Why is Social Media critical to your SEO In 2023

Once upon a time "old SEO" ruled the website marketing world. This was in the early, pioneering days of online marketing. Those were the days when it was not common for a small business to have a website. The old SEO strategy focused on one primary factor: link building.

Today, link building as a direct SEO strategy is completely dead.

In fact, Google has found a smart way to measure your website's popularity: it's called social media.

The truth is that social media is critical to your online presence (and your search engine rankings).

The days of easily measuring your SEO strategy are long gone. It's no longer about building X amount of links and Y amount of optimized content pages on your website. The new strategy is about being dynamic, engaged, and interactive within your marketplace. Social media is the only place where you can make this happen.

Shouts on social media

Here are six reasons why social media needs to be an important part of your website marketing and SEO strategy in the coming years:

1 *** Link building has always been about social proof.

Think about it—why does Google ever allow links to determine which websites rank higher than others? The answer is simple: links are like "votes" for your website. The more votes you get, the better you are. So SEO companies start building links (aka "votes") manually. Then Google, to combat all fake voting, discovered that some votes should count more than others. So SEO companies produce websites with the best votes. And Google, finally realized that SEO link building won't work long-term for ranking websites. So Google started penalizing websites with "fake votes" (which is basically anyone paying a company to do SEO link building for them).

Seeing a trend here?

The idea behind links as a ranking factor is a very good idea, but since it has become so easy to manipulate, Google has been forced to turn to social media channels that do the same thing but are more difficult to manipulate. Link building has always been about social proof.

2 *** Social media allows you to "crowdsource" your link building.

When you get followers on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, you build a group of fans who can share your content. Such is the case with social media. So when you write a new blog post on your business blog, you can take that content and share it on Twitter and then have some of your followers share your content. You can have your website visitors share your site and your blog pages on social media so people can quickly and easily "vote" for your content on your website. Many of these people will never become your actual customers, but your goal is to create buzz and attention around your website.

Social Media Link Building

3 *** Being social is the fastest way to multiply your online presence.

The problem with old-school SEO link building is that you're always creating "marks" on your website in places where no one is looking. On the other hand, social media is a dynamic world of interaction and activity where things are constantly happening in real-time. That's why it's so important that you have a social media presence - not just social media accounts where you never or rarely post anything. You have to be active, you have to be social. This is the fastest way to multiply your online presence because it's where everyone is. If you get in front of the right people (which is a matter of consistency, not luck) you can create some buzz around your business and your website.

4*** Social signals are a real thing.

You must have heard the term "social signals" floating around. Love it or hate it, it's a fact. Google is definitely measuring the "pulse rate" of your website on social media channels. How often do you share content on social channels? How many followers do you have on Instagram? Does your website provide social sharing content for visitors? Social signals are really the new “link-building” metric that you should be worried and concerned about. Forget how many links you have, especially if you're building fake links, and start thinking about the health of your social media presence.

5*** Social links bring real traffic to your website.

95% (or more) of links from SEO link building never bring a single new visitor to your website. They just sit there pointing at your site and don't really do anything else. This was another big revelation for Google: they realized that by promoting links as a way to make your website popular, they were creating a web full of spam and junk designed to get more links (and only that). Most SEO companies build links to sites that will never bring you real customers. They are just building links to try to increase your search engine positions. It doesn't work anymore. Every time you pay for link building you are basically throwing money down the drain. On the other hand, social links have real potential to bring real people to your website and Facebook, your social subscribers, or your social circle. This means that at some point these people may very well become customers or content promoters for your business.

6*** Google hates link building.

The bottom line is that link building does not help your search engine rankings. In fact, it can do you more harm than good. Google has been very clear on this - stop building fake links on your website and start focusing on providing value and being valuable within your marketplace. Social media is the best place to achieve that goal online today.

At the end of the day, search engine rankings are still very important to your long-term success online. Don't make the mistake of investing in shady, short-term practices and risk damaging your business long-term.

Get on the right SEO track today and start building a more authentic social media presence today!