SEO + SOCIAL MEDIA: What Is It, Why You Need It, How To Use It!
Let’s start with a basic ground rule - Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is essential in any digital marketing plan since it allows consumers to find your content. The higher your content ranks on a search engine results page (SERP), the more visits it will receive.
Now, let’s layer that with another basic ground rule to lay the foundation - Social media marketing has evolved into yet another incredibly successful method of driving traffic to your website. All of this is contingent on having a strong social media strategy that increases brand awareness and ROI. The sweet spot of a digital marketing plan is making sure that your social media, content marketing, and SEO techniques all work together.
However, in today’s article, we have to ask ourselves - Do social media signals affect search engine rankings?
The truth is that it truly doesn't matter. Marketers have long argued about whether social media has a direct impact on SEO. Matt Cutts responded to the topic in a YouTube video in 2014. He claims that social signals like liking, retweeting, or accumulating followers do not affect your SEO rankings.
Yet, we can’t deny the reality that social media plays a significant part in assisting businesses in getting their content in front of a broader audience. This results in a variety of SEO benefits, including increased backlinks, higher engagement signals, and more owned SERP real estate for branded queries.
Furthermore, understanding SEO and social media marketing help businesses perform better on both platforms. Social media audience analysis allows you to generate more focused content. SEO research can assist you in determining what your social audience wants to read.
So, what's the connection between social media and SEO?
SEO in Social Media
SEO — search engine optimization — is one of the most crucial acronyms to comprehend when it comes to social media search and marketing in general. As internet marketing becomes more prevalent in everyday life, SEO on social media is critical to expanding your brand.
It might be daunting and perplexing to remember and apply so many new web algorithms and best-use marketing techniques. Creating effective content takes time and effort if you do not know how to use the proper technologies, and there are numerous areas where you may begin to improve.
Social media is much more than merely posting photographs, videos, and articles about your company. It is all about increasing brand recognition, knowing your target audience, delivering valuable material while demonstrating your expertise, and eventually generating traffic to your website.
That is why SEO in social media is so important: it is how the use of social media activities and links can increase organic traffic to your website via search engines. In this article, we will define social media SEO, explain how to optimise it for your business, and explain how it works in detail.
Don't be one of the businesses that continue to overlook SEO's enormous potential. By failing to participate, your firm will miss out on the incredible benefits of SEO, which will help your efforts in social media search and business expansion.
While social media cannot directly influence SEO results, it can have an impact on elements that influence your rankings. Social networking can drive traffic to your website. You can increase traffic to your page by sharing links to it on your social media networks.
Content is also aided by social media. One of the most effective strategies to boost your SEO rankings is through content production.
When you generate content, you are providing useful information to your audience. It manifests itself in blogs, ebooks, movies, and infographics. Content marketing entails sharing relevant knowledge with your target audience.
Leads will read your content after discovering it. More time spent on your page indicates to Google that it is valuable. It will raise the ranking of your page, allowing more leads to find your essential material.
Many people will find your information organically, but you can assist more people to discover it by using social media. You can share excellent stuff with your audience via social media. You know your followers are interested in your company, therefore relevant information will help them engage with it.
It also gives you the option to spread stuff further. Your fans can share your material with others, allowing fresh leads to see it. This increases brand awareness and generates more traffic to your page.
An increase in site traffic indicates that more people are reading your material, which will boost your SEO results. Social media is essential for increasing both.
To summarise, social media has no direct impact on SEO. Social media signals have no direct impact on your search engine rankings.
The links you share on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest may help your company get visibility, but they are not viewed as a ranking indication by Google or Bing's algorithms.
Although social media is not a ranking criterion on the surface, it is significant if you dig deeper.
It has an indirect favourable effect on a page's search ranking.
So, certainly, there is a link between a site's ranking in the SERPs and the number of social signals it has.
If you look at the websites that rank high in Google searches, you will see that many of them have strong social signals.
So, if you invest in a social media marketing strategy as a marketer, you are essentially enhancing your chances of ranking well in search engines.
Why Don’t Social Signals Affect Google?
Do Google crawl and index Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn profiles/pages? Naturally, it does.
