Over the past year or so, social signals have gained an increased amount of attention in terms of how they relate to search engine optimization and therefore the performance of your website. While this was not a subject in years past, it has quickly exploded and has many schools of thought on the matter. Simply put, social signals are any form of social interaction (likes, tweets, shares, etc.). While most people will admit that social signals do help increase awareness about your brand and associate search engine details about your website with local results, fairly recent information tends to suggest that these signals do not influence your SERPs. Below, we will discuss five different aspects of SEO and marketing that can affect your site’s performance more profoundly than social signals – in both good and bad ways.

Domain Authority

The name of your website is important, but the domain name you select is much more valuable for long-term SEO success. While some domains are selected as blatant attempts to stuff keyword and relevance, an appropriate domain name will convey your brand’s name and incorporate some element of the service or product that you provide. When pinging networks with content, said content is more likely to be received well when the domain name in question conveys meaning and SERP relevance.

Link Quality

High quality backlinks can be a godsend for SEO and will do more than most other tactics when it comes to boosting search exposure. Inversely, low quality links can do substantial damage to your website’s potential. The best way to handle this is to avoid the proverbial low-hanging fruit; if a directory filled with ads, links and seemingly invaluable websites appears to be readily available for link building, then there is most likely a reason for this.

Content Creation

It does not matter how many backlinks you have nor how many social signals you send out if you do not have a consistent amount of quality content on your website or blog. The past, present and future of SEO is littered with failed attempts, many of which are caused by a lack of quality content. When you post updates and informative pieces on a regular basis, you can increase both your performance in SERPs and your social signals (through sharing and likes).

Keyword Selection

If you pick a niche that is too competitive, then you are bound to face stronger headwinds in your search rankings. Likewise, a niche that is virtually non-existent may or may not be profitable in the long-run. Your keyword selections should revolve around a few targeted search results (preferably those with 100,000 – 1,000,000 search results). If your keywords are too broad or too narrow, then you probably will not perform well when pinging networks, either – aim for three to five word phrases.

Website Speed

This last one is a bit more difficult to control, but illustrates why proper hosting services are so important. Google has already announced that mobile site search results are impacted based on your website’s overall speed. Since one-third of search volume now comes through mobile, you will definitely feel the effects of diminished traffic if your website and hosting is not optimized for speed.