The relationship between social signals, SEO and a website’s eventual ranking in Google’s search results has been hotly debated over the past few years. Social media has become an essential part of any company’s online strategy, and as traditional keyword-based SEO methods have become outdated and ineffective, it’s only natural that many would expect social signals to become even more influential. In a recent video, Google’s Matt Cutts – the head of their webspam team – told the world that Facebook and Twitter signals are not part of Google’s ranking algorithm. This hasn’t come as a huge surprise to us – and it makes the role of content marketing even more important.
Causation and correlation
SEO analysts always seem to find a link between social impressions such as Facebook likes, shares and retweets, and the ranking of a page. Despite the fact that Google doesn’t use these social signals as part of its algorithm, it’s obvious that they’re still important. The undeniable positive correlation between social signals and search rankings points to another closely related cause. Shared content leads to more page views, and more links.
Social media and sharing
The likes themselves don’t matter – but if even 1% of those who liked your Facebook post clicked on the link, and only 1% of those who clicked linked back to your site, you’re still getting a boost to your search rankings. Those who follow your brand on social media are already interested in your products or services – you just have to engage them with fresh content to get them sharing and linking to your website. It doesn’t matter that Google doesn’t count retweets and likes directly – it’s still taking them into account indirectly. If Google did include social signals in the algorithm, it’d effectively be counting them twice – once for the impression itself, and second for the additional page views and links the impression generates.
Implications for content marketing
Encouraging page followers to like, share or comment on content will not raise your site’s ranking by itself. The content still needs to be engaging – whether it’s informative, controversial or amusing. Google’s current approach means that high-quality content wins again. You’ll only benefit from social signals if they lead to more people linking to your website. The more interesting your content, the more likely it is that you’ll get these links and page views.
What about Google+?
We feel as though we might have to start using this subheading in every entry in the Crowdbait blog. Google’s plans for its struggling social network are becoming clearer with every change and announcement they make. Google+ is integral to SEO thanks to Google authorship – forcing many of us to create G+ profiles. G+ is gradually becoming essential – not just for SEO analysts and digital marketing teams, but also for the general public. If Google starts to include social signals in its algorithm, you can be sure that it’ll start with Google+.
The lack of direct causation between social signals and search engine ranking is almost irrelevant. Good content posted on social media channels will engage readers and lead to organic links to your website – that’s the relationship that’s actually of importance here. If you need a hand in creating professional and shareable content for your website, take a look at the reasons you should choose Crowdbait as your content marketing company!