Social Media and SEO

If statistics are any indication, the internet has been taken over by Twitter, Facebook, and other social media and networking sites.  Social media is playing a larger role not only in the lives of millions of people, but also in the progression of content development and search engine optimization.  Before the boom is social networking, SEO was based around solid, valuable content.  SEO tips and tricks, like keyword optimisation or meta data, can help lead visitors to a site, but then the site has to keep them there and encourage them to return.  According to ClickZ, internet ad and marketing research firm, the content is most often lacking in the social media world.

According to ClickZ, as well as the vast majority of SEOs: “Developing compelling, unique, and resourceful content is what is going to help you build a base to a successful website that might just “naturally” earn you some links.”  Many site and business owners assume that “content” refers only to informational or textual content.  But, in fact, content is anything and everything you do to increase your site’s visibility: videos, images, captions, blogs, and, yes, even Twitter and Facebook posts.  Though in the case of the latter two content areas you are limited to a smaller amount of text, you can still use it to your advantage and to deliver valuable content to visitors – even if that “content” is in the form of a dialogue with visitors.

Wring a random blog or post does little good for your SEO efforts: content has to be relevant and updated.  It also has to be well-written. Some sites use computer programs that reconfigure or “rewrite” text so it has the same content written in a different way to avoid penalization in the SERPs.  The quality of such text is never equal to that which is developed by a human.  The human touch is key in social media; whether you are using Facebook, Twitter, or your own website, consumers and visitors have to feel like you are engaged in the process.  A computer-generated site is not going to do that.  What is, though, is relevant, fresh, and valuable content.