What exactly does social media have to in relation to SEO? At MWI we hear this a lot from the current and potential clients. While social media has been a growing channel for marketing in recent years, the majority of companies have not yet started to make use of it. This is especially important for companies that are investing in search engine optimization. While the benefits of using social media may not seem immediately apparent, they are crucial to SEO help. Here are five reasons social media is essential for SEO.

1) Social Media Signals
It's not a secret that Google, Bing and other major search engines have been using online conversations in their algorithm for ranking for some time. Social engagement occurs the time when people share, like, comment or share tweets about content. A piece of content that has the highest number of social engagements will have more social signals. These social signals are used by search engines to rank content. This is a method for search engines to identify what people find most useful and Wiki.elte-dh.hu/wiki/5_Reasons_Social_Media_Is_Important_For_SEO what their algorithms consider top-quality. If the content you're looking at receives a lot of social interaction the content can be indexed.

2.) Link Building
There are no more days of going out and asking for websites to link to yours. In the wake of Google's Panda and Penguin algorithm SEOs are now forced to do link building the traditional way to create quality content which is relevant to linking. But how do you reach websites willing to link to your site if asking them directly is thought to be an "unnatural" link building practice? Social media is your answer. Social media allows you to expose your content to appropriate audiences that are willing to link to your content, should it be worth linking to. These people may also share your content with their network, further increasing the influence of your content.

3.) Content Amplification
No matter how top-quality the content you publish, it won't be popular unless you amplify it. Sure, email marketing can be a great way to amplify the content, but it'll only be able to reach people who are in your database of marketing. It is possible to reach new audiences via social media. After you have shared your content, the people who follow you will share it with their following when they are satisfied with the content. These people will then share your content with their followers, increasing your reach. As a result, you get many relevant visitors including inbound links, brand recognition and social signals All of which are used by search engines to judge the quality of your content.

content amplification lifecycle

4) Brand Awareness and Signals
Search engines use brand image and recognition to judge the credibility of your website and how trustworthy it must be in their ranking algorithms. Aside from amplifying your content Social media can also build brand awareness. This is what Google calls a co-citation. These co-citations are built through social media , which can help improve Google's trust and help with brand-name searches.

5) Social Indexing
Since search engines are able to index social media sites, they are now showing in search results pages. This enables your brand to show up in search results for your branded search queries , which is more than just your company website. But it gets even better than that. Individual Tweets from Twitter were once indexed and shown in search results, too giving another opportunity for your website to be ranked in search. The program was only temporary, however it was a short-term solution, and Google shut it down after few months. Google will once again show tweets in search results, so it's important to leverage it for getting your content ranked.