Benefits of Integrating Social Media with SEO
Social media has grown incredibly in the last few years, and it will continue to expand at an expedited rate. It has become a worldwide phenomenon, exquisite for different age groups and cultures. Using social media with a variety of SEO services can generate several benefits. This is the most cost effective way of reaching out to your audience, as they are already spending a substantial amount of time on these sites. A well planned strategy involving SEO and social media will result in increased brand awareness. High brand awareness is useless when it comes to increasing revenues, if there is no brand recall. Even if your website has achieved top organic ranking, you might not gain enough traffic. A study conducted by Google in 2012 suggested that the no 1 ranking on their search engine results only gets clicked 53% of the time. Moving on to paid search may increase traffic volume, but do so at a costly rate, and stop providing results once the campaign has ended. People in general do not like clicking on ads, and most internet users have now developed ad blindness. Using social media can change this by connecting with your target audience. A great thing about social media is that your target audience is often connected with your brand’s niche, and this can lead to them strongly remembering your brand through increased online brand interaction.
Increased website visibility
Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ Trends. Not to be overshadowed by the power of Facebook, Twitter’s new enhanced search engine allows users to view “top news” relevant to their search. This levels the playing field between Google and Twitter, so taking advantage of this newly developed feature could result in higher visibility in Twitter search results. Moreover, having done a deal with Twitter, Google now displays real-time search results from Twitter, so any trending tweets will be visible in the search results, another way to increase website visibility. The same goes for Google+, as +1s now appear in Google search results, and with the +1 Button on the Link, it allows for easier sharing straight via the search results. This intertwined feature between the social media giant and search engine in each of these cases represents enhanced visibility in search results.
Research from Forrester has shown that users are more inclined to click on search results that are highly influenced by the social circle. The study revealed that 3 out of 4 clicks on SERPs are on organic results, and the first click is most often on the result that is highly influenced by the social circle. This exemplifies that websites whose content is being shared by social influencers are more likely to drive traffic to the website. Given that, it is essential to have content that is designed to be shared on social media in order to increase website visibility. Thus, executing a social SEO initiative is a great tactic to increase website traffic from organic search results.
Advantageous and increased website visibility is the very first step to having the consumer perform sought-after action. Whether it’s subscribing to a newsletter or making a purchase, if the consumer cannot find the website, the action cannot be performed.
Improved organic search rankings
Linkbaiting occurs when you publish a piece of content, such as an article or a blog post, with the explicit purpose of garnering attention and encouraging others to link to your page. This is done with the hope that it will improve your site’s ranking and overall visibility. Now, instead of the old traditional ways of doing this, the best way to create linkbait content is to share it on social media. If the article or blog post is appealing and interesting, the best way to get people to read and post about it is to share it on Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, etc. People are more likely to read it and then post it on their own webpages. If you have a social media presence with fast distribution and sharing capabilities, you can get huge public awareness and viral spread of linkbait content. If you’re aware of SEO and how link building is done, you will realize that the process is very similar to the purchasing of links in order to increase site rank, the only difference being it’s natural and isn’t trying to manipulate search rankings. The recent anti-spam changes by search engines have led to penalties for sites buying links, so there is no need to worry about this in terms of creating linkbait content on social media. This is completely safe and a black-hatted SEO tactic can now be converted into a better and natural way of improving search ranking.
I am confident that this article will help you understand the benefits of integrating social media marketing with your SEO strategy. Most people have different opinions on what happens when you link your social media with your SEO, but one thing we can agree on is that you will achieve better organic search engine rankings. Social media provides an effective way of getting your message out to your audience. It’s a great tool for sending your message and building your brand. With recent major changes from search engines, your social media standing now has a direct effect on your organic search rankings. So what does this mean for SEOs and social media marketers? This means that now it is vital to build a strong social media and web presence in order to have a chance at achieving high organic search rankings. In the past few years, mainly back in the day when people used to use the Digg engine, SEOs used to create “linkbait” articles in order to generate large amounts of links.
