One can no longer ignores the impact that social media have on the web and the effects that social media websites have on SEO. Social media such as Twitter and Facebook has demonstrated that it has the power to galvanize votes for politicians and played a pivotal role in helping to organize riots, such as the riot in London.
As website designers and search engine optimizer what can we do to benefit from social media websites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Google Profile? Well that question often depends on the type of products and services you offer but generally you can use these websites to your advantage by becoming a registered member place a link to your website. Some of these social media websites may not offer link back to your search optimized websites, but some do allow you to link back to your website such as Facebook or Google profile where you can update your profile with links to your websites. Keeping in mind, on some websites your links may automatically get updated with a rel=”nofollow” attribute, the rel=”nofollow” attribute will not give your website a boost in Google PageRank because it instructs search engine not to follow the link; however, it will play a role in driving direct traffic to your website, and that is a desired outcome.
Although, one social media website in particular I found interesting is Google, i.e. Google Profile. Since Google is trying to grow their social media business and compete with the likes of Facebook, they are promoting rel=”author” linking scheme. The idea is that you become a registered user and create a Google profile, and then link your website to your Google profile by including a rel=”author” attribute in the link. Log back into your Google profile account and insert a link back to your website. This process acknowledges to Google that you are the author of the website or page. Since most searches are conducted on Google, it is fair to assume that getting ranking well on Google is a priority for most search engine optimizer. So in this instance, Google profile as a social media platform may have a big impact on SEO.
Will Google profile help to improve website ranking within Google and is it a good enough incentive for you to create a Google profile and linking to it? I linked this website to Google profile, click on Dean Chu at the bottom of the page and it will take you to my Google profile. I hope it does improve ranking, but even if it doesn’t what would I have lost? What do you think?
This made me chortle for an extended time.
A constructive comment, even negative one, would be great. I am a novice writer (as indicated in my about page) and using this forum for self improvement. Chortling doesn’t offer me much upon which I could improve. But the whole point of SEO is to get you on this page, and you did, so thank you for commenting.