How to Use Social Media to Improve SEO

 You probably know about the wide-ranging benefits of search engine optimization. Chances are you already manage an active social media presence for your business. But how are you using social media to improve SEO and move forward in the direction of overall digital success?

Even many experienced marketers don’t always see the connection between SEO and social media. One focuses on optimizing your website and increase relevant traffic, while the other builds a community through external networks like Facebook and Instagram. And yet, the two are best when put together. In fact, the right way to use social media can significantly boost your SEO.

The best part: it doesn’t even require a comprehensive change in your social media or SEO strategy and implementation. Instead, even incremental changes can make a major difference. These 5 tips can help you boost your organic search ranking and use a competitive social media strategy to improve SEO, all while occupying more spots on the top results pages for Google and its competitors.

1) Promote Your Web Content

Modern SEO depends heavily on effective content marketing. The right content, designed for your audience and optimized for long-tail keywords, can go a long way toward ranking your website on search results within your industry. And yet, if no one reads that content, you won’t be successful.

We know that traffic is one of the biggest factors Google and other search engines use to determine how credible and relevant specific web pages are. Through an effective social media strategy that regularly but subtly promotes traffic to your most relevant pages, you can enhance that metric.

Both paid and unpaid strategies can help you accomplish that goal. A targeted blog post, for instance, may benefit from shares beyond your current followers; instead, build a small digital campaign designed to drive that traffic. Other traffic, such as recent news analysis that is particularly relevant to your current audiences, can be more organic.

2) Build Credible External Links

Engaging content, paired with social promotion acts as a natural link builder and is an effective way for social media to improve SEO. By creating and promoting valuable content, you increase your chances of being referenced by other digital publishers and building backlinks. After years of back and forth, we know that not every social share counts as a new link to your content. Still, studies have found a strong correlation between these shares and the increase in rank your pages will experience.

Some of the reason for that is obvious. People tend to share popular content, making it more popular in return. More traffic, as mentioned above, leads to higher rankings. On top of this, with careful and consistent content creation you position yourself as an authority, which leads to more people trusting your experiences and linking to your web properties.

Social networks, like Facebook and Twitter, are among the most credible websites across industries according to search algorithms. They receive the types of high engagement and traffic numbers that push them toward the top of almost any search results page. A link from these networks, as a result, builds significant credibility for Google’s algorithm as it evaluates your page in relation to other results.

3) Optimize Social Copy For Search Rankings

Both of the above factors relate directly to your website. But ideally, your efforts should not stop there when looking at social media to improve SEO. In fact, your social media pages themselves can act as hubs to appear on relevant searches within your industry and target demographic.

You can optimize both your profile content and individual posts for specific keywords. Unlike web page keywords, they tend to be shorter and more niche-focused. And yet, they can be immensely effective. The sheer number of Facebook and Twitter URLs ranking in Google’s top 100 search results shows the possibility of that strategy.

That means optimizing your profile text, interests, and individual posts for the same types of keywords. If you post a new picture, be sure it relates to the industry and the popular search terms used within its context. Engage this step strategically, and your social media pages can become powerful SEO machines in their own right.

4) Leverage Local Search Optimization

Local SEO has exploded in recent years, as the volume of searches related to physical locations and specific geographic areas has continued to climb. Almost 90% of consumers use their smartphone for at least one search per day, which tends to be local. It’s one of the major SEO trend across industries over the past few years.

But even SEO experts often don’t know the potential power of social media when it comes to local search optimization. The goal, as it is with your website, is sending local signals to search engines that over time establish you as an authority in your geographic area. Doing so takes time, but is far from impossible.

Consider engaging with local events and brands, and posting location-specific updates across your pages. Frequently mention your location and tag your posts accordingly. Geofilters on Snapchat are another way to send that signal, and eventually grow your local rankings on relevant searches.

5) Own Your Branded Search Results Pages

Finally, you should be sure that anytime a potential or current customer searches for brand-related keywords, you appear in more than just one result. Owning your branded search results pages, in fact, is absolutely crucial in moving initial brand awareness to lead and customer conversions.

Social media can help you get there. Your website can only occupy a limited amount of space on search results. But Google tends to include both Twitter and YouTube results on searches. In addition, your Facebook page will likely rank prominently when optimized the right way.

Build the right content, and optimize your profile, and you can truly own that results page. As a result, your aware and potentially interested searchers have little choice but to move deeper into consuming your content and nudging ever closer to that elusive conversion.

A Comprehensive Strategy With Social Media to Improve SEO

Don’t make the mistake of considering SEO and social media as separate digital marketing strategies. Instead, combine concepts and tactics from both for a comprehensive, consistent effort that ultimately maximizes your success and ROI.

That might seem difficult at first. The above tips can help you get started, but you still need significant knowledge in keyword research and optimization. For help in that regard, and to get started with social media to improve SEO, contact us.