Enhanced brand awareness and customer engagement
Supplementing your SEO campaign with social media participation will create a powerful synergy which can translate into better brand positioning and higher levels of engagement with potential customers. A report from the SEO firm BrightEdge (my client) has underlined the increasing impact that social media is having on search engine results. It showed that 51% of all Google search results now include at least one social media link, and that the presence of these links causes the results to be 6-8% more likely to be clicked. The message is clear: visibility in search results is heavily influenced by the activity surrounding your brand on social media. Increased visibility in the SERP’s is an obvious benefit of integrating social and search. It is possible that a user who has searched for your brand in Google is not yet convinced about what you offer. Seeing active social media channels in the search results could encourage them to click through, and you’ll have more chances to convey your value proposition to that user. This is a more long-term customer acquisition strategy, as frequently the users of social media and the internet in general will research brands before making a purchase. A strong brand presence in the search results can indicate to the user that you are a significant player in your market. This instills confidence in the consumer and increases the likelihood of a click-through to your site.
Higher website traffic and conversions
Where can be the better chance for a high number of social sharing than through social media itself? So, according to this SEO and social media interaction cycle, as social media facilitates increased and more frequent sharing of your content, it leads to the generation of increased links to your website, which in turn allows for higher organic search rankings, resulting in increased website traffic and a higher rate of conversions.
A study by seomoz.org showed that in the search engine ranking algorithms, there is a strong association between social signals and rankings. The study says that in order to rank highly in the search engine results pages, it is essential to have a high number of Facebook shares, Facebook comments, Facebook likes, tweets, and Google +1.
Social media helps in driving website traffic and conversions. The digital sharing activity that takes place in social media, with the help of social media optimization, leads to organic link building. SMO helps in adding ease of tagging and bookmarking to your site, so the users can easily and more often add your site to their favorite social bookmarking sites. Then, it makes the tagging and bookmarking content more easy and convenient. This results in more inbound links to your website. Add to this, the potential of your content being scattered through Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and other social networking sites. This natural linking and tagging of content allows for search engines to index the links between your webpages, and then assign value to your site.
Strategies for Integrating Social Media with SEO
One of the main themes in the article focused on the importance of consistency, from keyword consistency to term consistency, particularly in how Google and Yahoo’s crawlers found the sites. Consistency directly translates into search engine optimization, as using the same keywords and terms that are being optimized for in a website’s content is incredibly important. An interesting point was made that SEOs do not try to push a specific marketing initiative so as not to set off a “red flag” to search algorithms, because marketing initiatives can result in changes in “brand signals” and foster new link building which can be detrimental if not done correctly. The same can be said for integrating social media with SEO. Brand signals occur when a search engine picks up on a brand name and the associations that follow, and effectively social media is an extension of a brand in the online world. It is said that brand names often don’t have to be mentioned in link building to enhance ranking, and link building is already successful by those who easily get links because they are a “recognized name/brand”. Below are the key points discussed in the article and how they relate to integrating social media with SEO and the best use of promoting a brand. Social media can be a great asset to SEO for clients and brand promoters simply in the fact that if one has excellent content, it’s much easier to get that content in front of people using social media, which can lead to an increase in brand signals and link building. This is important in that the easier it is to effectively build links and brand signals the less money and time it should take to promote a specific initiative in SEO or to bring more traffic and higher rank to an existing site. An intriguing study reveals that changing search engine result positions have a high correlation with a higher or lower click through rate. With the #1 position averaging around a 59% CTR, and the #10 positions with a less than 10% CTR. If brand signals and link building result in higher search engine positions, the traffic increase could be substantial.
