SEO became important for website success long before social media showed up on the playground. But once the significance and value of social media was fully appreciated, websites saw that they needed to put a focus on social media, too. To save money some bigger companies rolled the two concepts of social media and SEO together, others created entirely new branches, and do-it-yourselfers tried to be everything all by themselves.
Of course things have evolved since those early days (which really weren’t so long ago!) and will continue to change. One thing we know for sure is that social media is influencing the field of SEO and incorporating itself into SEO best practices. This by no means implies that if you are doing one you no longer need to do the other; social media and SEO should be a symbiotic relationship. Social is, however, a stronger influence on every aspect of marketing than previously believed, so having your finger on the pulse of social media is essential.
Let’s take a look at how SEO has changed due to social media and how you can use these changes to your—and your website’s—advantage.
Keywords
In the beginning keywords were single words, but when social media came onto the scene keywords evolved into keyphrases and long tail keywords. Why? Because key phrases lend themselves very nicely to the searcher’s intent. You can narrow down the search pretty significantly by adding extra keywords and making it a phrase. The search engines want this sort of specificity so when searchers enter a search term they get exactly what you want. You want this so you can focus your efforts on your real market and potential loyal followers.
Community Involvement
In the past your company’s involvement in the community didn’t have any impact on your social media and SEO campaigns. Today you can cleverly weave those things together and get a lot of credit. Not only should you be all over social media with pictures and updates and all sorts of great information about your involvement in community activities, but you also need to tie yourself to local powerhouse companies who are also involved. Remember, links from reputable websites mean a lot (not necessarily links from their social sites) and if you can work your way in by sharing images, being quoted together in an article etc. then you can start winning through their success.
Build Your Brand
Increasing brand awareness is always important. Social media is clearly a great way to do that: it keeps you up-to-date on current trends and gives you a way to be front and center. But how does this work with SEO? A strong brand presence means people are more likely to search your brand name, message and key terms. Pairing your content (which is content optimized—right?) with your social campaigns can mean big wins with search queries.
Cross Marketing
We touched on it above but it’s important that your social efforts reflect your website/company. These two elements need to be closely tied to one another to get the most benefits. If you put up kitten videos on social media you may get a lot of likes and followers, but what does that have to do with your website? If you sell cat toys, then yes, put kitten videos on your website and link that page of your website to social media. Your goal should always be connected content across all platforms.
Think of your social media and SEO as a cocktail party. You want to show up and introduce yourself to as many people as possible and create a great impression. Some of those people will really appeal to your niche so you’ll invite them to come check out your website. An even more elite group will fit perfectly into your marketing plan so you’ll develop a relationship, sharing content together and working toward mutual, socially based, success and growth.
Want your website to stand out from the crowd? Filament can help.
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