If you’ve ever been tasked with building a digital marketing strategy for your business, it’s fair to assume that your #1 goal (in shiny neon lights) was to improve your website’s SERP ranking and increase your social media following.
Although social media marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) may not seem closely connected initially, these approaches provide practical ways to help potential customers discover your business, improve brand awareness, drive engagement, and ultimately boost sales.
While there is no concrete correlation between SEO and social media marketing, they work collaboratively in various ways, and optimizing one would likely boost the results of the other. So, how can you make the most of the social media marketing/SEO relationship?
Ok, so before we get into the nitty-gritty of what you can actively do to leverage the SEO and social media symbiotic relationship, let’s describe each approach and check out how one impacts the other.
WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING?
If you don’t know what social media is, then welcome to 2022 from whatever rock you’ve been hiding under for the last 20 years or so. With over 3.96 billion users, social media is kinda big.
Numerous social media platforms offer marketing opportunities for virtually any business (regardless of size, industry, or target audience), ranging from well-established, widely used platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to those that appeal to more narrow demographic groups or niche interests, such as TikTok, Snapchat, and Pinterest.
So, what’s social media marketing?
According to marketing guru Neil Patel, social media marketing is “the process of creating content tailored to the context of each social media platform to drive user engagement and sharing.”
This may involve publishing videos, providing your latest blog or news about your business, advertising special deals, answering questions or replying to comments, offering compelling imagery, and engaging both present and future consumers.
Regardless of your company’s exact goals, one of the keys to a successful social media marketing plan is to post content suited to your target audience and the platforms you use.
WHAT IS SEO (SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION)?
Search engines, particularly Google, provide one of the most direct routes for customers to discover their business. As a result, getting websites to rank better in search engine results is a top priority (and an ongoing fight) for businesses and marketers.
The strategies employed to achieve this aim are referred to as search engine optimization (SEO), which Moz defines as the “practice of enhancing the amount and quality of visitors to your website through organic [rather than paid] search engine results.”
Google’s algorithm calculates over 200 factors when choosing the order in which to rank results for a user’s search query. While no one outside the Google company completely understands these criteria or how they function, SEO specialists have found some guidelines businesses may use to improve their search engine results. Google, for example, is known to place a high value on the following factors:
- The quantity and quality of content on a website
- The way people engage with a page, such as bounce rates, duration on a page, and other data
- The knowledge of the site’s content creators
- Whether the site’s credibility gives reliable, unbiased information on a subject.
- The site’s level of authority in addressing inquiries from visitors
As businesses try to enhance their search engine rankings, one significant area of focus should be developing high-quality, keyword-rich content that answers the demands and problems of their target audiences.
This is possible through both on-page and off-page SEO parameters. On-page criteria include mobile device responsiveness, page load speed, keywords used in blogs and other material, page titles and meta descriptions, and much more.
Backlinks from high-quality sites, current company listings on directory sites, complete profiles on social media platforms, and Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) are examples of off-page considerations.
HOW SOCIAL MEDIA CAN HAVE AN IMPACT ON SEO
Social media can have an influence on your SEO levels in a variety of ways, including:
ENHANCING BRAND PROMOTION
Users now have more alternatives on social media platforms than in the past. They’ve evolved into creative tools for creating content, videos, images, and so on, that can be shared everywhere.
There’s no doubt that the more content about a business that exists online—and the better the quality of that content—the greater the influence on SEO. YouTube is an excellent example of a social media channel that can be utilized to create educational or promotional videos with the potential to rank organically in the SERPs.
LINKING PROSPECTS
Shares on social media are a smart strategy for boosting your brand’s visibility, but their reach is generally confined to the social network itself. However, it has now been shown that, while the shares themselves may have little impact, the links that might result from those shares have a genuine potential to influence the levels of SEO that a business obtains.
Popular social media content interests’ viewers and can assist in establishing multiple links, which can later help to boost SEO performance. As a result, if you create or share high-quality information on social media that attracts the attention of other users, you are far more likely to garner links from several other websites.
