We have been aware that engaging with social media can influence your search engine ranking results for quite some time now. Google have made various statements about how they are increasingly monitoring social media, culminating in the announcement of their new +1 social feature.

So, now it is official, what are the best ways to capitalise on using social media, to improve your search engine rankings?

1. Develop Your Social Media Profiles

A large percentage of social media sites will allow you to create a profile about you and your company, including a link back your website. Developing your social media profiles on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and many more social media websites offer great link building opportunities and will also help to create a greater awareness of your products and services.

2. Leverage Your Content

Creating quality content will attract other websites to link to you naturally. Engaging with social media enables you to attract these type of links more easily and it is the many distribution possibilities offered by social media, that makes it such an important part of your SEO strategy.

There are many different ways to leverage your content for social media; some of the primary methods are as follows:

• Issue regular new blog posts containing high quality content
• Promote your new content on Twitter on a regular basis
• Establish a Facebook business page and post your content on your wall
• Create a Linkedin account and add regular new content
• Promote your content via various social bookmarking accounts

3. Engage In Online Conversations

Social Media as the name suggests is all about being social. By participating in online conversations you will develop valuable social signals that will help to improve your search engine rankings.

Examples of some of the ways that you can get involved in online conversations are as follows:

• Retweet news you read on Twitter and add in your opinion
• Get involved in an industry discussion on Linkedin
• Comment on issues and provide advice on relevant industry forums
• Comment on relevant blog posts
• Share information via a relevant Facebook business page

It is important to remember that when engaging in online conversations you should remain professional, knowledgeable and authentic at all times.

There are many other ways to use social media, that will help to boost your SEO efforts and ultimately your search engine rankings on Google and other major search engines.

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Creating an awareness of your online brand should be an important part of your internet marketing strategy. Many customers use Google and other search engines to find more details about your company before they purchase. Therefore, an effective brand management strategy can help your business convert more online customers.

Developing social media profiles across a range of popular social media websites offers an ideal opprtunity to improve the general awareness and visibility of your online business. When customers are searching for information about your company, your social media profiles will provide them with additional information, positive reviews and links to your website.

You will need to register with each social networking site in order to create your brand pages and social media profiles.

When creating your social media profiles remember to include as much information as possible about your company, your products and unique selling points. Include any positive reviews or testimonials you have received and always remember to link back to your main site where possible.

To help boost the ranking of these pages it is a good idea to link to your social media profiles as much as possible. This can be achieved by linking from various pages of your website, cross linking between the social media pages and including links in your articles or blog posts.

Examples of popular social networking sites you can start with are as follows:

• Digg
• Blinklist
• Buddymarks
• Delicious
• Facebook
• Jumptags
• Mixx
• Reddit
• StumbleUpon
• Twitter

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