Digital Marketing Blog

New research into the influence of social content sharing on search engine ranking performance reinforces the importance of integration between social media and search engine marketing activity.

It’s been known since last year that “social signals” (such as tweets, likes, shares and author authority) have some degree of bearing on search engine rankings and therefore that a successful social media strategy could directly impact on SEO results. Twitter’s influence was thought to be particularly potent, but in a blog post published last week, Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz.org, suggests that content sharing via Facebook may be a more powerful factor.

The quantitative research found significant correlation between the level of content sharing on Facebook and high Google rankings. Specifically, links highlighted in “shares” seem to have the greatest correlation followed by those in “comments” and “likes”. As the chart below shows, links included in tweets also show correlation with strong Google results, but to a much lesser degree than the Facebook signals.

Chart image courtesy of SEOmoz.org

Unsurprisingly, link metrics continue to have a profound effect on search engine ranking performance, but it’s interesting to note that even these showed a slightly lower correlation than Facebook “shares”.

Considering the omnipresence of the Facebook “like” button across the Web it might have been expected to show greater correlation than content “shares”. Commenting on this, Rand Fishkin said:

In Facebook’s own environment, a “like” of content will show up on your own “Wall” and in “Most Recent”, but [unlike "shared" content] it rarely shows in “Top News” where most users scan and click.

If Google is weighing-up the relative importance of “shares” vs “likes” when determining the human value of content, then it makes sense for “shares” to be given more prominence. While a “like” is certainly an active vote of recommendation, “sharing” content is more considered and involved.

One of the important conclusions of the research is that strategy development for social media marketing needs to find innovative ways to earn and encourage content sharing across the Facebook network in order to maximise the cross-benefit for SEO.