SEO FOR SOCIAL

SEO FOR SOCIAL 

Gone are the days when just pushing content on social websites was all that mattered. These days you have to tailor content for each platform.

One of the major changes in the way that social media management is being applied in the past few years has been to moderate and modify social media profiles and the information shared  on these profiles to provide the best possible optimization search engine queries.

 The way to optimize searches through a social media account is not just a simple matter of increasing the traffic on your profile through a greater number of followers on Twitter or Facebook.
In 2013, much to the shock of social media experts, Google's Matt Cutts announced through a video that Google search rankings are not influenced by metrics on social media such as Facebook likes or Twitter followers.

This is despite the that market experts, until that point, were told by both Google and Bing that Twitter fandom directly affects search results. Over years, has been discovered that while links definitely do exist between social media and search engine optimization, these links operate in far more subtle manners than previously thought. There are many differences between the way pages and profiles are ranked on Google and Bing search results. In this article, we analyse some of the ways in which social media profiles and pages affect search results,

Tailoring social media content for SEO 

The first thing to understand that search engines use many different metrics to vary how search results are shown and the algorithms that determine search results combine information collected from all of these metrics. This makes the task of pinpointing any one characteristic that can guarantee optimization at the highest level an impossible one. This is also why the question of the amount of importance given by search engines to social media popularity has many disputed answers. The equation is further complicated by dynamical relationships between search engines and social media platforms. Facebook, for example, allows Google to index its content in a relationship that benefits both parties involved: better search results for Google and more traffic for Facebook.

This is why mobile searches often lead you directly to the Facebook app when you search for a person and find a Facebook link. The indexing extends to status updates and posts on timelines as well, allowing search engine users to search for extremely detailed queries. Search engine optimization therefore is no longer just a popularity contest, it's also about tailoring content on social media to optimize search results is possible for individuals to drive traffic to pages based on content through posts on social media accounts which have a higher following which in turn increases their search ranking.
Page ranking of one page can influence the page ranking of pages shared from the first one.

 It pays to be social media savvy 

Despite the fact that Google and other search engines offer no clear answer to how social media pages are ranked (and it is understandable that don't, to prevent search engine experts to simply tailor websites to respond to these metrics alone and to reduce the efficacy of actual search results), still a good idea to use social media management in tandem with search engine optimization as the results of one directly influence the results the other. Twitter and Facebook following also influences indexing time, not the ranking directly, with some studies showing that indexing time can be cut down by up to 50% for accounts with greater media following.

It also pays to have social media accounts irrespective of whether it drives other pages through search engine optimization, simply because social media pages themselves are often at the top of search results.

Take the following image of a google search for Lionel Messi. Within the first page of the search results, the social media accounts that he owns and operates feature prominently. A lot oftraffic is automatically diverted towards social media accounts in this manner. This holds true for every person and corporation. Diversification through social media accounts on multiple platforms therefore, provides a bigger range of data for search engines to index and is likely to increase traffic.

Using Open Graph to drive traffic 

An extremely useful tool that marketing media experts have at their disposal is open Graph.
The open Graph tool allows developers place meta tags in the <head> part of the code of the website with the intention of exercising control over how information is shared between Face book as an application and a third party website that is shared on it There is very little direct optimization that occurs by using open Graph but the benefits of learning Open Graph are still worth it as it will lead to better performance of your social media pages which in turn affects search results indirectly.

There are quite a few characteristics that you can influence using metatags. Some of the basic characteristics are *og:title It is the title of the content you wish to share. The title by default is assumed to be the name of the link. It is advisable to keep this to a reason able length while keeping the key content of the link visible *og:url-This is the URL for the shared page, but it's possible provide can lead to depending on different parameters and conditions under which A good way to tailor your content to users across different kinds of platforms, categories indicate the nature of the link that is being shared, such as a web based article or blog, an entertainment based book, game or movie or business such as a company, hotel or restaurant.

This enables developers to provide another layer of descriptor to the links they share, and this in turn shows up on search engines. *og description This is the main meat of the content, which describes the kind of link that is being shared in detail.
Again, it is up to the developer to decide what kind of description goes in here. *og image This is vastly important as leaving it blank often leads Facebook to put in a random image that may have nothing to do with the content.
Choose an image that is appropriate for the content being shared as visual content drives people to a page far more effectively than text based content does. open graph can be implemented by directly modifying the chead part of the HTML.
There are plenty of plugins/extensions to help you do this as well, such as the official Facebook plugin. Using Open Graph is a good way to give a good boost to the way your links on Facebook are indexed.

Twitter cards 

Twitter cards allow additional content to be incorporated into the 140-character limit on Twitter.
This adds a button called 'View Summary' at the bottom of tweets. Again, making Twitter cards can be easily done by using CMS plugins. The characteristics that can be modified are:

 *twitter-card - This is similar to type and describes the type of content that is being shared.

 *twitter title - This is similar to og-title. The title is used to provide small descriptor.

 *twitter url - The URL of the content that is being shared is added to this part.

 *twitter-description - The description of the link is added here. All of the content here can end up on search results which is why it is important to ensure the right kind of text goes in "twitter-image Provides an image that acts as a thumbnail to the content that is being shared.

To fully benefit from Twitter cards, pages need to be approved by Twitter. The Card Validator performs the same role as the Facebook Open Graph plugin and gives you the option to check your links and debug any errors.

Optimizing Google+: A powerhouse of optimizable content 

Search results are also influenced by how authoritative the person is. In a series questions posted by Danny Sullivan from www.tusearcbengineland.com to both Google and Bing, both organisations responded that they do determine the kind of authority that a person has to a response on their twitter feed.

For example. Google and Bing would show responses to a query about black holes by Stephen Hawking as a more favourable search response when compared to a response by a professor local college of lesser repute. In fact, for search engines, the only way to categorically figure out which response is better to a question type search query is only through the reputation of the person who answers such questions only. This is especially true for users on Google as profiles are integrated directly with author ranks.

 Google Authors is a brilliant way to optimize search results for your articles and to drive traffic. To do this, include a rel "author" tag on the websites with your content. Doing this along with ensuring that your Google profile has a link to all your authored content and ensuring all your authored content has a link to your Google. profile you can ensure that all search results that show up links you have authored also show a list of your publications, sourced directly from your Google. profile, which is a neat way to build a reputation online.

Social media as a search engine 

Another important thing to keep in mind is that social media platforms are in themselves being considered as search engines Ranging from large corporations to individuals, public perception by searches across Facebook and Instagram as well as other social platforms.
Social media integration, even without the added benefits of search engine optimization is still extremely important for individuals on the internet as it helps build a larger online presence which will drive traffic to your websites directly anyway.

Through a use of back links on social media websites to your web pages, it is possible to directly make visitors get to your web page, which will in turn provide more to your profile and cause it to rank higher on search engine algorithms. It is an intangible but vital thread that connects social media presence and search engine optimization but it is one that cannot by any means be ignored.

Despite the ambiguities involved in how search engines use algorithms to rank results from social media it is still a good idea to optimize search engine results by optimizing the content on your social media. There is no way that this is not a good idea as social media popularity is always useful for individuals and enterprises of all kinds.