For any business that has a website, having multiple social media accounts has become mainstream
Even to the point where Google becomes suspicious of the validity of your company site if it doesn’t have any.
The reason for this suspicion is because of internet marketers abusing Google’s website ranking algorithm. This is done in the past by reviving expired aged domains that have ‘domain authority’ and sending backlinks back to the site they want to boost to the first page.
Because of this abuse of Google’s terms and conditions, algorithm updates have been implemented to detect these “private blog networks”. This ushered in Google’s measure of ‘Trust’.
Of course, this explanation has been incredibly simplified, but the point to take home is that Google is looking for more ‘social signals’ among other things to determine the ‘value’ of a website and its overall ‘quality score’.
Yes, it’s great to have a Facebook business page. But that is no longer enough if you want your website to show up organically anywhere near the 1st page of search engines – unless your site is getting great traffic from a particular source and visitors are spending a lot of time there.
All search engines alike are looking for more transparency on the net. If you show up on the radar with social media activity of some kind, your quality score goes up.
This all ties in well with blog posts – which needs to be done. Something is better than nothing, so you need to get into the habit of it. This is called content – and Google loves it. You may have heard the internet marketers mantra “Content is King”. Many website owners lament over this but realize your blog posts don’t need to be strictly related to your products… they can be loosely related. You just need to play Google’s game.
With a conservative amount of social media sites, you can distribute this content, and receive great social signals pointing back to your website creating more traffic.
So what is the minimum effort you need to put in?
A Google plus business page is essential in order to prove the validity of your website. Here you can list the owner and managers of the site. You will be encouraged to add your profile pic and pinpoint where your business is located as well as your opening hours. You should take the opportunity to add links your other social properties that will help boost the overall organic rankings of your website so long as your other social sites have links back to your website.
A Youtube channel is crucial for not only free video hosting, but for the reason that it has become the second largest search engine in the world. This is especially important if you sell high ticket items – as consumers will almost certainly do background research before they purchase. Youtube will more than likely be checked since video delivers the best and fastest information.
A Twitter account. This is needed to announce your latest blog posts. To get followers, simply start following others that loosely fit into your business niche – usually, they will follow you back. If you don’t have any blogs to announce, try posting famous quotes (people love that)… remember to add a link back to your site.
Does your company often upload images to its website? Then you definitely need either Instagram or Pinterest (or both) account. Every time you post content, ALWAYS remember to add a link back to your website – spread the links throughout the pages of your site. Not just the homepage.
If you are prepared to blog often, then I recommend joining some 3rd party RSS aggregators. Your RSS feed (your blog feed transmitter) can be easily set to automation by syndicating your blogs to a “social media reader”. These are automated links back to your site that will provide more ‘trust’ in Google’s eyes giving you better search results and traffic. My top picks are:
https://feedly.com
https://theoldreader.com/
http://reader.aol.com.au/
http://www.feedspot.com/
http://digg.com/
If you are doing one, do them all.
The biggest takeaway I can give you (that most won’t listen to) is ONLY post, share or re-blog your own content. By sharing or posting another’s content will bleed your ‘Page Authority’ – stunting your organic rankings and social media syndication efforts.
If you are serious about web traffic and more sales – don’t put it off any longer.