How To Rank In Google

Lesson #9: Page-Level Social Features

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You've reached the last lesson in this series on how to rank in Google (but not quite the last email--one more is coming tomorrow that you do NOT want to miss).

We've covered everything from link building to structured quality content to branding. You quite literally know everything you need to know about building the kind of sites that rank well in Google -- with one exception.

That final piece of the pie is the subject of this last lesson.

But first, the top 9 most important factors for ranking in Google:

  1. Domain-Level Link Features
  2. Page-Level Link Features
  3. Page-Level Keyword & Content-Based Features
  4. Page-Level Keyword-Agnostic Features
  5. Engagement & Traffic/Query Data
  6. Domain-Level Brand Metrics
  7. Domain-Level Keyword Usage
  8. Domain-Level Keyword-Agnostic Features
  9. Page-Level Social Features

Today we'll cover Page-Level Social Features. Ready? Here we go!
 

Page-Level Social Features

What is it?

Page-Level Social Features are all of the interactions that take place for that page across the major social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.). People posting the page to their social media accounts, as well as liking/favoriting/sharing the social posts.
 

How important is it?

According to the 150 experts surveyed, Page-Level Social Features scores just under 4 out of 10 on the scale of importance for ranking in Google.
 

What can I do to improve it?

Make sure the content of your site is super engaging. Think "link bait." (Remember that from way back in lesson number two?) Have trusted, honest friends and associates read the content and give you their feedback. Better yet, have people who don't know you very well read it -- they're more likely to be honest with you about what needs improving.
 

Detailed Explanation

Google has publicly stated that they do not take social signals into account in their search algorithm -- at least not yet. That is, the number of likes you get on a Facebook post or the number of times your page is tweeted or retweeted does not have any direct impact on Google's ranking of the page.

My personal belief about why Google hasn't incorporated those numbers into their algorithm is simple: it's just way too easy to game. You can get thousands of likes / tweets / retweets for a couple of bucks on a variety of "SEO services" sites. Some of these services use long-standing social accounts from real people that are virtually impossible to distinguish from any other account.

If those actions had a significant direct impact on Google's algorithm, for twenty bucks or so you could rank for anything!

That's not to say that getting a link from a famous social profile page isn't a great thing -- it is. It's just not any different from getting a link from any other page that is very well linked. There's nothing "magical" about the fact that the page happens to be a social media profile page. Google has stated that the number of fans / followers / shares / likes / retweets doesn't mean anything to them (yet).

It's worth noting though that there is some debate about this among SEO practitioners. Not all agree with my stance, though I've not seen any hard evidence to the contrary.
 

If It Doesn't Count, Why Care?

Google is being smart by not counting those things directly in the rankings. Besides, there's simply no need to count them, because real shares and posts and likes and engagement will naturally also result in what Google does count: links to your page. And it's a lot harder to fake links (and much easier to spot fakes) than it is with social media forgery.

In order to get real social media engagement, you need to be sure that the pages of your site have a Facebook Like/Share button, a Tweet This button, a Pin this button (for the images on the page), and yeah, why not, even put a Google+ button (it only takes a few seconds to add and maybe somebody in the vast wasteland of Google+ will actually see it and link to your page).

Having social buttons won't get you anything if the page isn't engaging, though. So make sure that your content is high quality. Not just in depth and factual, but entertaining. Make people smile or laugh, or nod and say "so true." Make things that are usually difficult to understand easy by using word illustrations or infographics.

And by all means have a company Facebook page, Twitter account, Pinterest account and (I suppose) a Google+ page. Every time you add a page to your website, write an engaging post or tweet about it and link to it.
 

Effective Social Media Posts

When you create a post or tweet, be sure to use related, popular hashtags. That helps your posts show up in the search results of the social sites and delivers more engagement and visitors.

Whether it's a post to Facebook or a Tweet, be absolutely sure to always include an awesome image that really catches the attention. Text posts are not enough! Statistics show that posts and tweets with images get more than three times as many views and interactions. They're just so much more noticeable. You're competing for people's attention on their timelines, so you need to stand out.

If you have the means, boost the posts and tweets with those platforms' paid options. With Facebook even five bucks can result in thousands more people seeing your post. If that post gets a lot of likes and shares from that five dollar boost it can end up getting out to tens of thousands of people.

Be absolutely sure your post is engaging and eye catching! I had a post on Facebook to a high quality article reach more than 21,000 people and generate close to 2,000 page visitors in 3 days without any paid boosting at all. And it was a practical, informative article (no flying kittens or laughing babies).

Work just as hard on the way you write your social media posts and tweets as you do the actual page content itself. Trust me, it will pay off!
 

How To Track Your Social Presence

As you probably expected, I use Keyword Canine 3.0 [KC3] to keep tabs on the social metrics of my sites. The Domain Dashboard shows you the Tweets and Facebook Likes of all of your sites (by far the two most important social metrics) -- and updates the numbers daily:

Keyword Canine Social Metrics
click here for a full-size version

Rather than having to go back and forth between all of my sites checking their Twitter and Facebook plugins to see what the counts are, KC3 displays it all in one nice list.

KC3 will also warn you with a 'Health Issue' in the Domain Dashboard if your site doesn't link to any social profile pages. A nice reminder to make those things accessible to your visitors.
 

In Summary

Well there you have it. You now know everything anyone needs to know to rank their site in Google. A lot of gurus claim there's some kind of specialized, secret knowledge that only the elite have. Not true. 

In fact, much of SEO is just common sense. Google's goal is to make the user experience of the searcher as positive as possible so that people keep going back to Google again and again when they need to find something. If you focus on making the visitor experience as positive as possible as well, then what you're doing will align with what Google wants most of the time.

There are a few things that common sense isn't enough to understand, but we covered all of those things in this course. So you're good!

I hope you've already been applying what you've learned as you go along. If you haven't, now's the time.

Feel free to refer back to this course as often as you need to.

 


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