Social media and SEO are intricately intertwined. They can work together, if done right, to help your audience find the products and services they’re searching for online. If you’re doing one but not the other, you’re missing out on countless opportunities to connect with your customers and boost sales.
If you’re interested in effectively using social media and SEO, understand that it takes strategic thinking, creativity, and a keen understanding of your brand. But once you’ve got the hang of it, the opportunities of increasing your website traffic, raising your ranks, and growing your business are limitless.
Here’s how to start:
How to Use SEO and Social Media to Grow Your Business
Develop Your Number of Followers Organically
Google’s algorithms are constantly changing and learning. The number of followers you have across your platforms does not necessarily have a huge impact on your rankings, but their quality is definitely recognized. Going out and buying proxy followers will not “speak kindly” to Google. But if you develop your number of followers and connections organically with relevant, helpful, and entertaining content day after day, the legitimacy and authority of your social platforms (and your brand) will rise, along with your rankings.
Links! Links! Links!
One of the most significant ways social media and SEO converge is with links. When you share popular content on social media, you’re creating links back to your website. When those links are clicked, you’re increasing your website visibility – and raising awareness of your brand. These links also assist the rankings of the keywords and keyword phrases contained in your posts.
Using social media for SEO is the most effective when those posts include relevant keywords and phrases. But don’t overwhelm your social media posts with too much keyword-stuffed language. Your audience is perceptive and will be turned off if they are not getting enough value for their time. Moderation is key.
Motivate Your Audience to Share
Authoritative, quality posts on social media are a necessary component of your comprehensive digital marketing program. But you have the power to affect SEO with other techniques outside of creating great posts. Challenge your audience with fun contests like themed Twitter hashtags or Instagram photo contests. Offer a prize such as the latest, hottest, merchandise. Utilize critical keywords in these campaigns and be active in corresponding with and supporting your best promoters across social media platforms.
Motivating your audience to share and engage with your content increases your authority in the eyes of Google and other search engines. Get those replies, likes, shares, retweets, and favorites!
Create Posts Optimized for Local Audiences
Using social media for SEO can also have a substantial impact on your local audiences and can reach untapped customers. Take advantage of every opportunity where you attend a local festival, trade show, or put on your own fun event. Broadcast widely on social media ahead of time using posts not only with important keywords but with location information too.
It will take some research online, but if you can also find your most vocal local supporters — and engage with them and share their social media posts —your visibility in local searches will increase too.
Grow Your Brand Awareness
Brand awareness on social media is necessary for business development, but not everyone realizes the correlation to SEO. It’s this vast chain of cause and effect that brings it all together.
More visibility = more sharing.
More sharing = more clicks.
More clicks = better rankings.
Get the picture?
As emphasized several times already, quality matters. Posting anything just to get the volume out there doesn’t help your authority in Google’s eyes. Be smart. Be consistent. And always stay true to your brand.
Remember That Social Media Platforms Are Search Engines Too
Since most people are on social media for entertainment and connecting with friends, family, and like minds, you can’t treat it like you would Google. Content always composed to sell, sell, sell, won’t work. But, you can still keep social media and SEO connected with fantastic imagery, language, humor, and emotion.
Did you know that YouTube is the second most-searched search engine? According to Businessinsider.com,
YouTube is now pulling in over 1.8 billion users every month.
If you don’t currently have a YouTube channel, seriously consider it. Being creative here, as well as with other social media platforms, can help to advance your SEO game, broaden your audience, and stimulate sales.
Search for Trends Across Platforms
Viral content can be a banner team player for visibility and business growth. Not everyone can hit that perfect pitch out of the ballpark though, and keeping track of trends can be the next best thing. Use Google Trends, watch out for what’s hot in conversations on Twitter, or use the filters on YouTube to see what is being uploaded in relation to your industry.
If you can be consistently responsive in reacting to trends and posting relevant content in a timely manner, your social media can be a substantive force in your digital marketing arsenal. Digging deeper into how your audience thinks and communicates about your products and services can help to break you out of the box of the same keywords. Think long tail. Think phrases and similar language. With this data, businesses can truly cover a lot of ground when it comes to social media and SEO.
Time to Level UP!
The conversations around social media and SEO have been swirling for years. Sometimes bringing frustration and other times providing hope. But as the global marketplace continues to go more mobile and the cultural currency of social media sustains its trajectory, the intertwining of the two escalates.
All good digital marketers know that visibility is central to finding new customers and propelling business growth. With the recognition of the different areas in which social media helps SEO, companies across industries from home improvement to hospitality and fashion to finance can have a real hand in leveling up their rankings.
Develop a diverse plan that incorporates the above techniques including smart branding, creative keyword use, and targeted quality content catered to your customer’s needs. Watch your analytics closely and be responsive and willing to evolve when needed. Are you ready player one? The power of social media and SEO is waiting. Time to level UP!
