Ignore Social Media and you’ll be nowhere on Google

There are still some that don’t buy in to social media as an effective marketing tool for their business. I know this sounds mad (it is mad), but it’s true. These people have “various reasons”, none of which are very well informed, and are usually due to a prehistoric mind-set. We’ve been over these reasons before, so I’ll not bore you by repeating them. 

So, what if I dropped this infobomb*: Your Google ranking also relies on your business having a social media presence? In fact, not just a presence; having an effective, high performing presence!

“Oh shit! Really?” 

So let’s discuss what needs to be done in order to be highly ranked in Google searches.

*I’m of the opinion that the creation of new words is clever… and cool.

Call to Action

The majority of business owners probably fall into one of the following two categories:

1.       They have bought into the importance and effectiveness of using social media to market their business, but don’t understand that it affects their Google ranking. They may have invested a significant amount of money into SEO using keyword optimisation, but don’t understand why they only topped Google’s search ranking for a few weeks and are now falling down the list.

2.       They don’t use social media at all. However, they invested in SEO using keyword optimisation and don’t understand why their website is sliding down Google’s search results page.

Now I’m not saying you should forget about your keywords and meta tags. These are still important factors in Google’s latest algorithm. However, unless you constantly update your website by adding valuable content (not just information about your company) this method alone will fail. 

So let’s introduce the key metrics that Google’s latest “Penguin” algorithm looks for, and hopefully after reading this article today you’ll have a list of things to do that will improve your online presence.

Penguins Love Social Media

Here are the 3 most meaningful metrics that you must consider in order to be highly ranked in Google searches:

1.   Build your keywords portfolio

Repeating the same keyword over and over is pointless. Google see this as spam, and Penguin was introduced in order to weed out these websites that offer no value.

You must write your website content using many keywords. Google have reported that over 20% of search queries are new, unique queries. So create real, valuable content that uses the keywords that explain your service, but also other words that are related to what you offer.

Take Away: Don’t forget the keywords that explain your service, but don’t flood your content with them either. Include many words and phrases that explain your service.

2.    Quality over quantity 

This title is actually true in almost every facet of life other than money and assets. No one gives a shit that you go on 3 holidays a year if they’re in Benidorm, Blackpool and Tenerife. I wanna to talk to the dude that saved for two years to travel through South America coast to coast!

That very random anecdote actually explains this point quite well. Google now measure the quality of your content using the following two metrics:

·         How unique the content or topic of your site is.

·         How resourceful and information rich it is (not thin content).

Take Away: Provide useful, interesting or unique content that will highlight your website as a valuable one.

3.    Social Media Promotion

Here it is ladies and gents. The biggy! You need to promote your business and website through social media platforms. Google’s wee Penguin loves businesses with social media!

“Social Signals” was accepted as a valid ranking factor that shows how valuable a business/website is. Google are looking for shares, likes, re-tweets, mentions and +1’s. So you must engage with your community through social media platforms. This means having a social media presence for businesses that don’t already.

Remember to include links to your website on your social media platforms, because the more people that link to your website through Facebook, Twitter, Google + etc. the higher up the rankings you’ll climb. The Penguin algorithm is weighted this way. 

Take Away:  Get active on social media!

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