We all can agree that a high organic placement in Google or Bing for your companies website is an incredibly valuable thing. With the ever-changing Google algorithms it can sometimes feel a little overwhelming trying to keep up. One thing is clear after Googles latest Penguin update, social media is playing more and more of a factor in the search engine results page (SERPs). Because of the organic effect social media is going to have on where your site falls in the SERPS it is important to have a good social media strategy to address this.

Here are two ideas that we’ve had at GlobalSeven to help you adapt your social media strategy to improve your website’s SEO:

1. Develop high quality content that your readers will be inclined to share with their followers. Google no doubt is trying to gear their algorithms to follow what people want and are actually looking for. This is why fake back links will never hold a positive place in Google’s eyes. If there is a natural flow of traffic (links or clicks) to a specific site then Google will give priority to that site. One of the best ways to do this is to create great content that people will want to share and click on. The question is how do you create that content?  As we all learned in Economics 101, it is simply a matter of supply and demand. What do people want to know? What are they asking for help on? Where there is a demand for knowledge, you cannot go wrong if you are supplying that demand with answers.

There are a few ways to find out what people are asking.

• Search on Twitter for what people are asking questions about. We shared a tool recently that does this well. Check out InboxQ on our post about free twitter tools for awesome engagement.
• Keep track of your retweets. People only retweet what they like and are interested in.
• Keep track of your click throughs on twitter. When I do this I build a catalog of click throughs and the posts with the highest click throughs are usually the direction I take my content.
• Check your Facebook insights. Facebook will tell you what people like and what they don’t. A jump in reach or talking about this is a good indictor to watch.
• Ask a question on Facebook. Never hurts to ask!

2. Continue to build your social media following for back links. Google and Bing do count your social media links and click throughs as back links so the more you can put out there the better. One social media platform that is often forgotten about is Google+. Nobody can prove it but it’s highly likely that Google is somewhat biased to content coming from G+. If you’re not on there and posting regularly it might be time to start.

Make sure that your site is linked to your social media account as well. This can be done by using different Facebook apps or Twitter apps to share your blog posts as soon as you publish them. Or you can use an automatic posting tool like Buffer or Hootsuite to help get your posts out there.

In a final note I think it is wise to mention that as you build your social media following you will not need to rely on your SERP as much. The greater your following the more direct influence you will have and the less you will be affected by Google’s algorithm changes in the future. Always remember search engines follow traffic, if build your SEO strategy on a steady flow of traffic coming from your social media followers you should be on the right track.

What other ways might social media influence your SEO? What else have you seen work? We’d love to hear your thoughts.