Over the last few years, the only ‘social’ area that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) consisted of were the thousands of backlinks that could be generated via social bookmarking. Recent evidence suggests that this is no longer going to be the case in the near future – and that search engines are gearing up to fully embrace the social revolution.
In many ways, the writing is on the wall already. Recent market analysis has revealed that more people are spending time on social networks compared to any other type of websites. Needless to say, major search engines cannot afford to ignore this trend.
And this may surprise you but: They have already started going social in some areas!
Google and Bing Confirm the “Social” Aspect of Algorithms
Lately, both Google and Bing have confirmed that there is a social aspect in their search engine algorithms.
In fact as you may have noticed, Bing is displaying Facebook’s ‘Like’ data on their search results.
Google has followed suit and has begun to show Tweets, Flickr photos, and shares within their results as well.
Make no mistake though – right now there is no hard evidence that social networks provide more SEO value and relevance than backlinks, content, and other traditional SEO methods. In fact, some skeptics insist that this is just Bing’s way of trying to one-up Google, and Google retaliating in kind.
While this may certainly be true of Google and Bing’s recent additions – will it remain true forever?
Making the Case for Social SEO in Searches
If social SEO becomes a reality, it will be mostly because search engines are looking to provide more relevant results. Currently, the backlink driven voting system is fairly open to abuse, with irrelevant content occasionally still managing to weed its way into the top search results.
All the major search engines (especially Google) know that the cornerstone of their success is their ability to provide relevant results – and socially based algorithms would appear to be that much more difficult to manipulate.
After all, getting thousands of people to ‘Like’ your post on Facebook is a lot harder than sourcing backlinks.
Some tests carried out early this year have already shown that websites with social links, ‘Likes’, and Twitter posts connected to them consistently rank higher on Google than those without. While these tests are far from conclusive, they certainly indicate a growing trend that you should probably be prepared for.
Readying for the Shift
Even though social SEO is not fully implemented (and may never be), considering how likely it is that it will play a major role in search engine rankings in the future – why not be prepared?
Just start off by promoting your websites via Twitter and Facebook, and encouraging ‘Likes’, re-tweets, and comments.
As much as Google and other search engines are interested in the power of social networks, you should be too. It could make all the difference if and when search engines start relying on social algorithms more heavily.
And even if social SEO never becomes a reality, tapping into social networks and media is bound to help your traffic anyway.
For now, the entire SEO community is still waiting to see exactly what direction the social component of search engine optimization takes. But with so much framework already in place, it seems as though it is just a matter of time before search engines take the next big step forward.