Is there a distinction between a piece of content and the links published on it? No, it treats them the same as any other HTML page on a website.
When it comes to social signals, Google does not evaluate the number of social media shares or followers when ranking a web domain.
Because it would be far too simple for anyone to game the system and rank an undeserving site higher than a deserving one.
It's also worth noting that social media shares happen all the time.
And they happen faster than Google can catch up, making it tough for the search engine behemoth to crawl and keep track of them.
We don't know how much data Google has access to from the major "must-login" social media sites, nor do we know if it's used for ranking purposes.
What we do know is that social media helps people locate your brand in search engine results in an indirect way.
And for the time being, that's all that matters.
Reasons To Seriously Consider Socials
One of the most significant advantages of SEO is increased visibility and increased organic traffic to your website.
Social media marketing, on the other hand, is all about making the most of social media and getting noticed by the right people on them.
They may appear distinct, yet their intentions are the same. In essence, they collaborate.
As a result, search engines are becoming more social, and social networks are transforming into useful search engines.
A strong social media strategy must include a sound SEO approach, as the two go hand in hand.
Let's take a look at three compelling reasons why you should concentrate your efforts on social media if you want to improve your SEO results.
1. Social Media Content Is Indexed
Regularly publishing the appropriate type of social media material can make or break your whole content marketing plan.
Things improve when you discover that your social media posts may be scanned and indexed by search engine spiders.
This isn't to say that every tweet or post you create will end up in Google's massive index.
It must be relevant enough so that individuals looking for comparable material can find it.
For example, if you search for Oprah Winfrey, you will find that her social media profiles/pages dominate the top results.
It is relevant to the search query.
What's more, because of how search engines evaluate social media content, social media can help you get your website's content indexed faster.
If your blog post receives a lot of attention on Facebook or Twitter, it will appear in the index more quickly.
Because of the social component, search engine spiders may readily find such content.
If your content goes popular on social media, the repercussions will be seen in search engine result pages.
2. Social Media Aids in the Development of Authority
Search engines place a high value on a website's authority, making it an important SEO aspect to consider.
If your page or site has a high value in the eyes of search engines, it also has a high authority.
And a better probability of ranking above sites with less authority.
A web page's or site's authority rises with time.
Your authority grows as you continue to generate high-quality content and get more relevant backlinks.
If your material is valuable, it will provide your readers with what they are seeking.
This results in backlinks and a large number of positive votes.
The world of link-building was different before social media.
When it comes to effective link-building strategies nowadays, you can't neglect social media.
Why? Because social media accounts for a significant portion of digital content distribution.
Because it is the most powerful content distribution engine, your influence or authority on social media networking sites has a direct impact on the amount of authority.
That is why it is essential in your content marketing approach.
Your content will have more relevant locations to dwell in if you focus on developing an engaged network of social media followers, and the more relevant the locations, the more power you earn.
For example, if you generate material about Yoga and acquire backlinks from blogs that particularly talk about Yoga, Google and other search engines will give you extra points.
They'll see that you're distributing material to a targeted audience.
3. Real People
While SEO includes a technological component, it is not the only thing you should be concerned about.
The majority of black hat or unethical SEO tactics are technical, yet they fail to produce long-term results because they remove the "user" from the equation.
When search engines are looking for a human touch, these tactics are not about humans.
Search engines have long attempted to improve their user experience by going beyond the technological aspects.
If you want a web domain to rank in 2019, you can't rely just on technical considerations like keyword research for SEO and optimization.
To achieve real-world results, your SEO must have a human element.
Otherwise, someone who takes the time to generate good content will beat it.
With social media increasing at breakneck speed, it is quickly becoming an inevitable component of SEO, particularly because it is made up of actual people.
After content, social media might be considered an important influence in search. It allows you to segment your audience and target only the people you want.
Indeed, social media is one of the quickest ways to learn about your target audience.
It will be simple to collect feedback from a group, customer service channel, or promotion page, whichever purpose it serves for your business. It provides a bird's-eye view of everything. You know where your material is, who is consuming and sharing it, and what sort of impact it is having, which is crucial in terms of SEO in our opinion.
Best Social Sites?
There are numerous social media platforms to pick from, but which ones will assist you with SEO? Here are the top three most effective social media networks.
