If you haven’t seen #Twitter7, you may not know that Twitter celebrated its 7th birthday yesterday. Since the first tweet back in 2006, Twitter has now grown to be known as the true global social platform with 200 million active users. Not only is this a milestone for Twitter, but this is also a reminder of how the world of social media is ever growing and transforming our daily lives.
Social media has transcended statuses, likes, and re-tweets and is now becoming a factor in the way that consumers search online. For the world of SEO this means that the days are now gone where you could rely solely on links, code, and content to raise a site to the first page of Google. Matt Cutts of Google recently commented on the topic of the integration of social media into the search results page by saying that the page position of a site will depend more on human engagement and how much the content is being shared on social media platforms more so now than ever before.
To get a jump on the new emphasis placed on social shares of your site, you should be sure to have Twitter, Facebook, and other social icons on your page. It is best if these icons can show how many likes or shares as well. Overall this is only the beginning of the integration of social and search and it is important for SEO programs to be able to easily adapt.