What are social signals?
Social signals are likes views, and shares of social media posts. They are human interaction metrics on social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more.
They describe how a webpage is perceived by search engines based on backlinks generated by social media platforms.
The more views, likes, shares and clicks your social post has, the higher the content will rank on your social media feeds, making it more visible.
Social signals provide information directly and indirectly about social behavior, special interaction, social relationship, and social emotions by allowing users to offer a direct response to your website content.
Social signals are one of the most important metrics in social media marketing and search engine optimization (SEO).
Search engines and social media channels usually work together to provide users with content that is relevant and valuable. Social signals play a crucial role in providing metrics of how people interact with your site content on social media platforms.
How do social signals affect your Google Ranking?
Search engines and social media platforms usually work together. This means that search engines usually monitor social signals and use them to determine the quality, relevance, and usefulness of your website content.
Although Google does not officially use social signals as a ranking factor, they still play a crucial role in determining your ranking on search engine result pages.
This is because the crucial metrics that search engine obtains from social signals, including quality content, search intent, engagement, backlinks, and freshness all play a crucial role in Google ranking.
If your content gets more social signals, visibility, and engagements on social media platforms, Google will view your website content as useful, relevant, and fresh and will thus rank it higher of search engine results.
Social signals indicate a solid reputation
If your content has more social signals, then that is a sign that it enjoys a solid reputation. Search engines like to reward websites that have a solid reputation.
So, if Google gets social signals that your website is reputable, it will boost its ranking.
It helps search engines know what users want
Another key role of social signals is that they help the search engine determine what users are looking for. Google usually changes its algorithm regularly to ensure they provide users with quality results that are fresh and useful.
If Google learns that your content has received a lot of engagement on social media platforms, it will mark that web page as important, and will improve its ranking on search engines.
Social signals can help drive traffic to your website
With over 3.4 billion people using social medial daily, they can bring social traffic to your site, which in turn can improve your ranking on Google search results.
When Google realizes that a lot of your traffic is coming from social sites, it views it as important and will thus boost its ranking.
A strong presence on social media indicate brand loyalty
When Google gets social signals that you have a strong social media presence, it will conclude that you have stronger brand loyalty and better conversion, which means more sales.
If you are making more sales, then your website is important to users. This factor alone could help improve your website’s ranking on search engines.
Tips on how to increase your social signals?
Now that we know that social signals play a key role in helping Google determine your website rank on Google search results, the question is, how can you increase your social signal? Here is how.
Be active on social media
This may sound obvious, but it is very important. If you want to increase your social signals, you need to update your profile on social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn Pinterest, among many others.
Staying active on social media will boost your engagement, meaning your post will get more likes, shares, and views, and that will make Google see your website as important and boosts its ranking on Google search.
Post quality content
As they say content is king. The importance of posting quality content both on your website and social media platforms cannot be overstated. If Google realizes that your web pages have a high bounce rate, it will quickly lower your ranking because your website does not provide users with the quality information that they are looking for.
So, if you want to increase your social signals, including getting more likes, shares, and views, you must post quality content that is informative and engaging.
Add a social sharing button to your site
Another crucial tip to increase your social signal is by adding a social sharing button on your website. It will make it easy for your target audience to share your content on their social media pages if they like it, thus boosting your social signals. Putting your social sharing button on top of your pages rather than the bottom will increase the chances of your target audience clicking the button to share your content.
Share other people’s content
While it is important to always post quality content that is informative and relevant to your target audience it is important to get yourself out there to promote other people’s content.
Follow other blogs that interest you and participate in commenting and sharing their content on your social media platforms.
When you share other people’s content, they will return the favor and share yours, thus increasing your social signals.
Add call to actions
Adding a call to action to your posts will help to encourage engagement. So, at the end of every post, ask the audience to like, share and comment.