Social Studies
That's right kids, it's time for Social Studies! In the world of SEO, though, I think you can probably already guess where this subject is going. It's all about everything under the umbrella we'll call 'social', which is not just social media like you might be thinking. Let me explain by breaking things down.
SOCIAL PROOF
Social proof is one of the most important aspects of social for boosting SEO. By this term, I am referring to the indications made by others about the quality of a company or its services. What this amounts to are the start-ratings on popular review sites such as Google, Yelp, and Angie's List. Studies have shown most people trust such ratings even more than their own friend's recommendation, so if you want to get a boost, get some good reviews - through legitimate means, of course :)
SOCIAL SHARING
Have you been to a website that had "like" or "share" buttons on their posts, so all you had to do was click on the button and it would pop up Facebook to share their link? Google has been a bit tight-lipped about the impact of social sharing, since they don't want rankings to simply be about what's popular, but it's widely held that social sharing has an impact on website ratings.
BOOKMARKING
Website like Delicious are place where people bookmark something they thought was important so that they can come back to it later. This is similar to social sharing in that the exact impact on ranking is not clear, but it is regarded to be important.
SOCIAL PROOF
Social proof is one of the most important aspects of social for boosting SEO. By this term, I am referring to the indications made by others about the quality of a company or its services. What this amounts to are the start-ratings on popular review sites such as Google, Yelp, and Angie's List. Studies have shown most people trust such ratings even more than their own friend's recommendation, so if you want to get a boost, get some good reviews - through legitimate means, of course :)
SOCIAL SHARING
Have you been to a website that had "like" or "share" buttons on their posts, so all you had to do was click on the button and it would pop up Facebook to share their link? Google has been a bit tight-lipped about the impact of social sharing, since they don't want rankings to simply be about what's popular, but it's widely held that social sharing has an impact on website ratings.
BOOKMARKING
Website like Delicious are place where people bookmark something they thought was important so that they can come back to it later. This is similar to social sharing in that the exact impact on ranking is not clear, but it is regarded to be important.