Facebook is one of the greatest sites for content sharing. This social media platform makes it simple to post and share material with your followers. You can share links to blogs, videos, and infographics on Facebook.
Best of all, Google can crawl Facebook links. This means that if you link to Facebook content, Google will look into it and index it. It's especially useful when the link appears on numerous pages.
This social network allows you to share stuff with your followers directly. Every day, you can publish new content. It's an excellent method for driving social media traffic to your website.
✧ TIKTOK
TikTok, the fastest-growing social platform by far, has quickly transitioned from a viral craze to a must-have social network for marketers.
To put this in context, TikTok is currently growing five times faster than Instagram. But why are brands attracted to the platform?
39% of Generation Z say TikTok has a direct influence on their purchase decisions. They are also the platform's largest demographic with the highest purchasing power.
Marketing to Generation Z entails meeting them in their field. TikTok comes in very handy here. TikTok's humorous how-tos, skits, and challenges enable marketers to both delight and sell to younger audiences.
✧ YOUTUBE
YouTube's popularity has skyrocketed in recent years. Video content is becoming increasingly valuable to your viewers. Your target audience wants to watch videos to gain useful knowledge.
Videos are an excellent way to increase organic traffic. By including videos on your website, you may keep leads interested for longer. Longer involvement delivers a positive signal to Google, which raises your site's ranking to reach more valuable leads.
Advantages Of Good Socials
Now that we've proved that social networking isn't a direct Google ranking component, here are some ways it can aid your business.
• Quality Links
Backlinks have long been a significant Google ranking element.
The quantity and quality of backlinks have a significant impact on how well your site ranks.
You are more likely to attract the proper type of backlink chances if you concentrate your efforts on improved social media marketing.
When your content receives a large number of social media shares, it is more likely to be recognised.
Not only by influencers and power users but also by a large number of relevant webmasters and bloggers who may want to link to you.
According to a HubSpot study, there is a clear, positive relationship between the number of social media shares your content receives and the number of backlinks.
Social media is no longer solely about sharing. Today, it is all about gaining leverage.
It is about making your material entertaining enough so that it is shared and noticed by the proper individuals rather than just anyone.
Because you are generating and sharing high-quality material on social media, your content should create more engagement and backlinks.
• Stronger Follower Base
Developing a fantastic product is the first step in achieving great marketing objectives.
To truly call your product or service a success, though, you must spread the word about it among your target demographic, particularly early adopters.
Remember that if your target audience is unaware of your service, it is the same as if it did not exist.
Today's marketplace is very competitive, and corporations are willing to make significant investments to secure a piece of the pie.
This is why you must go above and above to actively reach out to your target demographic.
The more proactive you are in your approach, the better the results.
Social media makes it simple to establish a web presence.
It enables you to communicate with an audience that is not only eager to hear from you but also eager to do business with you.
Nowadays, most online users have some sort of social media presence; it's just a matter of determining which social media networks your target demographic spends the most time on.
Then work on creating social material that allows you to connect with them on an emotional level.
• Increased Brand Searches
Growing your audience and developing a strong brand are critical components of any online marketing effort, including social media marketing.
Your social media profiles and pages assist you in developing a relationship with your target audience.
They identify your brand because of your continual social media updates and by providing them with quality information regularly.
They are aware of who you are and the type of stuff you produce. And they will begin to regard you as a reliable source.
When done correctly, social media marketing can help you increase brand exposure.
More people will click on your material in search engine result pages as more people become aware of your product or service.
Because Google and other search engines place a high value on click-through rates, this can have a major impact on your ranks and enhance your visibility.
Remember that these clicks are considerably more important in the eyes of Google because they have a lower bounce rate.
Why? Because these consumers are already familiar with your brand, fewer of them will click the "back" button when they reach your page.
Because bounce rate is related to a website's rating, lowering it provides you with an advantage over competitors.
By increasing brand recognition on social media, you will attract more consumers who are specifically looking for your brand.
This increases organic search traffic to your website as well as to your social media pages/profiles.
• Know Your Audience Better
While the value of a keyword strategy in SEO remains constant, how they are studied has changed over time.
