How to Use Social Media to Improve Your Organic Search Engine Ranking

There's one thing every business with an online presence, especially a website, wants most, and that's ranking high in search engine results - either to be number 1 for specific industry keywords, or just simply rank higher than their closest competitor. Trust me, many businesses surprisingly don't care as much about conversions.

And what more? It's most desirable to achieve this (high ranking) without having to spend a dime online.

I don't blame anyone that has such dreams. It's actually the way to go - eventually. No matter what your marketing strategy looks like online, when it comes to search, your ultimate aim should be ranking high organically, that is, without having to pay for it.

There are countless ways to improve your organic search results, but I'd like to discuss with you a very overlooked way: social media.

Everybody knows the social media is now as important and popular as the website was in the early

But the question is: are they consciously using their social media presence to positively impact their website's search engine ranking?

I believe a more important question is: do you even know it's possible to improve your search engine ranking through social media? In case you don't know, it's very possible, and that's what you should be doing.

Don't worry if you're not (consciously) doing it yet. That's what this post is all about: to teach you how to use social media to improve your search results. Stick with me.

Relationship between Search Engines and Social Media

It's understandable if you're wondering by now what the correlation is between your activities on social media and your ranking on search engines. Well, let me explain.

There are tons of factors Google and other search engines use to determine and serve the most relevant answer to a searcher's query (because that's their goal), and great content is among the major ones.

How then do they identify great content?

One of the most important identification factors is: social shares, that is, how much a post is shared on social media.

It's simple logic. Search engines assume the more shares a post has, the more useful and important readers deem it. Naturally people love sharing great content, and great content is what search engines are always looking to serve searchers. It's like allowing people to decide what they want to see more of.

Guess it's beginning to make some sense to you now.

One thing you should note, however, is that what majorly influences your organic search ranking is how much your content is shared on social media - not the social signals you get. In other words, the number of likes or retweets you get for an update you posted on social media doesn't influence your search rankings - or that of the update.

Being an authority or influencer on social media doesn't mean your content automatically ranks high on search engines.

Now that you understand the relationship between social media and SEO, let's discuss how to take advantage of social media to improve your search ranking.

Here are 5 tips to Improve Your Search Rankings with Social Media. 

1. Write stellar content.

Now you'd agree with me more that content remains king - more so with recent search engine (especially Google) updates.

All you have to do is write great, engaging and shareable content on your site so that people would so much love it and be more than willing to share it with their friends. And in essence, signal to Google that they want more of you.

2. Use Your Keywords In Your Posts

Keywords aren't only important on your website and paid ad campaigns, they are also important in your posts on social media.

Social media search engines are also as important as traditional search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc). For instance, if your keyword is  credit repair reviews, be sure to use it in your snippet so the keywords will make your post popup when users search for relevant topics.

More so, social media sites like Pinterest and YouTube enjoy search engine love. Posts on them usually show up in traditional searches too, and your keywords will definitely come in handy.

3. Encourage Social Sharing (aka viral marketing) in your content

Writing great content would naturally encourage people to share your content, but there are other things you can do to get more people to share your content, and they are simple:

Include social sharing buttons. This goes without saying, or nobody will be able to share your stuff. (Sure you don't expect everyone to copy and paste your link in their updates!) Include sharing buttons of the major social media sites - or those ones relevant to your business - around your content (especially below), so that readers can easily share with just one click.

Ask readers to share with their networks. It's also not enough to just include the buttons and expect readers to automatically know what to do with them. Even if they do, they still might not share.

Humans like being told what to do. Simply tell them to share your post on their social networks with the buttons you've provided.

4. Grow your followers

Even though it's been said that your influence on social media doesn't affect your ranking, you still need to keep growing your followers to make your follower-base huge.

This will translate to search engine love for you when you share your link and people share it further, or people visit that link and then share it with their friends.

Moreover, more targeted followers equals more site visits, and then more site visits translates to higher ranking in SERPs (search engine result pages).

5. Include Your Links In Your Social Channels

However insignificant (some argue) its influence might seem on your search ranking, it's good practice to always put links to your site on social media, both in your profiles and within posts.

Search engines crawl social media sites, albeit  not completely, like every other website. Social media sites however generally have  high online authority, so links on these sites are considered to be of higher quality - than most other websites. And so can improve your SEO.

Follow these 5 tips, and gradually you'll begin to see the impact your social media presence makes on your search engine ranking and overall site visibility.

Whatever you do, always remember value is key. Give immense value, and watch your social media followers spread the news and grow your business for you.

What are your tips for getting to the first spot on google? 

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

Source: How to Use Social Media to Improve Your Organic Search Engine Ranking