7 Unusual Tips To Improve Your SEO With Social Media

Social media is now an inseparable part of internet marketing. It is one of the most important internet marketing instruments to use to reach your target audience. Having social media pages and maintaining a strong social media presence is important, both for branding and marketing purposes. It didn’t take long before social media started to impact other elements of the internet marketing equation. Today, good social media practices can actually help improve your site’s search engine performance. They allow you to attract more traffic from search engines; all thanks to great social media posts. Similar to other instruments of internet marketing, there is no definitive set of rules to follow in order to succeed on social media sites. That said, there are seven unusual tips you can use to improve your search engine optimization or SEO with social media. Let’s take a closer look at them.

1. Create Searchable Social Media Posts

Google and other big search engines now display social media posts in search results. Try searching for certain keywords and you will see Tweets appearing in the search results. This is a great way to boost your site’s SEO performance almost instantly. All you need is a series of social media posts that are optimized for SEO. Optimizing social media posts for SEO is very similar to doing content marketing. You want to remain as organic as you can but you also want to add relevant keywords in a natural way. It is also worth noting that posts with a URL and a picture are more successful than posts that don’t have them.

2. Ask, and it is Given

The next thing you must do is, well, ask. If you want people to follow your brand on social media, then ask them to follow. If you want to direct followers to a new article, simply tell them to visit the page. Need more retweets? Yes, you can ask for them too. This is the beauty of social media. Social media sites are where your brand can become a persona. You may be posting from a branded account, but you’re engaging real users (and potential customers). Focus on improving those engagements using simple and straightforward calls to action such as “Please retweet….”

3. Metrics Matter

Yes, the numbers do matter. The number of followers, likes, retweets, and other metrics you have will affect how well your social media posts can do SEO-wise. However, don’t fall into the trap of chasing after those numbers; that’s not how social media works. Search engine crawlers will still prioritize content that has a lot of likes or retweets because they see this content as being more popular among the audience segment; crawlers do this with sites and their traffic too. However, adding fake retweets and irrelevant likes will only get your social media profiles punished for bad SEO practices.

4. Shares Build Backlinks

You should never spam your social media pages with links. Sure, you can share new articles and engage your audience, but doing it too often is counterproductive. What you want is for others to also share your content, and there is one very effective way to achieve that: produce shareable content. You can tweak your articles or other content to make it relatable. Not shareable, but relatable. According to recent studies, viewers are more likely to share content they find online if the content is relatable. You want your viewers to think, “Wow, that is so me!” when reading your articles. One final ingredient to add is a set of social sharing buttons. Strategically place the social sharing buttons either at the end of the page, at the beginning of the content (just below the title), or floating on the side of the page to get more shares.

5. Optimize Your Profiles

We’ve been focusing on social media posts so far. What about the social media pages or profiles themselves? They matter too and they can be equally optimized for SEO purposes. Before you focus on SEO, however, focus on the audience first. Start by laying out a consistent branding across all social networking platforms. You can then fine-tune every social media page to make it more approachable and likable. Finish by writing a compelling bio that is keyword-optimized and engaging in the eyes of users at the same time. Add an URL to your main site on your social media pages, and vice versa. It will not take long before search engines start listing all of your social media pages when people search for your site or relevant keywords.

6. Connect with Industry Experts

Social media is the perfect place to connect with other industry experts. Here are a few tricks you can use to help start and build relationships with key figures in the industry. The next time you write an article, include a quote from an industry expert. When you share that article on social media, tag (or mention) that expert too. Another way is to respond to experts’ social media posts. Don’t be lazy and write spam comments just to get noticed. You want to contribute to the conversation and provide real insight that other viewers can benefit from. Most industry experts will start sharing your content and liking your social media posts once the relationship is established. Aside from expanding your reach, you are also boosting your SEO game this way.

7. Go Video

Making the jump to video is now a necessity and not an option. If you’re not producing video content, you’re not taking advantage of the full potential of video sharing platforms. It is not uncommon for videos on YouTube to rank much higher than the sites they represent. Video is an opportunity you don’t want to miss. On the other hand, video sharing platforms are a great way to engage the audience too. You can build a stronger reputation and expand the reach of your brand further by investing in high-quality and compelling video content that the viewers really love. As you can see, not taking full advantage of social media is a big mistake. In a market as competitive as today, social media is an indispensable internet marketing instrument that can help take your business to the next level.  

© 2017 – 2019, Elena Tahora. All rights reserved.