Finding and picking the proper keywords nowadays necessitates a thorough grasp of "user intent."
Without knowing the searcher's intent, the keywords picked may not yield the desired results.
Google wants to know why you searched for "landscape photography" so that it can deliver the most relevant results.
Do you want to learn how to photograph various landscapes? Or are you simply interested in learning more about it?
There are various ways to learn about what your audience wants, such as email surveys, but social listening can also help.
You can obtain insights into your audience's needs and desires by tracking and investigating the many types of conversations they are having on social media.
This can assist you in creating material that meets their demands, giving Google and other search engines what they're looking for.
• Search Tapping
You cannot and should not overlook the importance of local SEO if you own a small or medium-sized business with a physical presence.
Google understands the significance of geography in providing a better user experience.
Local searches are expected to increase as the majority of Internet users seek local companies on their mobile devices.
So, make sure to keep all of your profiles up to date with your current address, phone number, firm name, and so on.
Have the same information on all profiles, which should correspond to the information on your website.
Otherwise, you risk losing potential consumers due to poor rankings.
Social Media Tips
Social networking can assist you in increasing visitors to your website. You can increase the number of leads who interact with your content, which will enhance your SEO rankings. Here are some suggestions for combining social media and SEO.
✣ Content Sharing
You must share material on your social channels if you want to leverage social media to increase your SEO. Content is the most effective technique to increase traffic to your website.
When creating content, prioritise quality over quantity. Your material must be valuable to your readers or it will be ignored. Posting a lot of low-quality content will not engage your viewers on your page.
Your content should be unique and new. It will assist you in keeping your audience returning to your social media profile. Your audience will become bored if you consistently post the same type of information.
One of the best locations to share content is on social media. When you share your content with others, you increase your chances of getting backlinks for your website. Backlinks are links to your page from authoritative websites.
You want backlinks for your page because they improve your SEO. It boosts your authority and credibility. Credible backlinks will help you rank higher in search results and reach more leads.
Sharing your material on social media allows you to gain crucial backlinks. Other industry experts may follow your social accounts and read your content if you post stuff about your sector. If they like what they see, they may incorporate it into their work.
Social networking is an excellent way to encourage additional external sites to connect to your content. Share information on your social networking platforms to boost your SEO rankings.
✣ Growing Followers
Start by enhancing your social media presence if you want to enhance your SEO effort. Increasing your social media followers is a terrific method to boost your profiles. More people will be able to read your content if you have more followers on your social accounts.
You must gain new followers organically. You can buy followers, but Google will see that they aren't high-quality leads. If those "leads" visit your page, it will not affect your SEO rankings.
Take the effort to regularly promote your brand to your audience to assist you to obtain more valuable followers. You'll want to engage your followers by posting interesting material. When your audience finds your content fascinating, they are more inclined to share it on their profile, allowing more people to find it.
✣ Engagement
Social media is one of the few locations where you may communicate directly with your target audience. To develop a positive reputation for your company, you must engage with your target audience.
While social media activities are not taken into account by Google for SEO, you can promote engagement on your sites to attract more people to interact with your content. Focus on engaging your audience while posting material to social networking networks.
When you interact with your audience, you establish a personal connection with them. They will feel more linked to your company.
Shares, likes, favourites, retweets, and replies are all examples of engagement. All of these behaviours indicate that your audience is seeing and interacting with your material. So, how can you develop content that boosts engagement?
Incentives are frequently used by businesses to encourage customers to connect with their content. They will give their followers a prize for sharing a post or tagging a buddy in the post. It's an excellent technique to increase the number of people that follow your social media page.
You may also use interactive postings to increase engagement. Create a poll, ask questions, or ask your audience to tag a friend. It's an excellent strategy to boost engagement on your content.
Remember, when you establish a positive reputation with your audience, you increase the likelihood of your followers disseminating favourable information about your company to others. They will be more inclined to spread your stuff as well!
✣ Audience Focus
Keep your audience in mind while you share information on social media. Examine how they react to your content. Is your material being consumed or ignored?
The behaviour of your audience indicates the type of material you should create. Some content may not be engaging for your readers, while others receive a lot of attention. It is critical to track your audience's behaviour to determine which content piques their interest.
