The impact of social signals on SEO has been talked about for many years. But how much does social media affect your site's rankings? Let's find out in the article below.

SEO vs. SMM:

• SEO increases the visibility of a website in search engines to get more traffic.
• SMM uses social media sites to increase brand recognition.

Why does the presence of brands on social networks impact the SEO part?

• Activity on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest has recently become an important factor in the optimization process.
• The shares and likes received by the posts on the fan page of a website represent votes of confidence whose weight is comparable to those obtained through link building.

Here's what Gary Illyes, Google, a trend analyst about the importance of Social Media in SEO, gave us: "The context in which you interact online and the way people talk about you online can influence how you position yourself."

The types of content that generate traffic and social distribution are:

• Blog posts.
• Videos.
• Infographics.
• Podcasts.

The role of social signals in off-page SEO

The main purpose of a search engine is to provide users with relevant and high-quality content.

Search engines largely evaluate quality based on how often a URL is seen on the web, and as web communication has moved to social media, Google seems to have integrated social signals as a ranking signal.

What kinds of social signals matter in SEO?

○ Number of likes, shares, and comments on Facebook and LinkedIn.

○Number of followers, tweets, and retweets on Twitter.

○ Number of views, and duration of viewing on the YouTube channel.

○The number of pins on Pinterest.

○Don't forget to insert a link to your site on the profile page.

Strategies designed to increase your engagement on social networks can also increase your site's ranking in the top search engines.

Here's what you need to do:

• Post daily: keep your brand at the top of social media news feeds.
• Use good images: images greatly increase the interaction rates for all types of social networks.
• Partnerships: Share links and produce original content with other popular brands.
• Be present: Product content for top social networks.

How do social signals affect the SEO indexing part?

• Good information helps social media profiles rank in search results and gain traction.
• Social media links can help Google index your blog/posts.
• But beware: Although SMM links are useful, Google doesn't count them as links from an authoritative site.

How can you optimize your Facebook Page?

Google uses the following in its search results:

• Facebook page name.
• A short description of the page.
• Number of appreciations.
• The number of people talking about the page.

Give special importance to the "About" section, because usually the information here is in the Meta Description that appears in Google, and that makes the difference for the searcher (to give or not to click on the result in which your page appears.

LinkedIn Page Optimization:

By naturally placing the right keywords in your profile and strategically adding relevant search terms to your content, including headlines, the search algorithm can get you to the top of the SERPs.

Medium Page Optimization:

The platform allows users to publish all kinds of blog content, including:

• Personal stories.
• Republished articles.
• Original content.
• Reused content.

Why does being on Medium matter?

58% of Medium traffic comes from organic search, while just over 26% is direct traffic.

Pinterest Page Optimization:

• Users perform over 2 billion monthly searches on the site
• Of all searches, 97% are unbranded, which means that Pinterest users are willing to interact with unfamiliar companies.
• There are 600 million searches on the site every month.
• 70% of consumers use the platform for inspiration on how to make purchasing decisions (only 17% on Facebook).

Using Quora for SEO purposes:

• Here people always ask valuable questions on topics of interest.
• These queries have keywords that your audience is searching for on Google:
  - Business tips.
  - Counseling related to daily life.
  - Useful content creation data.
  - Blog posting/content brainstorming ideas.
  - Information on new topics.