Does social media have an SEO effect?
Since you are reading this article, you might be wondering the same thing.
To conclude, social media does not have a direct SEO effect, but it can have an indirect SEO effect.
However, it is surprising how few people are actually aware of the specific indirect effects.
This article explains the SEO effects of social media.
If you want to focus on both social media and SEO, please read on.
Table of contents
SEO Effects of Social Media
As mentioned earlier, social media does not have a direct effect on SEO.
In fact, Google has stated that social media does not have a direct impact on SEO.
In a live stream on Google’s official YouTube channel “Google Search Central” on August 14, 2015, a viewer asked, “Do social signals affect SEO?”
In response, Google’s John Mueller said:
There is no direct impact.
Social networks often attach nofollow to links provided when posting content, so it does not affect rankings.
Source: English Google Webmaster Central office-hours hangout
However, it is believed that there are indirect SEO effects.
Let’s discuss the elements that do and do not have an effect.
Links from Social Media Do Not Have an SEO Effect
Firstly, links from social media do not have an SEO effect.
SEO has an algorithm called PageRank, which is strengthened by the number and quality of backlinks.
Social media generally includes nofollow tags, which instruct search engines not to follow the links.
Therefore, social media cannot increase PageRank.
In other words, collecting backlinks from social media will not increase PageRank, meaning that links from social media are ineffective.
We have a detailed article on our site about nofollow tags.
If you want to learn more about nofollow tags, please refer to it.
What is the nofollow attribute? Correct usage and its relationship with SEO
Citations Do Have an Effect
On the other hand, citations are believed to have an effect.
Citations are “mentions without links” and are one of the external SEO strategies opposite to backlinks.
However, in the case of social media, posts with links also count as citations due to the inclusion of nofollow tags.
When a specific product or company is mentioned on social media, it counts as a citation and can affect the external evaluation (objective evaluation) of the company.
While the exact SEO impact of citations is not clearly stated, Google has confirmed that “prominence” affects local search rankings.
Reference: Google Business Profile Help – Improve your local search ranking on Google
Additionally, Google’s search quality evaluator guidelines state the following about the relationship between page quality and reputation:
High-quality pages serve a beneficial purpose and are created to achieve that purpose well. The distinction between High and Highest is based on the quality and quantity of the Main Content (MC), as well as the level of reputation and EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness).
Source: Google Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines (General Guidelines)
The elements distinguishing High (high-quality pages) and Highest (highest-quality pages) include “reputation.”
As can be seen from this, citations have an impact on SEO, and it is necessary to take measures accordingly.
How to Gain Citations on Social Media
So, how can you actually gain citations on social media?
Here are some methods to gain citations on social media:
- Create high-quality content
- Create an environment that makes it easy to share on social media
- Engage with users on social media
Let’s explain each method.
Create High-Quality Content
The most important thing is to create high-quality content.
To gain citations, you need to create content that is valuable to users, whether it is surprising, interesting, or contains trivia.
To do this, you need to provide information that your target users and people in your industry are looking for.
By providing information that users want, it becomes easier for them to post about your company or products.
First, understand what kind of information your target audience is looking for and aim to deliver high-quality content.
Create an Environment That Makes It Easy to Share on Social Media
It’s also important to create an environment on your website that makes it easy to share on social media.
If there is no easy way to share, you might miss the opportunity to have users spread your information.
For example, you can add social media share buttons to your website or create a post screen that transitions with hashtags when the share button is clicked.
Our site also encourages sharing on social media by setting up social media buttons.
Particularly, X has a high spreading power, and you can quickly gain citations from a single post.
Create an environment that makes it easy to share so you don’t miss out on opportunities for dissemination.
Engage with Users on Social Media
Engaging with users on social media is very important from the perspective of gaining citations.
When companies or their employees interact with users through their accounts, the company or product often becomes a topic of conversation.
In addition to hearing users’ voices through social listening or customer success, you can gain citations by increasing the number of interactions.
In psychology, there is something called the “mere exposure effect,” which means that the more often people are exposed to something, the more they tend to like it. By actively engaging with users, you can make them more likely to have a positive view of your company or products, making it easier to gain citations.
Some may feel that interacting with users on social media is challenging, but it is often considered more important than just disseminating information one-sidedly.
If you are managing a social media account but are not actively engaging with users, consider using this opportunity to start interacting with them.
Social Media Displayed in Search Results (SERPs)
From an SEO perspective, gaining citations is important, but if you are managing social media accounts, you should also consider driving traffic directly from search results to your social media.
For example, YouTube posts appear in search results.
When videos appear in search results, it indicates that users are looking for video content rather than text content, so the videos are ranked higher.
Therefore, if the search results for the keywords you are targeting show video content at the top, prepare both article content and video content.
If both rank high, you can increase traffic more effectively.
【Summary】Aim for Synergy between Social Media and SEO with High-Quality Content
Although social media does not have a direct SEO effect, it has an indirect effect.
To gain citations that have an SEO effect on social media, aim to create high-quality content.
Creating an environment that makes it easy to share is also important for gaining citations, so please try the methods introduced in this article.
At Xscore, we offer consulting and agency services to solve our clients’ SEO challenges.
If you have any issues with SEO, feel free to contact us.
