7 Easy Ways to Use Social Marketing Posts to Improve SEO

Your social marketing posts are probably aimed at getting your brand in front of customers.

That’s brilliant – it’s a fantastic way to get exposure without necessarily needing a huge advertising budget.

And, you’ve probably heard about SEO. You know it involves Google and improving where your business appears in the search results.

But, did you know there’s actually an easy way to improve your SEO using your social marketing posts?

There’s not just one easy way – there are at least 7!

Read on to find out how you can easily boost your SEO using the social marketing that you’re already doing.

1. Boost your direct traffic by sharing valuable content

Sharing a popular story or an article on a large social media site can lead to higher traffic volumes.

That in itself should be part of your social marketing strategy anyway. It’s all about getting your brand in front of your audience.

And obviously, social media gets your brand in front of your audience’s wider network.

But we’re talking about SEO here. How does sharing a popular article on Facebook help?

It mostly comes from the huge increase in indirect links. It also means that other people in your niche are likely to see your content.

And then they’ll use the posts as references in their content. Those are the direct editorial links that will definitely help boost your SEO.

It’s also beneficial if you can share your content across a range of social sites. Google not only rewards the number of external links you have, but also the diversity of them.

Also, a lot of social media sites use the nofollow tag on their direct links. This just tells Google not to rank those pages based on the link. In this case, you’re losing the SEO benefit.

But not all sites use the nofollow tag. These sites will give your content more direct links. And that boosts your SEO.

And, there’s another useful side effect to sharing your content on social media.

Search engines frequently crawl social media sites. The search bots can use your shares to quickly index new pages. That helps users find them when they’re searching on Google.

2. Use social profiles to build links to your website

Link building has always been important to search rankings. But people started using fake or low-quality links to improve their rank.

So, Google switched their focus to high-quality links. Luckily, social media links often qualify as being ‘high quality’.

After all, social sites already have a high web authority. It has a trickle down effect that will benefit all of your profiles.

Your Facebook Page might be brand new compared to your website. But your page will get the benefit of Facebook’s overall authority.

It’s like authority by association.

Be strategic with your content. If you create a video to accompany a blog post, be sure to embed it into the post.

This way, you get the benefit of Youtube’s high web authority, which should increase your ranking on the post itself.

Plus, it’s just good practice to create content in multiple forms to suit the preferences of your audience.

It goes without saying that you need to put links to your website in your content. But add them to your social profiles too.

It not only boosts traffic, but it also contributes to your link building strategy.

You should also include targeted keywords on any profiles you have on these sites. That’ll help to create multiple search listings for your brand. But more on that below.

3. Social marketing will soon break into the search results

Both Google and Bing are working on ways to incorporate a variety of content into their search results.

You’ll already have seen this alongside map listings. Videos and images help to bring the listings to life. Some listings even feature ratings and reviews to give the user more information.

But the move of Google and Bing to partner with Twitter and Facebook is an interesting one. They’re keen to incorporate social status updates into their search results.

Twitter, in particular, is already in talks with Google and Microsoft. If the work goes ahead, the search engines will actually include tweets in their search results.

Twitter is great for real-time news coverage. But it can also be useful for small businesses.

Think of all of those events and conferences that you attend. Your coverage of them could break out of Twitter and onto Google. That gives you access to people who don’t use Twitter but still search for your niche.

4. Focus on building a good quality following

Unsurprisingly, the more high-quality followers you have, the better your page ranks in search.

By ‘high quality,’ we mean followers who are real people, not bots. Actual people will engage or interact with you on a regular basis.

Interactions include retweeting, repinning, sharing, or leaving comments.

Search engines actually look at your social media to see how often you post. Having a lot of interactions gives you social marketing an instant boost.

And it’s even worth including elements on your site to help visitors share your content. Experiment with a range of plugins to see which placement of icons best suits you.

While Google insists that social shares don’t affect ranking, traffic certainly does. So focus on the share as being the path that leads a new visitor to your site.

But don’t fall into the trap of thinking you can get around the algorithms. They can actually tell how many low-quality followers you have. So don’t try to buy fake Facebook fans.

It’s better to encourage interaction and engagement from the good followers that you have.

5. Share good quality content that’s relevant to your audience

Not sure what to post to your social media profiles? Try to use the 80/20 rule.

Using this principle, 80% of your content is for the benefit of your audience.

So that’s competitions, content you’ve shared, images, or videos. This is content around your industry or niche that is still useful to your audience.

