As millions upon millions of websites compete with one another in search results and for the top spots when it comes to viral sharing and marketing, more and more of them have moved toward social media as a way to gain added traction. Social media sites are a perfect place for users to share content with friends and family, engage with their favorite brands and learn more about the world around them. It is for this reason that many websites have implemented a variety of social media functions into their sites’ designs in order to encourage sharing and participation via social media. Below, we will outline a few simple tweaks that you can do in order to increase your social media clout and improve your website’s integrity within social media.

Publicize Your Social Media Portals

You may already be pinging to Google your latest content, but have you been doing the same for your social media outlets? These days, many people use multiple social media networks and it is because of this that you will want to have all of your social media portals clearly displayed on your website. Many content management systems such as WordPress allow users to quickly insert the URLs to each social media platform and have it displayed with an icon at the top or bottom of the website. This is a great idea, as many visitors will seek to interact with your brand, blog or business further if they like what they see.

Create Social Media Login Functions

Do you currently have a forum on your website or comments enabled for your blog posts? If so, then you can increase the likelihood that users will connect to you via social media while also boosting social signals through the use of social media login features. You may have already seen this in action – some blogs and forums offer the option for users to sign-in with their social media credentials instead of creating a new account. This does not give webmasters access to social media credentials and at the same time allows users to avoid the creation of accounts that may otherwise not be used frequently. Depending on the user’s privacy settings, their activity on your website will be visible to friends and family who may also find your site interesting and subsequently join.

Publish Your Social Media Ramblings

You may have noticed that recently, many websites have begun to include social media widgets that outline their latest posts and tweets. Not only is this a good idea if you want to be constantly pinging to Google fresh and updated content (which leads to search engine spiders returning on a regular basis), but you can keep your readers informed of any recent events, promotions or thoughts pertaining to your brand or business. Many of these widgets allow users to login via Facebook, Twitter or another social service and interact with your social media account directly from your website. With so much to gain from the implementation of this feature, it is a wonder that more blogs and websites have not already done so.