Social networks are not a ranking factor, therefore, they do not help SEO in a direct way. So it is normal not getting more quality links nor authority nor better rankings in Google by sharing in social networks. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t take advantage of it in other ways.
Do social media have an influence or not on SEO? Yes, but in a way that will improve your brand’s SEO indirectly, although it won’t improve the SEO of the content that is shared, as many believe.
Imagine that you share a piece of content on a social network. A user arrives, sees it and loves it. You manage to linger in his mind and when he needs to know more about you, he will go to Google by himself to find you.
Those small searches are the ones that improve your brand’s SEO. The more people you manage to positively impact with your content, the more people will search for your brand.
On the other hand, as you can imagine, sharing on social networks will also help you get more traffic, more leads and more sales. But, of course, only if you know how to distribute the content on social media to connect with your target audience. Content that they might be interested in. And to know if they are interested, first you have to know your target audience.
Why are social networks not a ranking factor?
Google has said on several occasions that social media does not influence ranking. It has said so without giving an extensive explanation for it. But if you are not satisfied with that, we will give you our conclusion on the case…
Google is always looking to help the user by offering the best information. For this purpose it has an algorithm with more than 200 ranking factors. This algorithm seeks to filter the best content, reviewing data collected from the same content and user sections.
Of those more than 200 ranking factors, sharing on social networks is not one of them. So you can rest easy knowing that it is not necessary to share on social networks to do SEO.
But on the bright side, social sharing can be useful if you know how to do it. Useful because it’s about doing business and knowing how to do business with a content strategy will allow you to get more traffic, more leads and sales.
Now, the true reason why sharing on social networks is not a ranking factor is that interactions, such as likes and comments, are easy to alter for your own benefits.
Therefore, you can understand that this data can not be trusted by Google, the quality of the content should be determined by the user and not by a third party trying to bend the rules.
So, is sharing on social networks bad for SEO?
It is not bad and neither is it good for SEO. But that does not mean that sharing is not worth it, rather, if you know how to do it, you can take advantage of it in the following way:
Having a content marketing strategy focused on monetizing. Which can be done. Thus, not all content has to be justly focused on ranking.
If you know how to share your content with the right people, it can be a success that will bring you a few or many monetary benefits. Because that’s what marketing will always be for, and that’s what content marketing is all about.
