According to Bustos, search engines “assess the authority of Tweeters and Facebook pages that share and re-share links.” She adds that Bing reportedly considers the number of time a story is “retweeted” as well as the number of followers and followed Tweeters. Meanwhile, Google takes into consideration the authority of the Tweeter and like Bing, also factor Facebook links for pages that are public like Fan pages or public Walls.
As an e-commerce merchant, Bustos enumerates some implications of this connection between social media platforms and search rankings.
1. It makes it easy to share. You can add those little Twitter and Facebook Share and Like buttons to both your site’s home page and product pages so social networkers can easily share your content. You can also use these social media marketing tools to make a call to action on your website. According to Bustos, it is tough for e-commerce sites to build natural (or unpaid) links so these calls to action are helpful ways of winning you “passive word of mouth” and “passive link building.”
2. It emphasizes the need to reach out to influencers. Who are these influencers? Bustos suggests that PR efforts should include Twitter-ers (not just bloggers and other media outlets) which involves research and “perfecting your pitch to Twitter whales.” She also advises against Sponsored Tweets if your goal is to improve your SEO rankings. Otherwise, it’s an okay online advertising technique.
3. It emphasizes the need to become an influencer. To maximize the value of your social media marketing campaign, Bustos reminds e-commerce merchants to “build up a strong fan base” and to “Tweet/update Facebook regularly.” Another way to do this is to make sure that you Tweet or post relevant information to your Friend and followers, not just links back to your own e-commerce site. Bustos also notes that “following back your followers may help boost your authority ranking.” Additionally, “incoming links can help boost the Page Rank of your social profiles, so include links to them on your site and ask other sites that may be linking to your home page to include a link to your social networks.” You can also consider investing in a social media manager who will help you manage and maintain your social media marketing campaign.
4. It opens up the opportunity to go viral. Bustos challenges e-commerce merchants to “think about what content on your site has potential to ‘go viral’ on social networks.” This can be a contest, a funny/groundbreaking video or a breaking news story.
In conclusion, Bustos reminds entrepreneurs that social media is not a “magic bullet” for SEO since “social links make up only a small part of what search engines factor when ranking pages.” However, she notes that social content is something that will increasingly become an important factor in search engine rankings and it is good to start early and start now so you can “reap the word of mouth and search engine benefits Twitter and Facebook can offer.”
