They’ve said it before and they’re saying it again. SEO experts across the globe are encouraging companies to get savvier about social networking in the New Year if they want to see their rankings in the search engines improve alongside their customer satisfaction.
In an article for Edgy SEO, Geir Ellefsen spoke to 18 different experts in the field of search and one of the overwhelming messages to come across was that it was time that those who had yet to fully explore sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linked In got their act together as the rewards speak very clearly for themselves.
SEOmoz co-founder Rand Fishkin urged firms to diversify their efforts by adding “content marketing, viral product incentives, email, social media … and branding” to their linkbuilding plans. Top consultant Danny Dover added that the industry was growing and that “the entire website experience” was now essential to a successful campaign. This, he said, would mean combining traditional SEO with social and pay-per-click. Other experts like Bas van den Beld, Aaron Wall and Scott Polk were all among those highlighting sharable, quality content and social networks as important to 2012.
Elsewhere, Search Engine Land’s Jordan Kasteler started the New Year by giving his advice on how to improve website credibility using search and social media. “SEO and social are inseparable,” he explained. ”Customers can just as easily find a company through Twitter as they can Google – and those social media links are busy boosting a company’s SEO signals.”
MEC opinion: For some time now we’ve seen social media websites like Facebook and Twitter become not just more and more essential to the future of branding and customer support, but also as a tool for improving search engine rankings – so this new batch of attention towards social media in 2012 is no real surprise.
What companies must remember though is that this type of activity needs to be very closely monitored and wherever possible should work seamlessly alongside any other campaign work that is going on – whether it is online, in print or across a more traditional broadcast channel. New social networks are emerging all the time, some fail, while others sustain people’s interest. In terms of SEO, it’s really about measuring the impact using these networks has on SEO and taking a pragmatic and careful approach to making the most of this.
