Is A Like As Valuable As A Link? Why Facebook Is Now So Important For Your SEO Strategy

I’m sure that many of you will have seen the countless online casino adverts scattered across the side of your Facebook home page, but how many have you ever stopped to think why they are suddenly doing that?

Is it because they feel that they haven’t quite spammed you enough through the alternative mediums? Perhaps … But, more likely than that, it’s to do with the latest Google algorithm update that now means Facebook pages and even comments are being crawled and indexed.

For the past decade and more, Google has based its algorithms purely on the reputation of a site from outdated page rank rules, age and relevance … but thanks to its most recent update: Google Caffeine v2, it has joined the 21st century and is now counting social media as a major cornerstone in ranking websites and blogs.

So what does that mean for the average Joe Bloggs who has a website and is trying to accommodate all the new changes in his SEO strategy? Well it’s simple really – get on Facebook. Their search box at the top of the site is being used by an army of 800million active accounts (so they say), and is a great place in which to index your site. Think about it, by creating a fan page for your business or even a listing, people can find you without you having to pay a penny.

More importantly than that, Facebook ‘likes’ are becoming as effective as backlinksand this is a great way to expand your audience. Posting some content on Facebook in a couple of relevant category groups will earn you a ton of new readers, potentially some new unique visitors to your site, and even (fingers crossed) some sales.

First things first, ensure that you have some presence on Facebook – even if it’s just on your profile saying you work for the company or website. Then look to create a fan page for it; nothing too flashy, and remember, just like your own website – content is king! Don’t just spam a load of links on the page as no one wants to see that. Try offering something unique, maybe a comical picture of the day, company quote each week, even talking about something topical and current … the news, sports, anything remotely to do with your company will work.

Then once you have done that, start finding people with common interests and add away (but remember: after 20 requests, Facebook will start getting suspicious as to whether you know them or not. Try and stagger these over a few weeks – maybe 10 a day – ensuring that you don’t attract too much attention).

Lastly, once you have built up a nice following on Facebook, make a few posts with your keywords in and links to your site and encourage your members to like them. As Google continues to update its algorithm, you can only benefit from these.

So that’s about all there is to it. Rather than continuing to focus your SEO strategies on outdated article sites that probably lost all credibility and page rank in the most recent updates, focus on Social Media and particularly Facebook. After all – it looks as if a link is as good as a link if not better.

This is a guest post by Daniel Laming who is the webmaster for Bigg Gains No Pains Online Casino Review website. Your comments are welcome. If you would like to submit your guest post please see here.