Can Social Sharing in SEO Be Viewed in the Same Light As Quality Link Building

It is undeniable that an explosion in the amount of content shared through social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ has taken place and that it has an effect on the search. Socially shared links are treated differently than other link types by the search engines, but search engines do notice them and we cannot deny the rising importance of social channels. Search marketers with a large social circle who shares a lot of material, stands a better chance to see their material promoted in the search result as Google began to incorporate a huge number of social signals into its search results. Logged-in users can also receive personalized results that include information about content that was shared by the searcher’s social circle. (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc.) When you have a large social circle and share a lot of material you have a better chance to have your material promoted in the search results.

However, while social shares do affect rankings, good quality links are still far more superior in promoting the popularity of website content than any other method.

“Backlinks, also known as incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links, are incoming links to a website or web page. In basic link terminology, a backlink is any link received by a web node (web page, directory, website, or top level domain) from another web node”. – Wikipedia definition.

Business owners spent a considerable amount of time, money and resources to build a website that showcase their products and services and the next logical step would be to generate traffic to the website. The best way to achieve this is through link building and superb backlink building means building links manually. Search Engines place value on quality links resulting in your website achieving a better ranking position in the search engine results. You can view each link to your site as a vote for your website.

Two factors to bear in mind when building quality links are:

Anchor Text

Build links for sites that accept anchor text links. Part of natural link building is to vary the text in the links. Refrain from using only one keyword or keyword phrase when building links, but rather use variations of the keyword and long tail phrases that will supplement your short terms. For example: your anchor text may be: “Nelspruit guest houses”, but also use keyword phrases such as: “luxury guest houses Nelspruit, “five star accommodation facilities in Nelspruit”

Link Attraction

Create content that is relevant to your website, interesting to read and share with others, contains correct spelling and grammar, images or videos, links and social shares. Focus on staying on the general topic of the website in order for the search engines to see a consistent theme across all of the website’s pages.

With the ever increasing number of social media users the power of social media cannot be denied and do form part of a good search engine optimization strategy, but do take into account the value that search engines place on quality links when you are optimizing your website to rank well in the world of search engines.