Some thoughts on Social Media and SEO based on Eric Enge’s (CEO of Stone Temple Consulting) article for Convince & Convert called ‘Do Social Signals Drive SEO?’
So Do Social Signals Drive SEO?
Many people/clients are asking me the same question over and over again: Do social signals drive SEO? In a way how do social signals impact search engine rankings, do they at all… and to what degree.
There are a lot of studies around suggesting that this is the case. On the other side the regretful truth is that :
1. #Google say that they don’t use social at all for #SEO .
2. Social media links are nofollow so #PageRank cannot be passed to the link.
3. Correlation studies only measure causation
To clear the SEO pond once and for all I am presenting you with an article I stumbled upon a few days ago by Eric Enge called ‘Do Social Signals Drive SEO?’.(goo.gl/XaktRG )
Spend some time analysing this article please. I did and I realised that whether Social Media is boosting directly your SEO or is just acting as a PR channel does not matter.
When implemented properly it does increase your website visits and this should be more than enough to convince you or your boss to invest more time and money in targeted social presence.
Now I am leaving you with the almighty Eric Enge and his vision of the connection between #social media and SEO – goo.gl/XaktRG .
P.S.
David Amerland had something to say on the subject (“A robust, carefully crafted Twitter presence can significantly aid your visibility in search by helping define your website’s relevance. ”) in his article ‘How Your Twitter Activity Helps Your Visibility in Semantic Search’ here: http://goo.gl/xtdYur.
Teodora Petkova gave us her opinion on the subject (Large number of comments per se might mean everything 🙂 But yes, I see a correlation between reinforced relationships (i.e. strong social signals) and SERP) here: http://goo.gl/IRTw1b
By the way this article/conversation between Randy Milanovic and some well known SEO/Semantic gurus like Ammon Johns, Stephan Hovnanian, David Amerland, Bruce Marko, David Kutcher, Teodora Petkova, Aaron Bradley, Bill Slawski, Sergio Redondo and Frank Gainsford is enough to convince every Social Media nonbeliever to “start building out his social media channel and start driving his business to new heights”.
Tihomir Petrov also gave us his opinion on the matter (in many cases, comments that contribute to rich posts on #Google +, can rank high in #Google SERPs if a user is logged in (sometimes even not) here:http://goo.gl/LJmdMs
In the end no Social and SEO research/conversation/chat should be conducted without the humble opinion of the SEO Wizard of them all – Rand Fishkin. In this HOA 24.50 (http://goo.gl/IemM05) he gave us this answer to the question:
Do Google pick up on social traffic?
“Yes, there is a very clear, strong, powerful correlation… However, this is an area of strong debate in the SEO world, are those direct impact signals?… Basically it seems you can’t pound on one social signal and earn higher rankings as a result… If you can get 10 strong links in contrast, then you will more or less always find yourself on the first page…However I believe Google is doing something to capture activity that’s often very associative with social signals…. Something is going on…”
Still wondering about the importance of social media for your SEO? I don’t think so.
Leave a Reply