REACHING AND ESTABLISHING AN AUDIENCE
Social media now offers a massive global audience for every enterprise imaginable. With over 500 new websites launched every minute, it’s getting increasingly difficult to be noticed online – but a solid social presence might help.
Social media also helps raise brand recognition, which may significantly influence click-through rates, affecting search engine results. The more established, acknowledged, and trusted your brand grows among customers, especially through social media, the more likely they are to click on your content and ads.
ENABLING BRANDED SEARCHES
A social presence can help generate searches that inform Google that a site should rank higher for particular popular keywords. For example, if a social media post prompts people to search for your brand name and the keyword phrase “yellow bikini” it can help you rank for similar terms.
THE SUPER-SMART SEO-BOOSTING SOCIAL MEDIA GAME PLAN YOU NEED
Marketing and social media specialists should capitalize on and maintain the symbiotic link between social media and SEO. Since both social postings and search engine results are accessible to a large number of people, your organization’s search rank can increase with the correct strategies and content strategy.
Applying the following social media strategies with SEO in mind will indirectly increase the visibility of your business and attract more prospects to your website.
STEP 1: OPTIMIZE SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES
Improve your social presence by using consistent branding across all of your social media profiles. Use social media’s educational power by effectively conveying your brand voice with clear descriptions, consistent logos, and similar design elements.
Doing this will take a significant step toward dominating social media. Remember, though; that the goal is to attract, educate, and convert followers, influencers, and like-minded business individuals, making them feel like they can relate to your business.
Whether your audience is B2B or B2C, offering the essential ingredients to develop this connection is critical to persuading them to interact with your business on social media.
Furthermore, consolidating your brand’s messaging demonstrates to social media users that your firm is authentic and reputable since it values its reputation across all social channels.
STEP 2: CREATE ATTENTION-GRABBING SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS
Once you’ve established your brand on social media, you’re ready to create content. When brainstorming content ideas, put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. Consider what kind of material they’d want to see and how your products or services may help them.
Creating social media videos is a top-notch approach to attracting viewers. Because of how our brains work, viewers will remember your posts and ads more easily if they incorporate aesthetically attractive videos or images. In fact, according to a Brain Rules study, visual information is 65% more likely to be recalled than text-only ads.
Creating connection possibilities and providing compelling images are also excellent strategies. Your company should create social media postings that include links to your website, blog, landing pages, and other resources.
Before scheduling posts, consider your target audience’s demographics and desired post length. This increases the chances of your viewers sharing your content and hitting your link.
STEP 3: ESTABLISH SOCIAL MEDIA RELATIONSHIPS
Now that your social sites are up and running and your social postings are suited to your target demographic, it’s time to start building connections on social media. Building relationships on social media might take time. To begin with, you may like, share, and comment on related content.
Examine the social media strategies of the people with whom you want to share your material. Then, examine what information they often interact with and share. Once you’ve established a professional connection, ask this social partner to share your stuff.
For example, if you see that they tweet other companies’ shoutouts every Friday, write them a message on Tuesday asking if they wouldn’t mind giving a shout-out to your organization and providing a link relevant to their audience.
USE SEO AND SOCIAL MEDIA TO YOUR ADVANTAGE
Optimizing your social media pages, crafting compelling social posts, and forming social media partnerships are just a few simple things you can do to facilitate social media users spreading your links across their social sites. The more content others share that connects back to your site; the more link clicks your business will obtain.
While mentions don’t help SEO in and of themselves, link clicks from your social network interactions will. As a result, it is important to concentrate on providing attention-grabbing content that is relevant to readers.
When search engine sites like Google and Bing notice that your site continues to receive a high volume of sessions and views, your organization’s search rank is more likely to climb that seemingly insurmountable SERPS mountain.
The interplay between social media and SEO has the potential to be exceptionally useful to any business wanting to expand its reach. If you’d like to learn more about how you can boost your business’s marketing efforts with these and other effective strategies, contact us today!