There is an interesting storm brewing in the SEO field, one that could have serious ramifications for a lot of businesses. Currently, the primary SEO strategy for many, many campaigns is link building. Content is posted, links are directed, and all too often it doesn’t even matter how many people truly view or value the content. It’s all about the links. Well, evidence is showing that those days may be drawing to a close.
It’s becoming clear that content with no lasting social footprint is being ranked lower than content with strong social relevance. As an industry, we’ve developed the bad habit of serving people ugly, tough meat with beautiful garnish. It didn’t matter because the meat was nothing but a vehicle, all we wanted was for people to see our beautiful radish roses. This just isn’t playing anymore.
Search engines, especially Google, are becoming better and better content critics. If you continue to try to serve up the same bland content just to get your links out there, they’re going to reward you with diminishing returns. So what constitutes “good” content? For anyone who has been paying attention, it’s becoming clear that your content will be judged based on its social media impact.
What you write, where you insert your links, and what you’re linking to all matter. A page can have links out the wazoo, but as SEO technology progresses, you’re not going to get far without some community support. This means in addition to all your links, you better have some tweets, likes and shares. Recent studies are showing that positive social media reception has the highest correlation to rankings.
So why then does the correlation exist? It’s simple: the cream rises to the top. When your content is liked and shared, it’s implicit proof of its quality. So remember, knock it off with the ground chuck. If you don’t have some filet to go with those radish roses, you won’t be in business for long.
Need help with your social media content creation? Not sure how to leverage social media for SEO value? Contact Wikimotive for a free evaluation and advice on how you can improve your strategy.