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Four Reasons to Use Social Media for SEO

Written by: Omaro Ailoch

Article Overview: Social media is often publicized as the next great leap for marketers, and in many ways it is. However, there are indirect marketing uses of social media that are often overlooked. For hundreds of thousands of web businesses, a favorable ranking in search engines is the most powerful marketing method available.

Four Reasons to Use Social Media for SEO

Social media is often publicized as the next great leap for marketers, and in many ways it is. However, there are indirect marketing uses of social media that are often overlooked. For hundreds of thousands of web businesses, a favorable ranking in search engines is the most powerful marketing method available.

Of course, SEO is its own marketing form, and one that's given a large amount of attention already from marketers. But for all the focus that has been put on social media as an independent marketing platform, one area has been ignored: social media as an SEO marketing platform.

Every link that is posted on Twitter is another powerful backlink to your website. Every discussion on Facebook is another asset for your search results. While social media marketing is often relentlessly focused on the long-term, it is also a great way to generate short-term links to your website, powerful SEO juice, and other search marketing tools.

If you are planning a social media campaign, craft it so that SEO is a side effect. When built correctly, a social media campaign can be more than just an independent marketing exercise -- it can be a resource for SEO and long-term branding.

1- Social media generates backlinks on its own.

If you have ever run a promotion through social media platforms, it should already be clear to you how many backlinks you can instantly and naturally generate. With an incentive-based competition -- for example, a Twitter campaign involving a direct link to your website -- you can crowdsource not just natural promotion, but backlink generation. Sound good to sit back and let people generate PR for you, doesn't it?

2- Effective social media marketing inspires people to link to you.

An effective social media presence is not just about inspiring conversation, but about inspiring links. When you give people reasons to connect with yourself, your company, or your brand, they are inspired to write about you, and eventually link to you. A simple call for people to blog about you could end up with hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of organic backlinks to your business website.

3- Social media profiles hold high SEO value.

Google Profiles, a new addition to Google's huge information network, allow anyone to receive a backlink from a highly rated website. With a few strategic SEO-based social media profiles, you can get inbound links to your website from a wide range of high-value websites. Remember, it is all about trade-offs -- is it worth your time to generate hundreds of low quality links or generate the few powerful ones through social media? Social media carries dual value -- as a direct marketing platform and for SEO -- while links alone are only worth their search value.

4- Smart marketers use social media as a reputation management tool.

Ever been hurt by a wave of bad press? It is painful to search for your company name on Google, only to have a couple of negative articles pop up in the top listings. The good news is that social media profiles typically rank highly in search listings. With just a few social media profiles, you can control your search results and easily remove unfavorable listings.

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Article Tags: Media, Reasons, SEO, Social, Use



Related Forum Posts
Re: Kevin needs "social glue" ideas - Hi, I like the idea of "10 items that could act as "social glue" because I am an internet marketer. But I agree with the rest that the 10 recent post is nice. Maybe we should open up a new section in the forums on Social Media...or Social Media Marketing. I will tell you that the world is about 1 1/2 behind when it comes to understanding social media. Building a section now will put EvanCarmichael.com is a great position a year down the road when people realize Social Media can produce more traffic than SEO. Jeff
Re: Kevin needs "social glue" ideas - [quote="WebBizIdeas.com":gvtxsu7g]Hi, I like the idea of "10 items that could act as "social glue" because I am an internet marketer. But I agree with the rest that the 10 recent post is nice. Maybe we should open up a new section in the forums on Social Media...or Social Media Marketing. I will tell you that the world is about 1 1/2 behind when it comes to understanding social media. Building a section now will put EvanCarmichael.com is a great position a year down the road when people realize Social Media can produce more traffic than SEO. Jeff[/quote:gvtxsu7g] Hi Jeff, Thanks for the suggestion. Why don't you start a new post (with a poll) to see if there's enough interest in your idea for a social media section?
Re: UPDATES: New Campaign! New Layout! New Ideas! - GT - thanks for the FYI - I'm not sure if we'll put a link back. Something to consider though! Trent - the new category is "Social Network and Media" which was put in to compliment the Online Businesses category that currently exists. Overall the new categories are: - Looking For, Networking and Events - Review My... - Social Network and Media - Brags and Rants These came as a result of Ringo doing research on other forums and thinking about what could be improved on ours to give a better experience for everyone. I hope you enjoy them! David, I'm looking forward to reading your Brag / Rant!
Re: Marketing 2.0 - What Are Your Thoughts - Hi Shri, Thanks for posting this. I also read it and I believe Social Media is here to stay, until the next best thing comes up. Social media proved to be useful for me many times and I think everyone should use it for their business.
Re: Social Media Marketing Ignorance - [quote="vbn411":7qciluxl]Social Media is space that you have to be in to succeed in our current climate. People are going to be discussing your brand / product whether you like it or not, so you might as well join the conversation and add value. [/quote:7qciluxl] I think that's probably one of the most realistic way to think about it. There's no real textbook way of understanding Social Media, it's the networks of people and their interactions that will exist with or without your input. As for Jennifer, You can always have 2 Facebook pages. Many people do. There is also LinkedIn, which is like a professional networking version of Facebook. The only way to know is to try it.


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