Social Media’s impact on SEO

Some say that Twitterhas been taking over as many early adopters have moved away from having their own blog and now exclusively use Twitter. The heightened interest in Twitter is understandable, as it is mostly being used by business people and thought leaders to share their thoughts on subjects of interest within their field.Someone recently said that the difference between Facebook and Twitter is that Facebook is the people that you went to school with, and Twitter is the people that you wish you went to school with. I find that a very apt explanation.Now, looking at the findings from the Technorati State of the Blogosphere report, compared with 2009’s findings, slightly fewer of those who are blogging less said that their devotion to microblogging (30%) and social networks (28%) has curtailed their blogging.

Also the respondent bloggers were spending more time reading social network sites themselves, as opposed to other blogs. They were also more likely to share blog posts with their social media followers than with their blog readership, indicating that social networks are seen as a marketing tool.

Living in today’s information saturated world, it’s become very difficult to find the right information at the right time. Casual browsing of the Internet can be overwhelming and we often find ourselves having frittered away hours reading non-relevant blogs and websites.By using our social networks as media filters, we can trust that our networks, built up of people that we know and whose opinion we value will bring us the information that we want to hear.People will share, retweet and like links to content that they enjoy and find of interest.

As Rich Mulholland stated at Heavy Chef: “Blogging creates the content – Twitter distributes it”

But how does this impact SEO?

One of the findings of the State of the Blogosphere reportis that Social media sites are greatly outpacing search engine optimization (SEO) as widely-used marketing tools, as only 38% of bloggers use SEO.Blogging has unmistakable value for SEO, as targeted content keeps your site fresh for both Search Engines and people alike.Social Media platforms like Twitter and Facebook aren’t enough. You can have all the fans and friends and followers that you want, but at the end of the day you need to do something with that interest. You need to drive that traffic back to your business and one of the best ways to do so is by driving them to your website. There, with quality content and strong calls to action, you can convert your readers to customers. Or else, what’s the point?

These two disciplines each has its own role to play in helping people find your website online and driving traffic to your business. In fact, when taking into account that 60% of your page rank is calculated by what others do in response to your site, it’s clear that a good comprehensive SEO strategy includes SMM. If it doesn’t, you’re probably just wasting your time.