Anyone seen REAL proof that White Hat & Social Signals leads to rankings ?
-
Trying to be a good, clean SEO, I have been spending the last two and a half years focusing a lot on building up solid social communities on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Pinterest and YouTube.
Back when I began doing this, I believed that old school link-building was on its way out, and that, to stay on the 'clean', White Hat side of Google, social was the way to go for future success in organic search.
But my main competitor is STILL buying links left and right, and has absolutely no social media following...and he's kicking my butt more and more in the rankings. And I seem to be losing out with my strategy.
So I would really like to know: have any of you experienced proof, first hand, that you can win with SEO by focusing on social signals, and by letting NATURAL, earned links pretty much take care of themselves, by trying to create good content?
Because I am FRUSTRATED.
I thought I was being one of the good guys. I thought I was going the safer, risk-free way to success. And I knew it would take me longer to become successful this way...but it's been YEARS now, and I still don't see any signs of it happening any time soon !
-
Of course we've seen results from whitehat SEO. That's not to say that blackhat SEO doesn't work, too. Afterall, who would take such a risk if it didn't work...but it is a big risk. Many sites using blackhat techniques wake up one morning to find their site's rankings are in the toilet or worse.
The rest of the advice that's been offered is good. Create truly good content that's valuable or entertaining and build up your audience. Whitehat SEO does work; however, Whitehat SEO with unoriginal, boring content, doesn't work so well. And like SEO 5 Team said, if you know your competition is violating the guidelines, report them. Beyond just the small business reporting, you can actually submit a spam report:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=en
Kurt Steinbrueck
OurChurch.Com -
Agree with EGOL in regards paying attention to your content first and foremost.
That being said, you might want to have a quick look at the 2013 ranking survey here: http://moz.com/blog/ranking-factors-2013. Still a lot of factors in play of which social is only one.
-
You may want to exercise the option of reporting your site to Google so they can take a closer look at the search results associated with your site.
-
I have seen proof that white hat SEO leads to rankings.
I have not seen proof that Social Signals alone will lead to rankings. I agree with EGOL - you should focus your attention on the quality of the content, and possibly more white-hat link building, rather than going ALL-IN on social.
-
So... are you working hard to improve and increase the content offerings of your website or are you spending all of your time trying to build a fire on social media?
If I want my website to take off I spend my time working on content to build a fire there... and if I am doing a great job of that the people who visit the website spread the word about my content on social media with zero work from me. If that isn't happening then maybe the content is less than inspiring or the topics are chest-thumping promos that nobody cares about.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Social Media: Industry with no apparent engagement?
Hey Mozzzzzzzzzzzzzzers! I work for a high end rehab. We have a Facebook page with 800 fans, twitter with 5,500 followers, and a linkedIn with around 1,000. I noticed that the previous CEO probably bought our twitter followers, so that explains our minimal engagement. The part I am having a hard time grasping is that all of our competitors, including the big guns in the industry are struggling as well. I see numbers like these all the time: 30,000 facebook fans with posts getting 5/6 likes and a comment here and there. 7,000 twitter followers with every 10th tweet getting 1 or 2 favorites, a RT is a blue moon Experts in the industry with high blog views, high credibility in their field, huge fan base, and engagement like the engagement above. If I look back since 2005, we have accrued 250,000 hits on our website... 236 are from facebook. Our best month was last year in December and I honestly can't figure out why, there was nothing done differently. I am a firm believer that if there is no audience then it's not worth the time. That being said, I can't help but think we are all missing something in the addiction field. I guess my questions are: What do I do in an industry where there appears to be minimal engagement across the board? (Dr. Drew doesn't count.) When do you/have you decided to cut your losses on social media and just use it as a place to have representation and not as a place to drive profit? Is there always a way to get engagement? Do you believe some industries are just doomed? (That's an unfair question isn't it?) Anyway, just food for thought. Would love to hear your opinions! I also would love to know about any marketing and or social media forums you all participate in that I can direct some of the more social media/marketing specific questions towards. I don't want to make things too convoluted. Thanks everybody!
Social Media | | HashtagHustler0 -
Social Media Sharebar for wordpress
I'm looking to get hold of a really good social media share bar for a Wordpress website so that blog posts can be easily liked and shared. Any plugins to achieve this would be appreciated. Ideally, something like the floating social share bar that Social Media Examiner has would be great: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-roi-tips/#more-56153
Social Media | | Gavo0 -
International Social Media Pages
If your going to target multiple countries but who have same language (such as US & UK) which of the main social media accounts should you set up a country specific version for ? I know some like Google+ allow for sub-pages/listings for different localities/outlets etc so I presume you only need the one G+ company page (but pls confirm if you agree or not ?). I keep hearing peeps say set up country specific Twitter and FaceBook pages, do you agree ? and what about other main social sites like Pinterest & LinkedIn etc ? Thanks Dan
Social Media | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Problems with Google Analytics social tracking
Hi folks, Any GA experts out there available to help with a social tracking problem we've got? In short a client is using a ShareThis plugin, but the data we're seeing in GA doesn't correlate at all with the share counts showing on the plugin. Huge discrepancies in fact. Could do with someone taking a look at the page and seeing what part of the tracking code we need to update/fix. We'll make it worth your while. Please PM me if you can help. Thanks! Matt.
Social Media | | MattBarker0 -
Social Noise - what counts?
Getting social signals is important it seems now. Is having a facebook comments box on your website where people can comment worth any social noise? if it posts to their facebook page its only seen by their friends, not google. So basically wondering do you get social signals of people commenting on your page in a facebook comments feature?
Social Media | | pauledwards0 -
Anyone tried out facebook like services from Fiverr?
Fiverr offers services like 1000 likes for $5!!! (and they seem to deliver) Sounds great but what is the catch? Has anyone tried out these type of services and more importantly what are the potential penalties?
Social Media | | Wallander0 -
What's a good social media content creation brief template?
I'm trying to put together a brief template for our copywriters to use when requesting the creation of a piece of content. These are the points I have thought of so far are: Subject / Topic Content Objective Desired User Outcome / Call to action Sources, References Tone of voice Related product information Target SEO keywords Can you think of anything else to add? Do you know good resources (articles, blog post) tackling the subject of a content creation brief? Thanks in advance.
Social Media | | Amiee0 -
Incentivisation Strategies for Social Sharing of Product Pages
Hey, What are some great tips for gaining social shares on ecommerce product or category pages? I understand great images and video will go along way, but it's difficult on a large scale ecommerce store. Receiving an offer for sharing something is great - I honestly cant think of a way to track this strategy in a large scale manner. I can send an email after a purchase making an offer to go back to the page to share, but how would I track this? Thanks.
Social Media | | LukeyJamo0