Hurting Your SEO With Social Media

If you're an avid reader of this blog, SEO Blog, you have probably read the article I wrote on how social media can help your search engine optimization efforts. But I'm here to tell you the down side of social media when it comes to search engine optimization as well.

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. are all parts of social media. A lot of big(and small) companies(and websites) use social media to keep their visitors up to date on what is going on with their company. Everyone is jumping on the social media bandwagon and attempting to promote their websites on them. What some, if not most or all, of these webmasters do not realize is that their promoting on social media websites may be harming their website's search engine optimization efforts.

Social media can be fun to use but it was not made for the promotion of websites, it was made for keeping in touch with family and friends. Promoting over social media outlets can be difficult due to this. But because of the simplicity of and the easy to use platform of social media it can sometimes appear that everyone with a Facebook or social media profile is a professional marketer.

It becomes a reputation managemenet problem when social media lead to unfavorable search results. A search engine optimization specialist may even need to be called in to save you from the damage negative comments on social media websites have caused your brand and website to receive, especially in the search engine results. These negative comments that are so easy for you to receive if you have a social media profile for your website is one of the main things that hurts your search engine optimization efforts. It makes it difficult for people to see your website and brand as authorative, serious and even clean.

There are plus sides to marketing through social media websites though. Social media may help search engine optimization through citations and link construction. Each reference to your website without a link, in addition to each link, all goes through a search engine's algorithm and computation resulting in a higher position in search results. Although a link will help you more, a simple reference to your website also helps because of the relevancy, trust and authority. Social media backlinks do count toward your website's search engine optimization efforts and helps generate a bigger buzz about your website.

Make sure your social media efforts are targeted and relevant. This is very important to your search engine optimization efforts. Make sure not to "Like" or "Comment" on unrelated pages or topics while using your website page or profile. Being linked to irrelevant things may hurt your search engine optimization efforts.

Just like typical search engine optimization, a plan is necessary when it comes to social media search engine optimization. You must research keywords, competition, etc. Concentrate on relevancy and social media will assist in your search engine optimization efforts. Don't and it will hurt your search engine optimization efforts.