Social Network Links Rely on SEO Fundamentals

If you took a snapshot of your social networks a year ago, and compared them to today, you’d probably notice a key difference: We’re all sharing more news stories and website links than ever before.

A recent ReadWriteWeb post noted that the three big social networks – Facebook, Twitter and Google+—have become indispensible for discovery and sharing. Every day, whether we realize it or not, we rely on our networks to curate content and tell us what’s newsworthy, informational, thought-provoking or amusing.

When those links appear in our Facebook feed, for example, some look neat and tidy with a headline, summary and image thumbnail. Others look a bit questionable: maybe the headline is weak or the description doesn’t quite make sense. Those details greatly influence the link’s credibility and, ultimately, whether we follow the link.

What makes those links display so differently? As it turns out, social networks often rely on search engine fundamentals – especially meta descriptions.

If you’re familiar with search engine optimization, or SEO, you’ve probably heard of meta descriptions. This summary text resides behind the scenes, embedded in your site’s code. Although meta descriptions don’t influence site rankings, they sometimes appear as the descriptive text below search engine results.

Meta descriptions have another benefit: As SEO expert Jill Whalen points out, Facebook and Google+ rely on them when links are added within their networks. If a link summary doesn’t make sense, it’s likely because the meta description was overlooked.

It’s a reminder that your SEO efforts need to consider social media – and vice versa. For content creators, those small SEO details can have a major impact on sharing, discovering and growing your audience.