When you understand what form of content increases engagement, you can generate more of it. This allows you to concentrate on content that will enhance engagement and social shares.
✣ Brand Awareness
Brand recognition is critical for gaining conversions later on. When leads recognise your brand, they are more likely to choose your company over the competitors. Social media marketing is an excellent way to increase brand awareness.
When you share something on social media, you are putting your brand in front of your target audience. It is better for your business if you update regularly so that your audience is constantly exposed to your brand. Maintain consistency in your postings by using your company's distinct design.
Your audience is more inclined to conduct branded searches if you expose them to your brand. For example, someone may search "Glade air fresheners" instead of "air fresheners" since they were exposed to posts from the brand on social media.
So, what effect does this have on SEO?
When people conduct branded searches, your site ranks higher for non-brand keywords. Glade would rank higher for the keyword "air fresheners" in this scenario since people search for their brand name with that keyword.
Building your brand on social media platforms will improve your company's visibility on search engines.
✣ Hashtag!
Hashtags are important components of social media. They assist in driving interested visitors to your social media pages. Use hashtags in your social media postings to attract leads who are interested in your content.
The quantity of hashtags you can use is determined on the social media platform. Due to the 280-character constraint, you may only be able to submit a few hashtags if you utilise Twitter to share your content.
Hashtags are similar to keywords in social media. When consumers look for information on a specific topic, they will look for hashtags to find posts about that topic. By using hashtags in your postings, you can attract more qualified leads who will read your content and visit your website.
Keywords are used in SEO to help your pages rank higher. It's the same idea with hashtags. You employ relevant hashtags to ensure that your website appears in relevant search results.
Hashtags assist in indexing your material and making it appear in relevant search results. If someone searches for a specific topic, your hashtag usage may cause your material to appear in the search results.
Best Practices
As previously stated, social media sharing has little to no direct impact on SEO. However, sharing your material on social media can have the following effects on SEO:
- Increase organic traffic
- Boost visibility
- Improve your local SEO
- Increase the reach of content
- Increase brand recognition
- Boost backlinks
So, how can you boost your social media SEO?
Profiles
Remember that your social media profile is one of the first things a prospect or customer will see, so make it engaging and representative of your company.
Include as many details as possible to provide a complete picture of what your company performs.
Use keywords that are relevant to your brand as well as commonly searched words or topics.
Backlinks to your site's content can help boost traffic.
LinkedIn is an extremely effective social media network for B2B, so learn how to use it.
Shareability
Customers have various platforms and account to select from, so you must make the most of your content to attract and engage them. To learn what works best for your audience, experiment with several sorts of content such as videos, blogs, testimonials, and so on.
Also, utilize good imagery that is associated with your brand so that people can identify it as yours when they see it. This will boost brand identification and awareness.
Backlink Via Good Content
People will only share content that they believe is valuable or relevant to their target audience. If resources or time are limited, it is worthwhile to prioritise quality over quantity.
To demonstrate authority, spend time researching issues and including high authority research and third-party links alongside internal links. Quotes from industry experts or statistics that support your point of view are also appropriate.
Above all, adopt a tone and point of view on your industry to give the voice and opinion that you are an industry leader.
Use Social Listening
Social listening is an effective SEO strategy, and there are several free solutions available. These will assist you in monitoring conversations to understand what your target audience is saying about you, as well as keeping track of your rivals.
People are increasingly turning to social media to ask questions, and read reviews (and complain), so keeping an eye on your platforms is a good idea for managing online reviews and general customer service.
Influencers!
Influencers have power on social media, as you are surely aware. To find out how much, simply glance at the influencer statistics.
You don't have to set such lofty goals for your influencer marketing approach, but if you know of influencers in your industry or location who your target audience listens to, it can be worth considering employing them on social media.
Closing Words
Things can change quickly in the realm of SEO, so you must stay current on trends and advances.
Great unique content equals great SEO and social media performance.
Social media is all about interacting with others. The more you do this, the more probable it is that you will be rated higher because both people and search engines will like you.
You can engage your audience by generating and sharing valuable content, and then use that interaction to increase your follower count and search rankings.
