While Google and social media are two separate entities, they are closely intertwined. Google ranks its results based on several hundred quality signals. These range from website backlinks to the actual words on a particular page and whether a website has trust and / or authority. Many a SEO Company has tried to manipulate the results to their benefit. This is largely based on the fact that Google is a “backlink-based algorithm” and people would simply buy or find other means of artificially inflating their number of links. Of course, Google combats paid links or other “unnatural” links with its algorithm or in extreme cases penalising a website.
As Google’s algorithm advances it has become far more difficult for business owners or SEO professionals to “game” the system and Google will continue to use other signals outside the normal margins to determine the quality and where a website should rank—these are starting to include the inflow of traffic to a website and possibly citations on other websites too. However, the most advantageous aspect to performing well in social media is that many people who frequent the sites are webmasters and blog owners. Should you have an interesting article, resource or any other item which may be of interest to them; they will link to your site from their own internet property. It’s these “natural” links which have a gargantuan impact on a website’s ranking on Google. This is particularly true when a popular website or blog picks up your story or other item and links to it, these top websites may include Wired.com, BBC or generally any other high end news website.
Many journalists cruise techy social media sites such as Digg and Reddit looking for interesting stories to cover and link too. Getting your story to the front page of these hugely popular sites is not hard if you have the knowledge. These top social media sites also have their own algorithms to prevent people manipulating their story to the front page. To get your story to the front page of a popular social media site you need to submit it to the site in particular and then ensure that your story gets sufficient votes to ensure it reaches the front page. To get several hundred votes you either need to have a large number of friends or get someone with an established network to submit your story for you. These Social Media Experts will usually charge a fee though for helping your story reach the front page of a particular site.Having your story visible on the front page of a social website for a short amount of time will bring several benefits. These include: Huge amounts of traffic, brand building and of course the all precious “backlinks”. We also believe that Google looks at what’s popular on social networks and gives the popular items a temporary as well as a long-term boost in its own rankings.
To succeed on Google, webmasters and business owners now need to embrace social media and other internet communities or risk losing valuable rankings on Google.
*****
Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom
No comments:
Post a Comment