There is no doubt of the important relationship between social media and SEO, which is discussed in more detail in this article by Caseo LTD. As well as boosting search engine rankings, social media activity centered around your content also means it gets seen by more of the right sort of people – after all, a lot of the friends of your existing readers are likely to also fit your target demographic. People are also far more likely to give something their attention amid the constant deluge of information the web throws at them if the content has been endorsed by someone they know.
For these reasons and more, social media shares are one of the things you should want most from users on your website. Even more than leaving comments, which is also a very desirable behaviour, having users share your stuff throughout their networks gets you more interest, more traffic, and a stronger following – all of which can add up to more profit if yours is a business site or a site you’ve monetised in some way.
Sharing Should Be Easy
One of the first things you have to do when thinking about encouraging people to share your content, is make it easy for them. Facebook and Twitter buttons on each post or video that make it simple to instantly share or tweet your content are very easy to add to your site, but make people far more inclined to share them (if they love the content) than if they have to actually paste your link into a tweet or Facebook status themselves.
Of course, these two are not the only social networks, and while you probably don’t want to clutter every post with buttons for Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Tumblr and around 200 more, you can add an extended share button that’ll bring up buttons for all of these, so people who use other networks will be able to easily share your content on them if they wish.
Mixed Media
Some people prefer to share certain types of media over others, so having a good mix of images, video and text articles on your blog will encourage more shares. Some things designed to be viral like web comics, infographics or memes will really boost the likelihood of sharing (assuming they are original and actually entertaining or informative).
Ask People!
You probably have friends who visit your blog or existing connections who love your business. There is no harm in asking these people to take a look at your content and share it, in the hope that some of their followers will do the same. Organic shares will happen if content is good and traffic is coming in, but there is no harm in specifically asking relevant people you know to kickstart sharing of a piece from your blog. Obviously don’t do this constantly with every post, but choose the right people for the right content, and you won’t annoy anyone!
Shares are worth a lot to your site, so make sure you are always thinking of ways to encourage them.