You probably already implement an SEO strategy for your website, but have you ever thought about social media SEO? What exactly is social media SEO, to begin with?
Here you will find some answers to those questions and tips you can use to improve your social media SEO strategy.
In this post, we’ll cover:
- The link between your SEO and your social media strategy
- How Google handles social media
- Why you should make your social media profile as descriptive as possible.
- Tips for link-building with shareable content.
- Instagram: tips for marketing your products
- Twitter: tips for brand awareness and lead generation
SEO and Social Media
Today it’s incredibly common to turn to social networks to find recommendations, testimonials, and information about places and products. In fact, how many times have you searched on Instagram for information about a restaurant or a tourist destination? One thing is clear: Social media is emerging as a new arena for SEO.
As a result, social media becomes an essential component of your overall SEO strategy.
Social media SEO can help your business:
- Build deeper relationships with customers. Analyzing social media conversations and how consumers interact with your brand can provide helpful information for optimizing your website’s content.
- Optimize your content to appear higher on SERPs and social media. As you’ll see, social media interactions significantly impact your Google search engine rankings. As people engage with your content on social sites, you’ll increase your reach and move up on the search engines.
- Reach your audience in the platforms where they spend most of their time
Studies have shown, that people use social networks similarly to traditional search engines. For example, Youtube has 2 billion monthly users and 1 billion hours of playback per day. Meanwhile, Facebook gathers more than 2 billion searches per day. The popularity of these social search engines proves that SEO and social media go hand in hand.
Now, let’s take a look at how Google analyzes social media activity.
How Does Google Handle Social Media?
Let’s start by saying that Google has repeatedly declared that it does not directly set social signals as ranking factors in its search algorithms. Despite that, it’s well-known that it does.
But, what do we mean by social signals in SEO? Basically, social signals in SEO indicate how your content engages social media users. Some social ranking factors are:
- The number of times a URL is shared on social networks
- How social networks perceive the site’s presence
- The level of engagement a post containing a particular URL receives on social networks
Despite Google’s stated reluctance, the data tells a different story. A well-publicized 2018 study by Hootsuite showed that SEO results on articles with network promotion showed a 22% improvement in their SEO results.
So, while Google doesn’t directly acknowledge it, social engagement does have an undeniable impact on search.
Undoubtedly, a key factor for Google is content quality. Its search algorithm strongly favors content that displays expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
Social signals demonstrate that your content is valuable and relevant. Therefore, strong social signals are always an advantage. Plus, having a solid social media presence can also be a plus if you plan to expand your business overseas.
In our experience, a consistent social media presence is key for a website to rank high in search results.
Our Top 3 Social Media SEO Tips
Here are our three favorite social media SEO tips that you can start applying today:
- Make your social media profile as descriptive as possible
- Encourage social sharing and create content that sparks interesting conversations
- Don’t overlook Instagram and Twitter; they’re SEO powerhouses
Let’s take a closer look.
Make Your Social Media Profile as Descriptive as Possible
An SEO-friendly social media profile should be very descriptive.
Here’s how to make it happen:
- Make sure the Information/About/Bio sections of your social media profiles are complete and informative.
- Describe what you do (your business or venture) using terms and phrases that are so distinctive that people would use them to search for what you have to offer.
- What about Facebook? You should optimize your Facebook page to appear in local searches by including exact location information (zip code, address, city, country).
- You should link to your main website on your social profiles and the other way around. Also, ensure your business is adequately categorized on Facebook – yes, the “Category” field is often overlooked, but it plays a crucial role in mobile searches.
Build Links with Shareable Content
We all know that link-building is an essential part of any SEO strategy. That’s why having good relationships with other content creators in your industry is so important.
Google rates your website’s authority based on the quality and quantity of links you have coming in from other websites (inbound links) and the links you have to other quality websites (outbound links). And having a good backlink profile is one of the most critical factors for getting higher SERP positioning.
Likes, shares, repins, comments, and retweets all contribute to your URL’s backlink profile. The more shareable content you create on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, the more inbound links you will get. That’s simple SEO math. Thus, to be competitive, create content people would like to share.
Instagram: A Social Media SEO Powerhouses
Today, having an Instagram profile for your business is very popular. Almost 88% of respondents to a recent study said they have a business Instagram profile to promote products or services and raise brand awareness.
In fact, the same study shows Instagram is expected to generate about “$40 billion in annual advertising sales by 2023”.
When marketing your products, get the most out of Instagram with these simple tips:
- To increase engagement, share your expertise, personality, and knowledge with your followers. If you just list products, you won’t see results.
- Giveaways are a very effective way to boost your Instagram marketing. They can increase your following significantly. However, use them moderately, you don’t just want followers, you want followers who will stick around for your content.
- Since Instagram direct sales are rare (especially in B2B), your goal should be to get users into your sales funnel, not to convert them in one click.
- Engage users in the comments and share user generated content to show the human side of your brand.
Twitter: “Conversation is a Catalyst for Awareness”
Twitter is a fantastic place to acquire new leads and generate brand awareness. Yet, there’s one thing to note: Twitter ads are fairly limited; you’ll get poor reporting, attribution, and conversion tracking. It’s also very common for Twitter users to respond negatively to promoted tweets.
Still, Twitter’s virtues lie elsewhere. And here are two indispensable tips to make the most out of them:
- Respond to your followers. Engaging in conversations and responding to your followers on Twitter is the most effective marketing tactic. Twitter is where brands go to become approachable.
- Keep an eye on who’s following you and what’s the tone of their own tweets. Find out how they relate to your brand and the content you post to optimize your Twitter marketing efforts.
Clean Code Is the Cornerstone of a Successful SEO Strategy
Social networks offer us tremendous opportunities for ranking in the SERPs, if we follow the correct strategy. However, SEO is about more than content and content sharing.
Keeping your website’s code clean and identifying potentially harmful changes is essential for sustainable SEO. However, this can be a tedious and time-consuming process.
But with SEORadar, you can keep an eye on your website’s codebase in real time effortlessly. SEORadar will monitor your website’s code for changes that could affect your SERP positioning. These changes may be as small as a misplaced meta tag or keyword. Once SEORadar detects a change, it will notify you through your favorite communication channel.
Discover SEORadar. Book a demo, or start a free trial today (no credit card required).
