6 Social Media Tips for Higher Search Engine Rank

Today's article is from guest contributor Emma-Julie Fox of
Pitstop Media. Emma provides some terrific information on
using social media to improve your search engine ranking.

In fact, I've already made site changes to implement her good
advice on leveraging Google+. Read on to learn more . . .


It seems as if everybody has an account in one or more social
networking sites these days, and why not?! Social media
today boasts of a huge and involved user base, something that
marketers love! However, that's not all that social media has
to offer; SEO is another huge advantage!

When used right, certain social media strategies can help you
improve your site's search engine rankings and open up new
entry points for web traffic. You can easily convert the new
visitors into your mailing list subscribers, if you have a well-
designed optin with an attractive offer. As a business owner,
you already know that a growing email list means improved
chances of actual conversions!

Here are the top tips that will help you make the best use of
the SEO opportunities that social media offers:

1. Social Media Links

Many businesses add their social media links on the home
page of their company website. However, there are some that
take their other sites for granted when it comes to adding
social media links. If you really want to make the most of the
SEO opportunities presented by social media, you'll have to
add your links wherever you deem appropriate.

If you have a blog, add your links there. If you have your
business listed on directories, don't forget to fill out the fields
where you're allowed to add links to your social media
accounts. If you're on Google+ or Facebook, add the links to
your other social media accounts on your profile.

Adding your social media links wherever you can may not
directly lead to more web traffic, but it will definitely
strengthen your online presence. This will eventually lead to
better search rankings. As someone with ample experience in
SEO, you should know that the more links you have to your
own content, the better your online exposure will be.

Furthermore, research has firmly shown proof of the
importance of social media in marketing campaigns; time and
again, it has shown that content shared on social media
platforms gets indexed a lot faster than it otherwise would.

It's important to add your social media links wherever you
deem appropriate so as to get your content indexed faster.

2. Alt Tags

Just as many people neglect to add their social media links on
some of their sites, they also often overlook Alt tags for the
images on their sites. Don't make the same mistake of being
too focused on creating Meta tags for your site content that
you forget other tags can be very beneficial as well. When
you add Alt tags to your site images, you are actually
increasing the possibility of those images getting indexed by
Google. This can drive more traffic to your company website,
since the images are hosted there.

Since social media icons can be considered images, you'd do
well to add Alt tags to the ones you have on your site as well.
You've probably read the phrase, "Like us on Facebook"
countless times already. You can take this a step further by
adding the tag, "Like (company name) on Facebook." This
has the advantage of including two very important keywords
that are likely to get the icon on your site indexed: the name
of the social networking site and the name of your company.

3. Google+ Listings

If you've been paying attention to the online marketing trends
in 2012, then you'll know that a strong presence on Google+
can help improve your website's performance in terms of
getting your site content indexed and displayed on top of
search results.

Google has moved to connect online search to social media,
which definitely makes a strong presence on their social
networking site very important for SEO purposes. Therefore,
if you want to take full advantage of social media for your
company's SEO, you shouldn't forget to add the Google+
icon as well as the Google Authorship tag on your company
website.

Being active in Google+ and adding the Google Authorship
tag on your sites can help strengthen your online presence.

Now you know of three things that are sure to help you grab
some wonderful SEO opportunities from social media, but
what exactly can they do for you? How can social media
benefit your company? What does it have to offer in terms of
marketing? Read on to find out.

4. Brand Building

Consumers have become very suspicious and they aren't
likely to do business with a company whose brand
(to be continuoued