Matthew Santos
Has your SEO strategy flatlined?
Are you interested in leveraging social media to improve your SEO?
Well, I will let you in on a little secret. Nowadays, social media has a huge impact on the success of your SEO strategy. How? This blog post will uncover five ways to utilize social media to improve your organic search rankings.
While most people may be slightly aware that there is a growing synergy between SEO and social media, most organizations aren’t using them collaboratively.
So where do you begin?
Link-Build Socially
A few years back, it was common knowledge that Google placed a huge emphasis on link building. Quantity wasn’t the only thing that truly mattered. You wanted to outrank someone? It was as simple as obtaining more links than them in any way possible. But ever since the dawn of Penguin and Google’s changed perspective of links, the digital world is not so black and white.
So now, you must have high quality links. Toughest part? You can’t buy them, they must be obtained organically.
Links found on social media accounts usually are considered high quality, because most social sites have a high domain authority to begin with. Even if you create a brand new Facebook page, that has a high chance of outranking your own website, thanks to Facebook’s high domain authority that passes down to your profile.
This may sound super simple, but making sure that you provide a valid link to your website from all of your social media accounts can go a long way. Also include links to your website in all of the content that you publish on all of your social media accounts.
What type of content should you be posting on your social accounts? Post relevant content to your industry, hot topics, and even promote your own blog posts. This is a great way to drive organic traffic back to your site.
Increase Your Follower Base
Google has stated that “sharing is an obvious validation of quality”. So what exactly does this mean for websites? It means that social signals are now used to help your rankings.
What is the number one factor that distinguishes one social profile from another? The amount of followers.
You need to start following relevant people within your industry. You want to engage with high-quality followers since they are the ones who are constantly communicating on different social channels. Over time, these high-quality followers will being interacting with you.
So interact as much as possible to grow your following. Distributing relevant content on Pinterest, retweet interesting tweets on Twitter, share relevant blogs and articles on Facebook and Linkedin. When people see you taking these organic actions they will start drawing to you like a magnet.
Social signals are becoming more and more of a ranking factor across multiple search engines. Search engines are starting to visit your social channels to see how often you are posting, how many people are reacting to your posts, and how well do your profiles relate to your site.
Make sure that you are steadily gaining a loyal base of followers that are willing to interact with you and your content.
Use Hashtags, EVERYWHERE
Some people are stating that a hashtag is the new version of a keyword in 2015. When it comes to SEO, everyone knows that keywords are a main ranking factor. The same logic applies to social media and keywords.
Hashtags make your content super quick to find! This applies to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Content that can be easily found will always outrank content that is never interacted with.
If you are looking to leverage social as a means to join a global conversation, then a hashtag is the shortcut to joining that conversation instantly.
Be Smart With the Way You Use Keywords
Using the right keyword can make a world of difference on your site, blog post, and ad campaign, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that keywords matter in your social content too.
Always make sure that your content is easily searchable. If you post something on Facebook, centralize it around one topic/keyword. Similarly, on Pinterest, a great way to rank higher in the SERPs is by incorporating keywords into your pins and your boards. You can follow this same logic for YouTube videos, by placing the correct keywords in the description of the video.
Following this tip will ensure that when people type a keyword into Google, you have maximized your potential to show up and be clicked on.
Create and Optimize Your Local Listings
Ensure that your business has a local listing within Google. Include your business Name, Address, and Phone number (N.A.P), and make sure that you consistently use the same format across any other location on the internet. This will go a long way. It guarantees that potential customers can rest assured that you are a trustworthy business, and uniformity always gives you an advantage with Google.
Having a listing allows people to review your business directly on Google, and Google does place a huge weight on your review average. Most of the time, Google will place a business with the highest review rating at the number one position within the Map-Pack.
Also, make sure that you have an accurate list of all of your locations, or even a map for your business on your Facebook page. This not only helps your social media channels, but it will make it easier for your new and existing customers to find you and check in. This is HUGE for local SEO.
Conclusion
Using social media the right way can be extremely valuable in its own right, but when you use it in conjunction with SEO, you begin to separate yourself from the pack. And everyone will notice!
SEO is an environment that is constantly changing and growing. Social media is also an environment that is exponentially growing. You must merge the two in order to see a true impact on your organic rankings.
So what do you think? Have you tried any of these methods out recently and seen some positive growth from it? Please share your comments below, I would love to hear more about your experiences.
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