Keyword optimization in social media profiles
A while ago, back in the day when MySpace was the most popular social media platform, using keywords was on the rise. However, as Facebook and Twitter took over, the use of keywords in profiles and posts has diminished over time. Even though it may not hold as much weight as it did in the early 2000s, it is still very important to use keywords in your social media profiles. Using SEO keywords in your social media profiles is essential, especially for those who are looking to brand themselves in a certain way. When people search for you on Facebook, they will be able to type in “what they are looking for”. If you have filled in your profile summary with keywords, for example, “an award-winning film director in Los Angeles,” then your profile will come up in the search results. This is a simple way to apply SEO practices in a social media platform. When defining which keywords to use in your social media profiles, it’s a good idea to use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. This is a free tool that anyone can use to see which keywords are popular and how often they are searched per month. Using this tool to optimize your Twitter bio is a simple and efficient way to appeal to a large audience, and it is a great guideline for defining what your personal brand and message is. Always pick keywords that are relevant to what you are doing. If you are a cinematographer but you are aspiring to become a director, it’s probably a good idea that you use “director” as opposed to “cinematographer” in your keywords. This seems obvious but many people often overlook this. Try to use these keywords directly in your profile headings and summaries. You should also be consistent with the keywords you are using; it’s almost like a subliminal message. Try repeating these keywords every so often. You want to remember that this is actually going to help associate you with these keywords and hopefully loosen the less desirable associated keywords that may exist.
Sharing SEO-optimized content on social platforms
It is important we think about the most effective way to distribute this content. The sharing of content must be integrated within a web-wide marketing strategy. Social news releases are an innovative way to provide branded information in the form of a release, with the ability to SEO and distribute to a direct and indirect audience using social bookmarking and media sharing. Blogs are no doubt the best way to provide knowledge on a certain topic, explain how your company is a solution, and help your audience. A well-written blog can acquire a large readership and be shared on social media, thus increasing the traffic to the blog or website. Videos and podcasts are a great way to engage an audience and influence them to try your product. A YouTube channel can personalize your brand and a product channel can provide demo videos and a series to help the customer. Videos can be socialized and podcasts can be advertised through social media. Social media business profiles are essential these days and are a way to brand a company and provide status updates and information to the following. This is also a way to explore social SEO as profile information can appear in search engine results. Last but not least, emails can notify current or previous customers of new products and bring them back to the website.
There are a number of ways to always keep your brand in front of the right audience. It’s time to brainstorm on what your target audience is searching for. By providing ourselves with a set of topics and themes, we can align it with our keyword list using part of the query data which I will go into in later posts. Content can be placed into categories which can be anything from products sold, testimonials, how you can help your audience, support, etc. The key is to start with simple content, SEO it, and then expand where necessary. This way, it’s easier to manage and maintain an organized keyword theme. This is essential as we can SEO content and URLs to fit the search preferences of the target audience and lead them to a landing page or social media business page. A landing page is a great place to direct the audience in order to achieve a specific task such as selling a product or capturing details for sales leads. By having an exact match URL that leads to a landing page, we are more likely to generate leads from organic search.
Building high-quality backlinks through social media
Create compelling content that people would like to link to: “Like it or not, if you want to get backlinks, you need to have content…and not just any content but really good content.” So, the idea with social media and building backlinks would be to create the kind of content that is link-worthy. An excellent starting point is to create a standalone community where you would have a blog with industry information. If the community is truly unique and valuable to a certain buyer persona, they are more likely to write about it and link to it. This is something that is difficult and costly to reproduce, so it gives an excellent chance that they will link to the content. This is a successful method used by SEOmoz. An alternative is to perfect the ‘linkbait’ tactic. Linkbait is, in essence, something interesting enough for someone to link to it. For example, it could be a white paper, a funny YouTube video, a controversial industry blog post, an award, news article, or a free tool. It can be difficult to produce linkbait due to the fact that it is of high quality and still relevant to your business. But, if accomplished, it can lead to several backlinks and significant traffic to your website. At the end of the day, the better the content, the more likely it is to be linked to.
