals can drive traffic to your website by increasing user engagement and reducing bounce rates. These are common metrics used by search engines when establishing your search ranking.

You can improve how much boost your social media channels provide through steady and strategic posting to the channels your potential customers use most.

A few ways you can influence these social signals include:

• Consistency

When you post regularly to your social media accounts, search engines recognize that your brand is active and relevant, which can positively influence search rankings over time. Consistency in posting helps maintain audience engagement and keeps your brand visible in people’s social feeds.

• Content quality and relevance

Search engines favour content that keeps users engaged, so creating valuable and relevant content helps improve both social media performance and search rankings. High-quality content that is relevant to your audience is more likely to be shared and engaged with on social media, driving traffic and reducing bounce rates.

• Backlinks

Backlinks from social media are typically “nofollow” links, meaning they don't directly increase your page authority, or the overall strength of your domain and likelihood of it ranking well. However, they can drive traffic and visibility, leading to natural backlinks from other sites that do give authority, creating an indirect but measurable SEO benefit.

These factors work together to improve your marketing results. For example, frequent social media activity can also enhance brand visibility and authority, leading to more organic backlinks from other sites.

Best practices to leverage social media for search performance

With a better understanding of how social media engagement can drive favourable returns in your website traffic, the next step is to implement practices you can use over the long term.

Try these tips to help boost the social signals that can influence your search ranking:

1.     Create high-quality, shareable content

Focus on developing content that your audience finds informative, entertaining or valuable. High-quality materials such as blog posts, infographics, videos and interactive content are more likely to be shared, thus increasing your social signals and broadening your reach.

2.     Engage actively with your audience

Responding promptly can go a long way with your audience, so try to get to comments, mentions and messages quickly. Keeping up this level of engagement helps build a community around your brand, encouraging more interaction and shares, and fostering a loyal following.

3.     Leverage visual content

With more images and videos hitting social feeds each day, it’s become essential to include visually appealing images, videos and graphics to capture attention. Visual content tends to generate higher engagement on social media, leading to amped up visibility through likes, shares and comments.

4.     Use hashtags and keywords

Research and use relevant hashtags and keywords to make your content easily discoverable by potential customers. Leveraging tactics that make it easier for people to find your content can significantly enhance your reach and visibility, attracting more engagement and potential traffic to your website.

5.     Offer contests and giveaways

Try organizing contests and giveaways on certain platforms to encourage people to engage with your content with likes, shares and comments. These are community-pleasing activities that can help expand your audience and boost engagement with followers.

6.     Partner with influencers

Look for influencers who have a loyal or sizable following in your niche and explore collaborations to reach their audiences. Influencers can help share and amplify your content, driving their established audiences to your website, increasing traffic and potential sales.

7.     Inspire and share user-generated content

Sometimes your users will create meaningful content for their channels that is related to your brand. This may happen organically or with inspiration from you. This user-generated content can be shared with a hashtag to help reach new potential customers. It also boosts your credibility and can help nurture a sense of community among your customers and followers.

8.     Research optimal times for posting

Investigate when your ideal audiences are most active on different social platforms. Maintain a regular posting schedule and share content during these times. Consistency and timing are key to improving your content's visibility and engagement rates.

9.     Monitor and respond to social media analytics

Leverage data from platform dashboards and backend analytics to assess your social media performance and identify what types of posts resonate most with your audience. These insights can help you refine your social media strategy to repeat your successes. Measurement tools can help you connect different types of social media activity to your desired outcomes for SEO and traffic.

10.  Promote cross-platform sharing

Cross-platform sharing can increase your content's reach and social signals, indirectly boosting traffic to your website. When posting to your social media accounts, try encouraging your existing followers to share your content across different social media platforms.

Benefits of boosting social signals

Increasing engagement on social media and leveraging social signals can drive multiple benefits for your business, including improved brand visibility and increased website traffic.

These new audiences could help amplify your brand or be future customers of your business. Increased visibility on social media not only raises brand awareness but also encourages users to visit your site. This can potentially boost conversion rates and improve search engine rankings over time.

The efforts you make on social media and with SEO will benefit and complement each other, creating sustained and long-term marketing advantages.

Which social media platforms are most effective for boosting SEO?

Choosing which social media platforms to use to connect with audiences and promote your business takes time and expertise. In many cases, you’re best to use the platforms you like and where your ideal customers spend time and show buying behaviour.

That said, platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram are particularly effective because of their huge user bases and high engagement rates. When deciding where to invest your time, review the advantages of each platform and see how they align with your business goals.

For example, LinkedIn tends to attract a business-to-business (B2B) audience, whereas Instagram is widely known for its visual appeal. Each has its unique audiences and benefits to help you make the most of your social posting. Understanding how social media impacts your website SEO can help you create more effective marketing strategies. To learn more, download our SEO Guide and our Part I and Part II Facebook Guides.