Many seem to think of social media as a direct search ranking factor. But in reality, that isn’t the case. Studies and examples have shown that social media plays a supporting role in SEO. It cannot get you better rankings by itself and always relies on SEO to deliver the goods.
But that is not to say it isn’t powerful. Being a platform with billions of people, it significantly impacts SEO efforts. There are several aspects of SEO that social media can improve and help perform better. This includes content distribution and improved local ranking signals.
Does Social Media Support SEO?
Yes, it does. Social media is a huge repository of people and engagement, which is what SEO exactly needs.
Social media can generate a lot of momentum for the SEO process. Any brand today has its own optimized social media profile. The power of social media is that it is one of the most engaging platforms.
The ideal SEO methodology always includes social media as part of the process. The general mechanics of social media, including mentions, comments, and content, align with the SEO goals of a company. It can support the SEO framework and bring it closer to goals faster than other strategies.
Another advantage is that content is easier to market on social media. Sharing is simple on social media and generates much interest, enabling viral marketing.
Here Are Some Tips To Enhance Your SEO Through Social Media
Now that we’ve established that social media can help with your SEO efforts, let’s look at a few benefits in detail.
Integrates Well With SEO
Social media is a platform that pushes the effectiveness of the SEO process. The reason is that it has several things to offer regarding rankings. The basic premise of any SEO campaign is to get as much exposure as possible.
When a brand opts for social media, getting more reach is a given. Social media is built on getting content to as many people as possible.
Social media content is not tracked on searches, which is true. But what you need to remember is that specific queries are indexed. This makes creating relevant content a rewarding experience on social media.
As a platform, social media has several aspects that help with SEO. This includes targeted demographics, keyword-based categorization, and reach. All these are important parts of the SEO process as well.
Building Website Authority
Any brand needs to build high website authority to be successful in searches. An authority website is what people click on when searching for a particular keyword.
There is also the metric for website value when talking about authority. Website values build over time with relevant traffic and queries. All this is possible when you use social media to drive traffic to your website.
The advantage of social media is that it is a highly targeted platform. This means it can significantly improve your website metrics without much effort. Social media has built-in systems that can highlight specific demographics in your marketing campaign.
All these can help build significant authority for your website regardless of your niche. It can deliver brand visibility and important backlinks for your website. It helps build credibility, an important mechanic in a competitive market.
Bringing In Engagement
A metric that has always been important in SEO is engagement. The more engagement a particular brand has, the better the chances of conversions. With this in mind, businesses need to engage their users.
And fortunately for SEO, social media has a powerful engagement property. It boasts of the highest engagement of any platform to date and can sometimes beat paid ads. When the content is good, it goes viral, which is better than ads.
The reason why social media is so powerful is that it brings human elements to SEO. Markets today are all about the “human experience,” and just being a number won’t help brands.
It helps to approach marketing from a people perspective rather than be all about the numbers. Social media brings much-needed emotive marketing to the fore. This can help attract a lot of people to your website.
Searches Index Social Media
A huge part of SEO is indexing your content on searches. Creating content is a good first step to get your website indexed. But you need to consider the millions of websites coming up every day.
Social media can offer a great alternative if you want to get indexed on searches. While it might not promise you indexing on all possible scenarios, it can help for specific searches. These types of keywords also have a better chance of conversions.
Keywords that are long-tail or specific queries can be indexed through social media content. And this is mighty helpful as well because not many other platforms can do the same.
To sum up, you can’t use social media to index all your web pages, which you can only solve with SEO. However, for specific keywords that can help conversions, social media is the way to go.
Empowers Local SEO
Local searches have a reputation for delivering a lot of positives for businesses. Almost half the searches on Google, 46%, have local intent. If a business has a local presence, you can bet it will target local searches to rank on. It is the shortest distance to success.
Search engines like Google have the benefits that they offer to help with local searches. This includes the local 3-pack links, which appear ahead of the #1 ranking result. The goal of every business should be to feature on this local pack for the best results.
But since local searches are a lot more competitive, you need the advantage to do well with it. This is where social media can help get you the results that you’re looking for.
Through social media, you can target powerful local keywords. When optimized well, it can get better conversions than other forms of marketing. It works well with paid ads to get you great results for your business.
Building Conversations On Keywords
Another advantage of social media is that it allows you to build conversations about specific keywords. Almost all social media platforms have a comment section for content.
The advantage is that comments can be about a specific keyword you’ve targeted on the content. This allows you to build engagement or conversations around a specific keyword.
This approach is more effective in getting as much reach as possible on searches. It also does not have traditional limits associated with long-form content related to keyword density. As comments naturally accrue over time, they differ from blogs or other content pieces.
And this is not just about keywords – it’s also an opportunity to engage with your user base. This can be a point of reference for other users searching for the same keyword, and there is a chance that they can become a part of your business.
Enables Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is an aspect of social media that has proven to be a huge boon to marketers. This involves leveraging popular personalities on social media to get more brand reach for your business.
Influencer marketing has found a lot of success today. It has been able to perform much better than other forms of marketing. This is because the mindset of people regarding marketing has changed over the years.
Selling an idea through people rather than a business is much easier.
“Word-of-mouth marketing has gotten a lot of traction in recent times. People are looking for connections and stories of a brand rather than just a product”, stated Zaria Mathis, proprietor of Ace Blogger Outreach.
