How Social Media Affects Local SEO - Inbound Internet Marketing Blog

How Social Media Affects Local SEO

Local SEO is a hot topic for internet marketers, and with good reason. Internet users are constantly performing local searches online, which means?businesses should be focusing more resources on these potentially lucrative local markets.

But while they?re busy thinking about local search, many companies fail to recognize the growing importance of social search. Why does it matter? Well, the latest Google algorithm updates now put more emphasis on content being shared on social media. When social content is shared enough, it tells the search engines that it?s popular; when it?s popular with enough varied authority sites, it goes to the top of the first page. This power of social search is the reason that pages on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn rank so well.

Optimizing for local search is good and necessary. But, if you want to supercharge your local SEO campaign, consider including social media content that bolsters your local presence online. Here are a few ways that social media can improve your local SEO:

Geo-tagged and SEO content
Search engines can trace your physical location whenever (and from wherever) you check into your company's social media account?another reason to do so frequently. Also, any images you post on social media will be automatically geo-tagged with time, date and location information.

Always be sure to use rich snippets and other SEO content whenever posting to your business' social media accounts. Adding long-tail local keywords makes it easier for search engines to categorize and rank you under your search terms.

Reviews
Business reviews serve many purposes. They provide you with feedback and help you improve your products and services. They tell you who is interested in your business. They also give your local SEO efforts a boost. Authority sites such as Yelp and Google Places gather reviews that point to your business, and the more reviews from authority sites, the better your rankings.

Google Plus
A Google+ account ties your business listing to searches for your company. That way, when people search for your company, your Google+ account shows up first, next to your site, on the first page. When people add and share you by clicking on Google's "+1" button, they are connecting to you?and the search engines take notice.

Google notes the location and authority of the sites connecting with you on Google Plus when determining your rank. If you add a +1 function to your website, your site gets SEO juice directly from your social media account.

Followers/Fans/Connections/Likes
These items all add up to one thing?social influence. Local SEO gets a big boost from social media when companies and individuals with some authority start liking and connecting with your business. While the number of likes and followers isn?t always an indication of how many people are actually buying from you, it is an indication of interest, and, to some degree, popularity (or in other words, higher rankings.)

In conjunction with local content, the number of fans, followers and likes will get your local search terms to the top of the rankings?and help keep you there.

It?s a fact?local SEO and social media now go hand in hand. Use both local and social search techniques as part of your overall internet marketing strategy, and you are utilizing the power of both to rank well and get found by your all-important local market.

Source: http://web.zizinya.com/blog/bid/139617/How-Social-Media-Affects-Local-SEO

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