Social networks are an extremely effective way to speed up natural link development, that nearly 70% of all businesses don’t yet even implement. Creating Social Signals involves spreading your links and post through various social networks. By creating social media accounts and adding your content, you are essentially creating social signals to your website, that will continue to multiply as users share, like, tweet (and etc.) your content.

A study conducted by SocialMetrics, concluded that social signals are the first step to letting search engines like Google know your website is relevant, afterward, they begin to examine your backlinks from other websites (non-social). So building social signals should be your first step when conducting search engine optimization and keyword ranking.

When Linking

When linking to your website from social networks, it’s a good idea to use a 1 to 9 ratio of keyword specific anchors to “branding” anchor text. Branding anchor text is simply the name of your website, blog, or app. By not including enough brand based anchor texts on social networks, the authenticity of your back-links may be brought into question by search engines, as studies show that most people anchor with a brand name when sharing through networks. Thus, it’s important to anchor primarily with your brand name at first, that is until your brand picks up real steam and others naturally start linking and creating social signals to you.

Going deeper in, the study found that Facebook shares account for the highest prestige of signals. Meaning Google uses your shares as a way to gauge your website’s relevance. They are basically a “thumbs-up” for Google to put you higher in search results.