And the other 20% can be for you. So, social marketing and promotional messages.

Even outside your SEO, having better content and more engagement means that on Facebook at least you’ll get more visibility in the news feed.

That can mean more people see your links and click through to your website. It’s an easy way to improve your direct traffic – and thus your SEO rankings.

It is true that building followers can be a slow process. But consistency is the key to its effectiveness.

Adopt a brand ‘voice’ to talk to your customers on a daily basis. And don’t worry if you think your niche or industry is too ‘dry’ to warrant social marketing.

Volvo, famous for their safety-conscious cars, wanted to market their fleet of lorries. But how do you get ordinary people excited about lorries?

Volvo brought Jean-Claude Van Damme on board. They created a channel and posted a video involving Van Damme and their lorries.

The video has had over 85,200,000 views. They’ve since started recreating stunts with their lorries for other videos.

You probably don’t have the budget for Jean-Claude Van Damme. But there will be an interesting angle to your brand that can capture a fanbase.

And that fanbase will share your content, pushing your site up the search results.

6. Optimize your content to be shared – and searched for

It goes without saying that your content needs to be shareable. How else will your customers share it with their networks?

So go through the social sites where you have profiles and make sure everything is set to public.

That means no unlisted Youtube videos, no secret Pinterest boards, and no private Twitter profiles.

And Facebook gives the best option of them all. In your profile’s privacy settings, you can enable the option, Do you want other search engines to link to your timeline?

It’s all about getting your content in front of the greatest number of relevant people.

But your content also needs to be searchable. Keywords are hugely important. If you’re not sure how to use keywords, check out our best advice here.

Pinterest offers some of the best social marketing potential. Write strong captions for your pins that use your keywords.

Add your keywords to your Pinterest profile, and the descriptions of your boards.

And it’s worth adding keywords to your Youtube videos. It’ll make it more likely that your channel will get traffic.

Add your website to your Youtube profile. The more traffic your channel gets, the more traffic your website might get.

And that means better search rankings.

7. Be prepared to get local

Finally, it’s important that you create a local listing for your business. That lets customers review you directly on Google.

Also, add your address to your listing. Your location can act as a keyword to help with your SEO.

It’s also useful to add locations and maps to your Facebook page. They help customers ‘check in’, which boosts your local SEO.

Getting involved with local events can also see your name being included on news websites or social media.

Not only does it help to make you more visible in your community, it also makes you more visible in local searches.

Remember it’s called social marketing for a reason. Often the best marketing happens face to face.

But maybe you feel that SEO is still a little bit beyond your capabilities at the moment. It’s okay – there’s a lot to learn!

So while you’re getting your head around it, book a free SEO audit with us. We’ll help you find – and convert – those leads.


[other blog post] What You Need to Know About the Impact of Social Media on SEO

Everyone knows the importance of an SEO strategy.

But there’s one thing that many don’t realize can play a part: social media.

Despite this, the impact of social media on SEO is not something that any smart businessperson should ignore. In fact, taking advantage of social media is a great way to get a leg up on the competition.

But why? How? There are a lot of unanswered questions when it comes to this new marketing terrain. Because the world of marketing is changing so fast, it can be difficult for traditional marketers to keep up.

Luckily for you, we aren’t traditional marketers.

We’re SEO experts, and we’d like to share that knowledge with you. Keep reading to discover the impact of social media on your SEO, and how you can harness it to work for you!

What is SEO?

We said earlier that everyone knows the importance of an SEO strategy. And that’s true. But that doesn’t mean that everyone knows what SEO actually is.

If you’re going to understand the impact of SEO on social media, you have to understand how SEO actually works. So here’s what you need to know:

Basically, SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. It has to do with where your website shows up on search results for engines like Google.

But, you might be wondering, how does a marketing strategy play into this?

You see, search engines have their limitations and regulations. And if you aren’t aware of them and actively trying to work with them, the less likely you are to show up on search results.

For example, let’s say there are two websites that sell cupcakes in Chicago.

One website uses the exact phrase “cupcake shop in Chicago” multiple times on their website. They have a blog that updates regularly and uses phrases like “best cupcakes in Chicago” and “where to get cupcakes in Chicago” regularly.

The other website has great descriptions of their product, delicious looking pictures … but the only say where they’re from in passing, and don’t have a blog at all.

Because the first website is using the phrases that people will google and is updating regularly through a blog, it will show up higher on google search results.

This is why an SEO strategy is so important.

Does Social Media Play into an SEO Strategy?

