Are you linking to your social media profiles? If you’re like most small business owners, then the answer is no. In fact, fewer than 20% of SMBs link to social media profiles, and they’re making a big mistake.
There are two primary reasons you should link from your website or blog to social media websites:
- It builds your social authority
- It’s good SEO
Your Social Authority
Just as there is a link graph the search engines use to measure your authority, there is a social graph. In that social graph are all the places you hang out online. This includes your website and blog, but it also includes social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
When you connect all of your social media profiles to your website, then you are telling the search engines and your human visitors that you have outposts. Those outposts are great reputation management, brand building, and authority building tools. They build trust.
Social Media As SEO
If you link to your social media profiles using the rel=”me” tag in your links, then you are telling the search engines that you are the author of the content on those social media sites. The search engines use that information to connect you everywhere you exist on the Web. Your content becomes more crawlable, more trustable, and more rankable in the search engines.
If you aren’t already linking to your social media profiles from your website, then you should start doing so today.