Does Social Media Inspire Search Engine Rankings?

Search is the Yin to Social's YangAs an SEO Specialist I often hear things like “Search engine rankings aren’t going to be important in the future” or “social media is going to take over search.” This usually spurs a debate. My theory is that social media inspires search and without good search engine rankings you’re not going to get the click.

In general search engine users use the search engines to gather information about a specific topic. Users are looking in the search engines for sites with product reviews, movie previews, company reviews, history, instructions, trivia, hotel rates, new places to go, news, etc. The user will come up with a subject they want more information on and search for that information. For example when a user types “What is SEO” into the search engines, they are looking for more information about SEO. The user will see a list of sites that are optimized for “what is SEO.” If your website is achieving high search engine rankings, and you’re listing looks attractive, you are getting the click.

Here is a question, what is SEO? Where did you hear about SEO? Odds are if you’re looking for something niche like SEO you heard it briefly from a friend/colleague or read about it on a social media site such as, a forum, a blog etc. If you read about SEO on a social media site, the social media site provides a few ideas about SEO then may inspire you to use a search engine to search for more information such as “SEO Strategies” “SEO Services” or “SEO Firms.” Once that query is entered into a search engine, websites need good search engine rankings to compete for the click.

There is so much information being shared in social media sites everyday about all different topics. If you see a tweet, blog, comment, video, or Facebook post about something that interests you, odds are you are going to take an idea from that content, put it in the search engines, and click on a site with good search engine rankings to gather more information about that subject. It doesn’t always work like this but think about how many times you saw a tweet, blog, comment, video, or Facebook post etc. then used the search engines to gather more information about that subject.

Social Media & SEO go hand in handNow an excellent Internet Marketing strategy will begin with focusing on your search engine rankings. Once you have great search engine rankings it will be time to really throw some ideas out there into the social media communities to get people interested in something relevant to your business which will inspire curiosity and curiosity will inspire a search. Why not just post links to your site? Because you don’t want to spam these sites, annoy the users, and get booted. You want to engage with the users and spark an interest or inspire conversations which will lead to a search. Once you get them searching for more information, you won’t have to worry because you already have the search engine rankings which will convert into clicks.

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