Now, here’s the catch: not the way you might think.

Backlinks affect SEO — in other words, the more people that link to your site, the higher up on search results you go. But it’s theorized that links and shares on social media don’t count as backlinks.

This is something that surprises even some SEO experts because it’s been assumed for a number of years that this is not the case.

Whether or not social media directly affects SEO is something that is widely debated. Every expert has their own opinion, but we have our own thoughts on the matter.

It doesn’t matter if social media shares count as backlinks. Even if it doesn’t directly affect SEO, there’s no question that it indirectly affects it.

You see, the impact of social media on SEO goes a bit deeper than this.

While there isn’t a direct correlation, studies have shown a positive relationship between shares on social media and actual backlinks.

How could this be?

Social Media Can Impact Your SEO in Ways You Might Expect …

Well, the obvious answer is this:

A person sees the link to your site and sees that it’s a good source of information. Later, they’re writing on their blog (or something similar) and they use you as a source.

That, unlike the actual social media post, definitely generates a backlink. And if it’s a popular blog, then that’s considered a high authority backlink, which is very important.

In other words, social media cultivates relationships. It gets your content out into the public so that it can be used.

There’s something to be said about being known by people. And social media certainly helps you in a big way when it comes to being known.

It all comes down to the “social” part of it. Social media is a place to make yourself memorable. Suddenly, you aren’t just a cupcake shop in Chicago — you’re a friend, someone who gives baking tips and shares fun pictures of cute cupcake designs.

And when people are suggesting things to their friends (or blog followers), they’ll think of you.

This is the most obvious way that the impact of social media is shown. But that doesn’t mean it’s the only way.

In fact, the impact of social media on SEO goes deeper than a lot of people and small businesses could ever realize.

And Ways You Might Not.

The impact of social media on SEO can come about in some very unexpected ways.

For example, shares on social media may not affect google search results, but they do effect YouTube. And that can be just as valuable — you’d be surprised how many people go to the video sharing site looking for information!

Also, social media encourages you to share third-party links. And when you do that, you create a relationship.

You can use that to your advantage. Share content from influencers on your social media, and you’ll start to get a relationship with that influencer. That will encourage them to share your website … and it will be mutually beneficial.

Are you still not seeing the impact of social media and SEO? What it boils down to is this:

This is the era of people-based marketing.

In other words, people don’t just want to blindly follow an add or something similar. They want to be engaged.

If you manage to engage them, they’ll respond much better to your content. And the better they respond, the better your SEO gets.

Now that you’ve got that, ask yourself this: what better way to engage them than on the social platforms they spend so much time on?

How to Harness the Impact of Social Media

So, now that you know how important the impact of social media is in SEO, you probably want to use it.

But how do you do that?

In fact, there are many things you can do to take advantage of social media. Here’s just a few of them.

  • Grow your number of followers. This has been shown to affect rankings since more people will be seeing your content.
  • Optimize your posts for searches. Use keywords and make sure that you’re taking into consideration what your target audience wants.
  • Increase your authority. You do this by encouraging sharing, which makes you seem like a more credible source.
  • Engage with the local community. Use local hashtags and similar things to get involved in your area.
  • Increase brand awareness. This seems more like a general marketing tip, but it can also do wonders for your SEO.
  • Make sure to link to your site on your profile. This will make it easier for anyone who is curious about you to get more information.
  • Use Pinterest. This is a specific social media platform that a lot of people overlook, but that’s useful because it makes your content searchable.
  • Create a local listing. This is done by using Google+. It makes it easier for people searching for things in your area to find you.
  • Have multiple platforms. This will give you multiple results on search engines.

These are just a few of the ways that the impact of social media can be used to improve your SEO.

Of course, you have to be doing all of this while keeping in mind what is right for you and your brand. While you’re doing all of that, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

That’s why …

You need professional help.

Taking advantage of the impact of social media on SEO is not something you can do on your own.

You need an SEO expert. Now, why does that ring a bell?

Improve & Grow is here for your company. If you’re looking for someone who can harness social media and other things to get you the best SEO rankings possible, we can help.

If you want proof of what we can do for a company, just check out our case studies. We have plenty of happy customers, and we’d love for you to join them.

You’re running a business. You’re busy. Even with all of this knowledge, you don’t have the time to dedicate to getting your SEO rankings up where you want them to be.

That’s why you should let a professional like us handle it instead. You focus on doing good work, and we’ll focus on making sure that people hear about it.

We think that’s something every business can enjoy, no matter how big or how small it is.

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