How does Social Media Affect Search Engine Rankings?

Google takes a huge number of factors into consideration with its complex algorithm when it comes to search engine rankings. With social media shares though, many sources will state that the rankings are not directly affected by social signals. However, there is still a clear correlation between the number of shares on social media and the ranking position in Google.

In many cases, while the social shares might be high, as well as the position of the piece of content on Google, it doesn’t necessarily mean that this is due to the social media activity. Instead of being a direct cause of a high page ranking, it is more indirect due to the result of a few different actions taking place.

A well-written, high-quality piece of content is likely to be shared on social media

This means that the reach of the piece is much wider and hitting a larger audience. As a result of a wider audience viewing the piece of content, it is more likely that other websites are starting to link back to the content, generating backlinks and causing the ranking of the piece in Google to shoot up.

So put simply, it isn’t social activity that’s causing the content to rank highly in Google

It is the result of the social media buzz surrounding the article. Therefore, the main takeaway from this would be to create quality content that your audience would want to share.

While social media can’t be used to create a solid backlink strategy, it can be useful for helping to build upon your existing audience to deliver them content that they want to share and extend the reach of. The more people that your content can reach, the higher the chance you have of achieving backlinks to your website, which will help increase the contents ranking in Google.

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