Social Media and Local SEO

[Matt Chauhan]

Do social signals have any impact on the local SEO performance and rankings? Since Google has now enabled us to add the business's social profiles within the GBP dashboard, I think it would be interesting to look further into this. I would really appreciate it if somebody could send a list of articles explaining the correlation of social signals with local rankings.

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

Do social signals have any impact on the local SEO performance and rankings? Since Google has now enabled us to add the business's social profiles within the GBP dashboard, I think it would be interesting to look further into this. I would really appreciate it if somebody could send a list of articles explaining the correlation of social signals with local rankings.

Google typically does not index most social media posts (e.g. Facebook). However, in short, social media has an indirect impact on SEO. If you are creating great content on social that is engaging, it will result in more clicks to your website. Also, the more visible you are on social media, you have the potential of increasing trust and awareness of your name/brand which can result in better CTR for your ranked pages on Google. Also, Google sometimes shows justifications from social channels on Google search results, typically on GBP/KPs.

However, we treat social media as a totally separate entity for marketing and rarely for its SEO impact. There can be huge ROI for quality social marketing, especially depending on the industry.

Here's a great article that sums it up nicely.