Optimizing your on-site or creating quality backlinks is not the only source to increase our ranking or improve web performance in the SERPs. If you focus on other areas of digital marketing, including social media, you can have ancillary benefits to your performance. With a little focus and effort on social signals, you can gain good benefits in the long run.
Social signals and SEO are indirectly connected, i.e., if you work on your social profiles you won’t see a shift in your rankings but it will improve your visibility which is certainly correlated to SEO. This is why we want you to not only focus on on-site optimization but also on other areas.
What are Social Signals?
Social signals are a way to interact with your social profiles and uploaded content. These interactions or signals help Google understand your brand, its popularity, and its reliability. Each social media platform has its own type of metric that helps the customer interact with the profile, such as:
Facebook: Like, Comment, Follow, Share, Views
Instagram: Follow, Like, Share, Save, Comment
Twitter: Follow, Like, Retweet, Quote tweets, comment
Pinterest: Follow, Pin, Views
LinkedIn: Share, Comment, Like, Connect
Tips to Improve Your Social Signals for SEO
Working on social signs can result in creating a positive impact on SEO and other areas. In this section, we have listed some of the best tips that can help improve your social signals and overall online web page visibility.
-
Add all your social media profile pages to the website
Earlier, SEO experts used to implement social media schema at the backend of the website to communicate with Google and update them about their live social media profiles. But, this practice soon came to a halt.
Later, to communicate with Google, experts linked social media profile pages or accounts to the website. Thus, making it easier for Google crawlers to discover social media profiles and identify their connection via reciprocal links.
Tip: If you don’t want to pull your click away to social profiles instantly, add them to the footer. It will help the user experience, as well as the visitor first, will go through the website and then check out the social media pages.
2. Social Profile Page Optimization
Your social media profile pages can profit from on-page optimization just like a web page or blog post. If you properly optimize your social accounts, i.e., add target keywords to the About Us section or list services or products in the page section, you can help Google gain a better understanding of the Profile page and its relation to the keywords.
Just make sure to fill every section of your profile and add important keywords to the description.
3. Claim for the Knowledge Panel
Google Knowledge Panels are a great way for publishers to provide more information about their products or services without having to write paragraphs of text. This SERP feature covers all information about a brand, including its social media profiles.
Knowledge Panels are ranked mostly for branded searches. You cannot submit your brand as knowledge panes are automatically created by Google. But, if you have a knowledge panel then claim for it as it will improve your traffic and reach.
4. Post Content Regularly Across Social Platforms
Just like you post content regularly on your website in the form of an article, blog, or ebook, try posting on your social profile pages as well. If you constantly post quality content on your social media accounts, you will improve engagement. People will like, share, and comment, which will also give you a quick idea of how engaging your profile is.
Many free social media management tools like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, etc., can help in schedule posting. These tools automate your posting to several social accounts, such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, as well as LinkedIn.
Here are a few additional tips that you must keep in mind when posting content on a regular basis on social accounts:
- Share the newest content immediately after publishing it on the website.
- Any content that provides the latest information or news to users, try to share it immediately on social accounts.
- Make sure to share only relevant or trending content related to your business.
- If a user sends a query related to the topic, service, or product, respond with a link that answers their question.
Creating any post without links will not benefit you in any way, so try to include links back to your web pages.
5. Use Social Plugins for Sharing
Another important thing that one must not miss is to add social icons to each post, so that a visitor can easily share content to his/her page. There are many social plugins available online that it easy for readers to share content on their respective social accounts.
6. Avoid Fake Followers for Engagement
Many companies use tools that generate fake follows and engagements. These make look like an easy and great option, but the results don’t last long. Engagements created via these tools and platforms are temporary and not worth the risk and price. It is best to increase engagement organically on your social platforms.
Conclusion
Social signals are a way to interact with social profiles as well as they help measure the popularity of a social media post. They are used in many ways, but mainly to determine the quality and relevance of content.
Social media posts can come in all shapes and sizes. The most popular posts are usually those with high engagement rates, such as shares, comments, or likes. These engagements provide social signals that can be used to determine the quality and relevance of a post.
For example, if someone shares your tweet on their profile page or retweets it to their followers, you have received one type of signal that you have done something right with your content.
Above we have listed some of the best techniques to improve social signals for SEO. If you like our post, feel free to share and update more people about the same.