Getting Link Juice Out of Social Media

 

By Web Success Team

There are arguably three components that make up the lifeblood of a website: content, SEO, and the SEO value you get from linking, aka: link juice. Link juice is becoming more important for brands as people flock to social media to share links and other information they find. The benefit of exposing your brand through social media outlets will enable you to become more visible on search and increase your rankings on Google and the like.

Link Juice and Social Media

Squeeze Juice from Your Blog
Blogging is great for raising brand awareness and establishing yourself as an expert. But it’s also great for building links to your website. The key, however, is that your articles have to be circulated beyond Facebook and Twitter. Look into social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, or groups on LinkedIn to help you get more readers and visits to your homepage. Avoid sharing your blog on every social bookmarking site because users on one site can be less receptive of your content than users on another. For time management purposes, the best marketing strategy is to be active on platforms where your articles have the best chance of being shared. If you are unsure about what those sites are, seek advice from an online marketing team to help you identify them.

Optimize Your Profiles
Google is good at identifying low quality social media accounts. What constitutes a “low quality” account is not completely clear but there are some things that turn up as red flags (especially on Twitter). Among those red flags are SPAM, the absence of a profile picture, wacky follower to following ratios, and incomplete profile bios. The last item is extremely important for link juice purposes. It is essential that your bio is completely filled out with information about your brand, a link to your homepage, and a profile picture. Re-tweets of the links you share can go places you never imagined they could go. Aside from the traffic those links bring to your website, you will get visits from non-followers who click on your Twitter handle; so make sure the link to your website works.

Join Discussions
If you decide to register your company on a site like Digg, Reddit, or Facebook, it’s important you become an active member of the community. That means voting for (or commenting on) other articles and links that are interesting or relevant to your brand. When you do this, a link to your profile is available for other people to see and click. And that’s why it’s so important to build a complete profile as I mentioned above. A lot of the juice (or SEO value) you get will be from people you never reached out to, but they landed on your profile through some other means (in this case, because you joined a discussion). Since there’s a chance that your content will occasionally go unnoticed, you can still give your profile, and ultimately your website, an opportunity to get clicks if you actively participate.

Use URL Shorteners
There are URL shorteners that don’t count as link juice. Stay away from them! You are wasting your time and hurting your search engine rankings when your links are shared, and they don’t qualify as link juice. Examples of URL shorteners that qualify are bit.ly and goo.gl. No matter which service you choose, make sure you pick one that offers some type of analytics so you can track the success of your links.

 

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7 comments

  1. Bob Garrett
    June 3rd, 2011 9:54  / 

    Hi folks – great post on getting the most from Social Media – I am a firm believer that Social Media is the way to go – and I think Google agrees

    Cheers
    Bob

  2. WebSuccessTeam
    June 3rd, 2011 11:56  / 

    Thanks, Bob

  3. Donovan Green
    June 4th, 2011 16:02  / 

    Very information articles. Still believe the old and consistant way always win

    Great article earn a retweet from me.

    Don

  4. Mark Griffin
    June 6th, 2011 13:36  / 

    Great article. I agree with that links are important; I also think meaningful posting into the community is also important. Posting just to add a link is just bad manners.

  5. Michelle Long
    June 10th, 2011 12:35  / 

    Can you please clarify — Is Bit.ly ok for link juice or one to be avoided? What about owly (Hootsuite?)

  6. WebSuccessTeam
    June 10th, 2011 13:13  / 

    Hi Michelle,

    Bit.ly and ow.ly are both OK for link juice. Thanks for asking!

  7. Elite Web Management
    September 5th, 2011 15:25  / 

    Good article success team 🙂

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