Social media and search engine optimization (SEO) — two digital marketing powerhouses that seem detached from one another. But are they really independent as they appear? Or could they be the dynamic duo your business needs?
Let’s delve into the intricate interplay of social media and SEO in this blog as follows:
• Drawing the Lines: Social Media vs. SEO
• The Why: A Look Into the Value Of Social Media for SEO
• What Are Social Signals, Exactly?
• What Is Social Media SEO?
• Making It Work Together: Social Media and SEO Strategy
Drawing the Lines: Social Media vs. SEO
Social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram or X (previously known as Twitter), index content or posts and enable users to discover new content, brands or products that could pique their interest, without having to leave the app. On the other hand, SEO helps you draw traffic from individuals actively seeking answers or phrases related to your business through search engines like Google.
The Why: A Look Into the Value of Social Media for SEO
While indirect, the relationship between social media and SEO ranking is significant. Social media doesn’t directly contribute to SEO ranking signals, but the links shared across social platforms lead to increased search visibility, driving more traffic to your website.
Such an uptick in traffic and engagement serves as social signals to search engines like Google that your website provides valuable content, potentially improving your SEO ranking signals as a result.
What’s more, a solid social media presence helps in building customer loyalty, with positive customer interactions leading to higher organic search rankings.
What Are Social Signals, Exactly?
Social signals refer to the collective follows, likes, shares and all other engagements. From a social media marketing perspective, these interactions are called engagement. However, from an SEO standpoint, they serve as signals that assist search engines like Google gauge the identity, popularity and credibility of users, profiles or posts. So, if you want to build trust with search engines, social media marketing is fundamental.
Now let’s address another question pertinent to the subject: What is social media SEO or social SEO? Then, we’ll go straight into the strategies you can apply to make both methods work for you.
What Is Social Media SEO?
Social media SEO or Social SEO refers to the process of optimizing your social media profiles and content to increase social search visibility and reach among your potential customers. Essentially, it is utilizing social media for SEO.
Social search demand is rising as more and more consumers treat social media platforms as a type of search engine, one that doesn’t just offer a wall of text right off the bat. So, businesses looking to capitalize on social search demand trends turn to social SEO techniques.
One of the main techniques of using social media for SEO involves injecting your posts with industry-specific terms or branded keywords.
Up next: Social media and SEO strategy to help you build trust with your prospects
Making It Work Together: Social Media and SEO Strategy
Whichever social platform you want to focus your efforts on, the end goal is to connect your brand with the right audience and introduce them to your products or services. In this section, we particularly stress the importance of social media link building.
1. Strategic Link Placements Across Your Social Media Pages
Social media link building is a powerful tool harnessed by experts to generate inbound links and garner more search visibility for their websites. Two primary social media link building strategies stand out in this practice. First, add your website link to your social media profiles. This ensures every interaction or engagement by the profile could lead an interested party to your website.
The second approach is to share your website content across your social media regularly; the content could be blogs or product pages. With this, you want to regularly check if any link found on your profile is functional.
Related article: Reasons your link building strategy isn’t driving the results you want
2. Social Sharing Buttons on Your Website
Social sharing buttons are icons or widgets that allow users to easily share content from a website on various social media platforms. They are beneficial for several reasons. Firstly, they enable the effortless sharing of website content, expanding its reach and visibility across multiple social platforms. This, in turn, can drive more traffic to your site, potentially boosting lead generation and sales.
Additionally, when visitors share your content, it indicates trust and endorsement of your brand across their own networks, building customer loyalty. Some of the sections you can add social buttons to your website are your footer, blog pages and product pages.
Related article: How to use your social media channels as lead generation tools
3. Combined Keyword Research and Strategy
We can’t talk about SEO without reiterating the importance of keywords. Search engines and social media platforms index content on your website and channels, allowing them to serve more relevant results to web users when they search for specific terms. As such, it’s crucial to prioritize identifying the terms your target audience is searching for. This will guide your choice of keywords for web content and posts.
And don’t forget to explore long-tail keywords, too — they attract traffic with higher purchase intent compared to generic and highly competitive keywords.
Related article: Long-tail keywords: what are they and how to find them
4. Don’t Just Make Content; Market Them
Creating content is one thing, but marketing it is altogether another thing. The best content in the world holds little to no value if it isn’t seen, heard or read by the people it’s created for. So, once you’re confident you’ve aced the quality of your content, you want to take every possible action to get your content in front of your audience.
Related article: What is content amplification and why it’s so important for your business
5. Content Repurposing and Recirculating
You can also explore repurposing your evergreen blogs into other social media post formats, such as videos or infographics. A well-received blog post, infographic or video can continue to generate value long after its initial publication. You can breathe new life into such content by recirculating it, meaning re-sharing it on your social media platforms or updating it with fresh data or insights. Even reshaping the content for different formats can be a clever strategy.
For instance, if an eCommerce brand has a well-received blog post highlighting products, it could be repurposed into a video. This strategy not only allows you to maximize every content produced, but it also helps you reach the audience who engage better with particular formats.
Related article: What is social commerce and why your business should care
6. Videos Are in Demand on Social Media
In contrast to text or static images, videos provide a richer and more immersive experience. Apart from their dynamic and engaging nature, videos also have the ability to convey complex messages even in a short time, making them an ideal medium for storytelling.
Instant digital gratification is a double-edged sword for brands as it causes consumer attention span to shrink. Despite this, videos are proven to engage viewers in a meaningful way.
Related article: 9 Video Marketing Trends Set To Dominate 2023
7. Social Profile Optimization for Brand Consistency
Brand consistency is paramount if you want to foster brand recognition and consumer confidence across online platforms, including social media and your website. With this, you want to treat each social profile as an extension of your website.
To help in building customer loyalty through consistency, keep the following aspects in mind:
1. Visual cohesion. Stick to the color scheme, logo and typography that align with your brand’s aesthetic and persona. This helps in creating instant recognition for your visitors.
2. Tone of voice. Ensure the tone of your content is consistent across all platforms. If your brand voice is casual and fun on your website, it should be the same on your social media pages.
3. Content relevancy. The content shared on social media should be relevant to your brand and should reflect your brand’s goals and values showcased on your website.
Thrive SEO Social Media Marketing Services: Get on Top of the Social Search Demand
In the end, social media and SEO are two sides of the same coin. They harmoniously work together to ensure your brand leaves a lasting footprint in the digital space.
If you want to learn what SEO social media marketing services can do for your business, talk to our team.
