16 Sep Why Social Media Matters to Your SEO Strategy
Fellow marketers, are you guilty of thinking about social media and your SEO strategy as two different part of the marketing puzzle? It’s a huge mistake, but nothing that can’t be fixed.
In fact, social media and SEO are tightly intertwined and can feed off each other to boost results in both areas. Both are inbound strategies with the goal of building a strong brand identity that naturally attracts visitors.
It’s really a quid pro quo relationship. Successful social media campaigns rely on high-quality content and a highly visible brand presence, so the work you put into SEO can amplify your social media reach. And a quick Google search will show that your social media presence can increase your search rankings.
Here are three ways to get started with a win-win social media and SEO strategy:
1. Optimize Posts for Local Search
Social media is the perfect place to engage your local community, especially if you are a brick-and-mortar retailer. Any time your company attends a local festival, tradeshow, or other event, take lots of pictures and show your presence in the community. Encourage your local community to comment on these posts, too.
Another way to get involved with your community is to make a habit of interacting with other local brands and businesses on social media. Create the “neighborhood feel” of your local Main Street on Facebook, and invite your followers to join in the fun. These types of actions reinforce your participation in the community and make you more visible in local searches.
2. Influence Social Sharing
When it comes to strengthening brand authority, social sharing works a lot like external links. Google loves to see verifiable external sources validating your brand or content. These validations help to move you up in Google’s rank, inch by inch – if you can get 10 people to share your Facebook post, that’s great. But if you can get 1,000 people to share it, it’s much better for both your social media efforts and your SEO. In fact, likes, shares, favorites, replies and retweets all contribute to improved authority with Google and other search engines.
Encourage social sharing with rewards for sharing your post (like entry into a drawing), interactive surveys in which people vote by liking a post, etc. This sharing cycle will keep on giving – the more people share your content, the more followers you’ll get. The more followers you have, the more shares you’ll get.
3. Optimize Posts for Searches
As I mentioned above, social media content is showing up in Google SERPs – so optimizing your posts can help to move that content to the top of the pile. If you haven’t made a practice of incorporating SEO tactics into your social media content, now is the time to start.
The first step is to establish a strong foundation for your post, such as a link to a detailed article, an infographic or a video. This foundation will need a descriptive, accurate title. When you post that foundation, frame it with text that is optimized for a specific type of search.
For example, if you’ve created an infographic on best practices for hiring new employees, you could frame it with the question, “Have you ever wondered where the best potential employees are hiding? Use these tips to attract and hire top employees for your business.” Don’t forget to use seasonal keywords for timeliness and better chances of coming up on top of search results.
Want to work with copywriters who “bake” a smart SEO strategy into every piece of content they write (including social media posts)? Give us a shout, and let us make your social media strategy work harder to bring you new business.
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