social-media-iconsWhen you think of SEO, you normally think about content such as articles, web pages and blogs. With the increasing popularity of social media, you have yet another SEO factor to consider. While your general search engine rank may not be greatly affected by social media today, your popularity within the various social networks affects your social rank which is becoming more important in respect to SEO.

Personalized Results
Even if you rank high in Google, if a person is signed in to their Google account, their search results are personalized. They’ll see the results most relevant to them, which includes recommendations from their Google+ friends. If you’re not active on Google+, your high ranking site could plummet to the second page of results simply because Google+ users aren’t recommending or sharing information about you. The same holds true with Bing and Facebook.

Since personalized results are becoming more common, you have to work on SEO techniques socially. The more you’re talked about, the higher you’ll rank in these personalized search results.

Increase Links and Reputation
Search engines take into account how popular your site is. Your content could be perfect, but if no one is reading it, your rank isn’t going to skyrocket any time soon. Social media helps your content get seen, leading to more traffic, more links and a general positive buzz about your site. The more people who share your content, the better your site’s reputation becomes with search engines.

Stay Fresh
As you likely already know, search engines favor sites with fresh, relevant content. Anytime your content takes off on social media sites, including bookmarking sites, Google sees the content as fresh. This includes older content. Think of it as temporarily going viral. You get a huge boost in traffic and suddenly your site ranks higher than ever before.

Improve Indexing
When you’re trying to rank quickly, the last thing you want is to wait hours or even days for search engines to index your site. Tweeting about your latest changes or content can cut indexing time by 50% or more. The quicker you’re indexed, the faster you’ll start showing up in search results. If you’re trying to stay ahead of the competition, faster indexing is essential.

Social SEO
The fact is, social isn’t just about connecting with customers anymore. It’s a powerful SEO tool that helps you rank higher faster. Consider your activity on social media to be targeted SEO that helps you reach the millions of users who are eager to share your content on a daily basis. If you’re ready to rank higher, combine social media with traditional SEO and you will see a major difference.