Google’s new SEO guide acknowledges Social Media!
Google have just released an updated version of their SEO guide!
Whilst much of the advice has been “known” by SEO professionals for some time, very little has ever been publicly acknowledged by Google – until now. We now have three important giveaways in the new guide, namely;
- Totally new – Google considers Social Media (word-of-mouth buzz) as building your site’s reputation.
- Google says you can promote your content effectively – old but good to have their seal of approval
- Linking to spammy websites can damage your website’s ranking/reputation. Again, old but they’re basically telling us you could get banned.
So what does this mean?
Word of mouth buzz (Social media, online PR)
We’ve known for some time that links are the prime currency for ranking well on Google but it’s now official. Google now acknowledge that getting deep links to your content pages from Social Media and “word of mouth buzz” can help your website’s reputation (and ranking). Here’s what Google say;
Organic or word-of-mouth buzz is what helps build your site’s reputation with both users and Google, and it rarely comes without quality content.
Quite clearly, Google are indicating that adding quality content to your website then getting it out by word of mouth (social media and online pr ) is good for your website’s reputation.
Promoting your content
It’s nw official! Promoting your content can help your website’s reputation. Their guide says
Effectively promoting your new content will lead to faster discovery by those who are interested in the same subject.
So if you have a blog or update your news page on a regular basis then make sure you, or your SEO company are promoting this for you through the right channels, or getting links from other websites to your new content. If you want help on promoting your content then contact us now.
However, they do warn that;
As with most points covered in this document, taking these recommendations to an extreme could actually harm the reputation of your site.
Everything in moderation as they say but however you read into this, Google clearly considers promoting your content to be a good thing.
Linking to spammy websites
Whilst not new, it’s never been officially public but it now comes straight from the horses mouth. Here’s what Google say on the subject;
However, linking to sites that Google considers spammy can affect the reputation of your own site.
So, if you haven’t already, then get checking all those outbound links. It’s imperitive that you check all your outbound links to ensure you’re not linking to any bad websites or link farms. Make sure you check for broken links while you’re at it and get them fixed! There are a number of good tools for checking and it’s worth the effort for all the time it will take you.
If you need help with social media, promoting your content or any other aspect of the new Google SEO guide then give us a call or contact us now.
