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00:35 – What triggered these changes?
01:28 – What are social signals?
02:00 – The benefits of social signals and viral content
02:19 – So what exactly are Google tracking?
BONUS: 25 social signals which determine your website’s rankings

Hi, Fiona Soutter here from Super Savvy Business, and today we are talking about social signals and how they can help your website rank.

00:35 – What triggered these changes?

Now, back in 2012 Matt Cutts (who works for Google directly) came out and basically substantiated that Google were starting to pay more and more attention to social signals as far as helping websites to rank.

Now, since that time (2012-2013) there have been some pretty major updates to the algorithms which I discussed plenty of times with you (one of which was the Panda update and the other the Penguin series of updates as well).

What these updates have done have made a lot of the SEO or Search Engine Optimization tactics that website users were using to get their websites to rank. These tactics are now outdated, and so there has been a lot more emphasis on social signals.

01:28 – What are social signals?

Now, you might be asking yourselves, “What are social signals?”

Well, social signals are basically when a web user shares content from your website through social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, G+, and so on – there’s plenty of them out there.

Social signals are actually now considered to be a more accurate unit of measurement as to the quality of the content (or the relevance of the content) on a particular website.

02:00 – The benefits of social signals and viral content

The benefits of having good social signals for your website are not just that it can increase the rankings of your website in search results, but it can help your website to go viral; it can drive huge amounts of traffic through multiple traffic channels; it can help to increase your sales, and of course, your conversions.

02:19 – So what exactly are Google tracking?

So what exactly are Google tracking?

Well, Google has never really come out and given us a definitive guide as to the ranking factors for websites.

Similarly, with social signals they haven’t actually identified which social signals they are paying attention to; however, in the web industry and the internet marketing industry there are many experts out there that have a fairly good idea of which social signals would be having the most impact.

So what I’ve done is I have put together a list of the social signals that are most likely going to get results for your websites in terms of search rankings and helping your site to go viral. Pay attention to this list and make sure you are creating a social media strategy which will be building on this list and encourage people to share your content.

That’s all we have for today, my name is Fiona Soutter from Super Savvy Business.

Now, if you like this content and you want to stay up to date with the latest in online marketing and how to grow your business online, be sure to leave your name and email address on my website so I will send you these regular updates.

Take care for now! Bye!

BONUS: 25 Social Signals Which Determine Your Website’s Ranking

Google +

One of the giants in determining your website rankings.

1. The number of +1s.

Both +1s on individual posts and on your website in general are important
Focus on increasing the number of +1s on your brand
Don’t forget about Local+ pages

2. The influence of +1s.

The more +1s you get, the more authoritative your website will be considered
Thus, the fresh content that you’ll publish in the future will rank higher from the very moment when it is published

3. The growth rate of +1s.

If the number of +1 increases over a set period of time, that is a signal for search engines that your content is high-end

Tip: Come up with a strategy which helps you increase the number of +1s over 2-3 months (even more).

4. The number of followers and the amount of shares.

The more the merrier, right? True with G+ too.
The more people are following you, the more authoritative you will be in Google’s eyes.

5. The influence of followers and that of shares.

New followers and new shares indicate to Google that you are a trustworthy publisher.
BUT quantity does not equal quality: WHO follows you is just as important – connect with people who have good profiles and who also share content with quality in mind.

6. How quickly do your profile & content go viral?

The spread rate of your profile and your content are also of great importance to SEO
Ensure you’re getting “the right stuff done” by networking with G+ users, sharing quality information and thus determining people to start following you.

Facebook

THE biggest social media platform out there. Naturally, it influences search rankings more than G+ or Twitter…

7. The number of Shares and Likes

Both are important, but Shares enjoy greater popularity for search engines…

8. The amount of interaction

Are people commenting on your posts?

9. The growth of Shares and Likes

10. Shares, Likes and Comments together bear more authority than you’d think

Twitter

Did you know that, according to searchmetrics.com,Twitter is considered to be the 6th top factor to influence Google search rankings?

11. Twitter Authority lies in number of Followers, Mentions and Retweets

12. The more Followers, Mentions and Retweets, the better

13. The growth rate of Followers, Mentions and Retweets

Twitter is considered the fastest news release platform

If something of great importance happens, search engines can display tweets on the first results page. Otherwise, they show websites with relevant information regarding that search term.

Pinterest, Reddit, Digg, Foursquare, StumbleUpon

14. Pinterest: Number of Pins and Re-pins

15. Pinterest: the growth rate of Pins and Re-pins

16. Pinterest: Number of Comments

17. Foursquare: Number of check-ins

18. Foursquare: the growth rate and spread rate of check-ins

19. Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon: upvotes (same as Likes on Facebook)

20. Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon: number of comments

5 ghost-factors

The last 5 factors might not be that obvious at first sight, but they are equally important signals to search engines and website ranking:

21. Link click-through rate (CTR)

CTR Tip 1: Improve your CTR by writing catchy titles and descriptions for the content you share.

CTR Tip 2: Use relevant hashtags together with catchy texts for tweets

CTR Tip 3: Create unique, attractive and 100% branded images to share on Pinterest, Facebook, FlickR, Instagram, StumbleUpon, etc.

While the CTR might not be as influential for web rankings, it sure draws more people to your website. It can help decrease your bounce rate, have people return to your website, or recommend (through social media) your content.

22. Backlinks are still important

Focus on getting natural backlinks rather than “robotic” ones.
Backlinks are not as relevant as they used to be, yet search engines are still relying on them for relevancy

23. Time will tell

Trusted websites and trusted experts have been on the internet for a while now
Even if you are only a novice as you read this, in time your website will gain more authority and it will therefore rank better.

These Social Factors are BIG No-No’s

Not all social factors are positive; some can really damage your rankings. For example, if one of your webpages is deemed irrelevant, it will drop in search engine results.

24. Block this result.

People who use Google to search for things have an option to “block results”.
They go to a page from the search results and then click the “Back” button
A new button appears which suggests the user to “block this result”
By clicking on it the user sends Google a signal that the content on that webpage is irrelevant or of low quality.
As a result, the webpage loses its top place on search engine results

25. Relevancy based on sentiments

Believe it or not, search engines can now determine the feel (sentiment) of a piece of content
It can tell if it is a recommendation, critique, review, etc.
This is called information extraction.