Are social signals help website rankings?
Social Media like Twitter and Facebook has changed the way we interact with each other and the way our businesses operate. They have also changed the way SEO works. The days of having to work the “old school” SEO methods are now long gone. So what are social signals help website rankings?
Social Media sites are not actually “social” in the true sense of the word. They are communities of people who gather together on a particular topic, or niche of interest. For example, MySpace is a social networking site, but you cannot sell advertising on it or use it to just send traffic to your own website. You must join in the conversation or else your comment will be deleted. You can, however, share interesting information about the niche you are commenting on with the community.
The truth is that most social networks are not structured in a way that helps a search engine to find and rank websites. They are often controlled by highly competitive marketers with grudges against all others who dare to step into their territory. These marketers do not want their sites to be ranked or shown to others. They will go to great lengths to ensure no one can get to them. So you can see why some would suggest that social signals are help website rankings. They are suggesting that getting in the “friend” or “follow” lists of these “bad” marketers will get you ahead of the pack.
This is a bit of a fallacy though. There are some good social networks out there that are actually structured to help you get ahead of the pack. One such example is Orkut, an online social network that was recently bought by Google. With Orkut, you will find yourself being able to reach a lot of other online users who are much more likely to be interested in what you have to say and share with others.
So are social signals helping you climb the search engine ranks? In the grand scheme of things, no. While they are useful in promoting your website, they are far from being the cure-all for SEO. Social signals are tools used to increase your visibility on the web. If you want to be noticed, you will need to build your own backlinks and other SEO strategies.
What social groups you should become involved in will depend on your own interests, your passions and your personality. For example, you might consider becoming involved in groups that focus on health, weight loss, beauty, relationships, technology, hobbies, religion, etc. If you are more into music or art, you could join groups focused on music or art.
Another important point to remember is that the use of social signals to promote your website is not equivalent to direct SEO (search engine optimization). Social signals can help you get indexed in search engines, but you won’t likely see significant results until you start doing some organic optimization (using SEO) on your site. Organic optimization will take some time and effort on your part because it involves a lot of digging through meta tags, directory listings and onsite optimization. The social networks are a nice place to begin your optimization efforts, but they will not produce the kind of rankings you are looking for.
Are social signals help website rankings? In short, yes, they can help you get found. But you will need to do some significant optimization on your site first. Doing this will drive targeted traffic to your site and will provide better ROI (return on investment) than just using social signals as a promotional tool.