When you see your Facebook Like or Share activity spike, it can be tempting to think that those social media posts are having an impact on your SEO rankings. After all, if people are engaging with your content and driving traffic to your website, isn’t that good for SEO and bring your site on the First Page?
But there’s a key difference between the two: Facebook Likes and Shares have an effect on search engines because they’re seen by Google (and other search engines) as indicators of whether or not someone is interested in a page or article. This can have an indirect effect on search engine rankings, but more often than not it has no effect at all.
However, if you’re getting enough Likes and Shares from your Facebook Page, these metrics can add credence to what you’re trying to do with your site — that’s why they’re so important. And if you want even more credibility, consider adding some links back to the pages where people are linking from their shares.
1. Facebook Likes Affect Your Domain Authority
Domain authority is an important ranking factor in Google’s search results. It’s determined by the number of backlinks pointing to a website from other websites that are considered authoritative.
Backlinks are links from other websites that point directly to your site or pages on your site. When someone links to one of your pages on their own website, it’s called a “self-backlink.” If you have a high number of self-backlinks, then Google will consider them more authoritative than other sites with fewer backlinks.
The more sites link directly to your site, the more authority it has in Google’s eyes. The more social shares and likes you get on Facebook, the more authority they give you in Google’s eyes — which means an increase in domain authority!
2. They Can Help You Rank in the SERPS
Facebook likes and shares are viewed by the search engine indexing spiders as website content, so they’ll appear in search results. This can help your site rank higher than it would otherwise, especially if it has a lot of content that isn’t already indexed by search engines like Google!
The social network is the second largest search engine after Google itself, with approximately 1.5 billion users every month. As a result, when someone likes or shares something on Facebook, it’s likely that they’re also searching for that specific item online.
Facebook users are also more likely to click on organic results in search than those who don’t like or share items on the site — so these links are more likely to rank higher in Google’s search results.
Facebook’s algorithm also determines which posts appear in news feeds at the top of people’s timelines, which means that if you want your content to be seen by as many people as possible – whether it’s an article about helping new moms with breastfeeding or sharing photos from your travel adventures – then you’ll want to make sure that it gets shared as much as possible on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
3. They Can Improve Organic Traffic
When someone clicks on one of your posts on Facebook, it goes into their news feed. From there, other people who follow them may see that post — which means more people will potentially see it (and click on it) in their news feed. At worst, this could result in some lost organic traffic from people who won’t click through to see what you’ve posted but that were previously following you anyway!
Also read: 7 Tips To Enhance Your SEO Ranking