Another advantage of influencer marketing is that you can market your services to a niche-specific audience. And getting an influencer to market your product means it reaches tens of thousands of people simultaneously.
Best Social Media Websites to Use
Several social media websites are available for businesses today. We look at the most popular social media platforms that can help your SEO process perform well.
Reddit
Reddit is one of the most popular social media websites, and it also has dedicated forums (subreddits) for every topic on the internet. It is a huge collection of information that people can use to get more from the web.
Because it is completely user-generated content, it has a powerful following, and most people use it daily. For business, Reddit is invaluable for reaching out to your audience.
Creating search-engine-optimized content is a straightforward task on Reddit. The first step is to find the right subreddit for your topic. Next, you offer your thoughts on a particular post. Ensure you include a link to your website as part of the post. Finally, ensure that it is keyword-rich.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn has built a niche, probably the most popular professional social media platform. This is another critical social media platform businesses use to leverage their reach.
LinkedIn is a platform that can be used for recruiting, pitching ideas, content sharing, and other related activities. There are over 55 million registered companies on LinkedIn today, and it gets over 1 billion monthly interactions.
LinkedIn has several tools that can help you streamline your business’s SEO. You can add relevant keywords and phrases which can impact your search rankings. It also works well with searches, offering a platform to elevate your SEO process.
Medium
Medium is a long-form content and social media platform that leverages informative blogs and articles. It has achieved considerable traction over the recent years and is one of the best platforms to get content out – much more so than your website blog.
It has even been called the only “social media for writers,” highlighting its focus on longer content. It has over 200 million views monthly, making it a great place to create content. People love Medium because it doesn’t have conventional paid ads.
Medium has a strong policy against certain kinds of advertisements. You need to be creative with your pitch and offer value to your readers. Create a strong headline for your article. CTAs are discouraged if they appear too salesy. Ensure you’re posting original work.
Twitter
Twitter is the premier short-message social media today, and everyone who’s anyone is on it. It boasts a high engagement rate and is used by people and businesses alike. Most brands have a Twitter profile where they handle much client communication.
With over 192 million daily users on the platform, it has much scope for SEO and brand-related content. It also has one of the highest engagement ratios in the social media landscape.
With Twitter, it is important to figure out the right hashtags for SEO. This is how Twitter users can search for your company. Create short content that is direct and to the point. Weigh in on relevant trends and hashtags worldwide from your Twitter handle.
Facebook
Facebook is the biggest social media platform in the world right now. With more than 2.8 billion monthly users globally, it is a huge space for companies to market. People of all ages use Facebook, and this is one of its biggest strengths.
More than 90% of all businesses have a Facebook page. This highlights just how important it can become to SEO and brand image. An advantage of Facebook is that it has several tools that can help companies engage their users.
From creating their page to exclusive groups and chat channels, the possibilities are endless. Using the right keywords in the group or page description helps. Searches index your page according to the page name, description, and heading tags. Ensure those elements align with your website’s services and keywords.
Pinterest
Regarding image-based social media platforms, Pinterest is a popular option for businesses. The focus is on sharing knowledge through images and getting “Pins” from users. You can create “boards” with several images aligned to a particular theme or topic.
It is a search engine in its own right, with billions of existing images and millions added regularly. For larger images like infographics, Pinterest is the right mode of social media to share them.
Pinterest is considerably SEO-friendly compared to other social media websites, and it uses keywords to sort content for users. Make sure that you use subject themes when adding pictures for your business. A few popular examples of this on Pinterest are holidays, recipes, or relationships. Anything that talks about your niche in a broader sense is applicable.
Quora
Quora acts like a repository of knowledge that is accessible to people all over the world. It combines the attributes of social media platforms and forums to deliver unique, actionable content. Quora has grown significantly over the last few years.
With a global audience of more than 300 million users, it’s safe to say that Quora has a lot of traffic. Using this to drive your SEO efforts is a good step to take. It also offers a powerful SEO experience; you can integrate it easily into your marketing funnel without many issues.
Here, too, keywords are what you should be focusing on. Check the most engaging questions, and then add in your answer. This process takes a long time, but it is found to work. You can also opt for a Quora Ads Account, where you can A/B test ads on the platform.
YouTube
YouTube is a video-streaming platform, second only to Facebook in popularity. While there are other options, nothing comes close to YouTube when discussing marketing performance.
Most businesses have a YouTube account from where they can market their brand. Video is one of the best content mediums for reach and engagement today. There are several categories of videos on the platform.
Ensure your video descriptions and titles have the right SEO keywords for YouTube. Always add the right hashtags to help categorize the video. Lastly, make sure that you use attractive thumbnails for your videos. High-quality thumbnails can get you a lot of clicks and exposure for your brand.
Tumblr
Tumblr is a microblogging platform that has millions of users and visits. It is catered to shorter content formats, images, and videos. Users can connect with popular content creators to get regular updates from them.
Tumblr is an attractive option for people and brands with smaller engagement durations. The advantage marketers have with Tumblr is that it allows dofollow links.
Dofollow links can have a positive impact on your search engine rankings. To get the most out of your experience, ensure you have optimal title tags for your post. Also, create custom URLs, add appropriate keywords, and use relevant hashtags.
Your metric for success on Tumblr is reblogs – the more you have, the better.
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