Leveraging social signals for SEO purposes
Social signals can be defined as a collective term encompassing the aggregate of all engagement and activity on social media sites that pertain to a URL. But how are these social signals identified, and how can they link to SEO? These are incredibly complex questions with continuously evolving answers. At this current time there are seven primary ways to identify a social signal, but the one with the biggest impact is also the one that is most hotly contested and discussed, with no definitive answer. Google has stated that they do not use data from Facebook and Twitter in their search ranking algorithms, and are using data from Google+ as a ‘blocked’ source. Despite this, evidence both direct and indirect suggests that Google does in fact take into account activity on Twitter and Facebook. The most direct evidence is from December 2010, when Google and Bing both secured the right to use Twitter data in their search results. Facebook activity is difficult to measure due to its in-house nature, but with almost half of all referral traffic being exposed to social plugins, it is extremely likely that Google Analytics and Search Console are picking up at least some data. Coming back to our original question, it is this contested method of whether Google directly uses an individual site’s social signal as a ranking factor. Despite the evidence suggesting that it does, there are no publicised case studies or statements showing evidence of a causative relationship from activity on Facebook or Twitter onto a change in ranking for a specific URL. So what is the most effective way that social signals can act as a ranking factor moving into 2016? Despite the fact that the visibility of social content has experienced a sharp decline due to complex and evolving search algorithms; it is still the case that the most effective way to create a content or a URL’s exposure is to share it with as many people as possible. Combine this with the fact that traditional link building with spammy tactics is becoming less and less effective. A piece of content that gains traction with hundreds or even thousands of shares will often earn a high volume of organic links, which are by far the strongest and most effective ranking factor. This is something that the client has experienced directly with their blog, as seen on the graph from Ahrefs, showing that as their Facebook activity increased, so did the amount of organic referring domains. While this has been the case with the most successful form of link earning to date – creating a piece of content with natural traction and link earning from shares can be seen as a long term replacement for traditional link building. This is something that will be a greater possibility and more viable strategy as the search algorithms continue to improve their capability to assess quality and relevance of a piece of content.
Sotavento Medios’ Approach to Social Media Integration
Sotavento Digital Marketing Agency Singapore. Sotavento Medios is a Singapore-based digital marketing agency that differentiates itself from others by its deep understanding and belief in the new age digital marketing media and platform, which can help companies to increase brand awareness of their products and services. Sotavento Medios’ core business lies in SEO service. The nature of the business requires understanding from the client what the user will type in the search engine when looking for their products and services, and from there Sotavento will ensure that the client’s webpage will appear on the top pages of the search engine when those particular search terms are typed. This is especially important for companies who understand search marketing and understand the importance of being visible at the right place at the right time.
Best Practices for Effective Social Media and SEO Integration
Utilize social media as an awareness tool and the content as a way to attract high-quality links. In today’s SEO, high-quality, relevant links are key. Content that attracts high-quality links is often the same content that is shared over social media and in various online communities. Write and distribute a great piece of content, and the likelihood of gaining a high-quality link increases. This is also an area where PR and reputation management intersect with SEO and social media. It’s beneficial to take extra care in this area. An inbound marketer may want to read this guide on Link Building and Content for SEO for some more insights on attracting links through content.
Consistent branding of the company’s identity, values, and promises is a must. Make it easy for site visitors to become fans of your social media page by owning a recognizable and memorable logo which is consistent with the look and feel of your website. It can be quite jarring for a user to go from a website to a social media page and not realize it’s the same company. Imagine it’s like landing pages but in reverse. Digital Telepathy has a great write-up on this concept.
This should be viewed as more of a set of guidelines rather than explicit rules. If followed properly, these are likely to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your social media efforts and SEO.
Consistent branding across social media and website
Having a consistent brand identity is important for maintaining a reputable image and fostering brand awareness. It also helps to maintain consistent keyword data which is essential for SEO. A strong social media presence can significantly increase search rankings. The first step is to maintain consistent profile information across all social media and networking sites. Ensure that your company’s ‘about’ descriptions, and key information are uniform and kept up to date. This is crucial in providing brand clarity for users and for reinforcing relevant keyword association. An often overlooked step is the maintenance of consistent brand imagery. Many companies unnecessarily change their social media profile designs regularly which can dilute brand association if not handled carefully. Ensure that profile and background images contain useful brand information or taglines, and try to maintain the same visuals over time. Finally it is important to maintain a consistent brand ‘voice’ or ‘personality’ in social media. Often multiple staff or social media managers may contribute to a company’s social media, and this can cause inconsistency in brand representation. Ensure that all contributors understand the company’s brand positioning and maintain a level of professionalism appropriate to the brand’s identity. As with the brand association, it is important to reinforce keyword association by using verbiage appropriate to the brand. This contributes to relevancy for both social media content and search optimization. For example, a company aiming to represent a ‘fun and friendly’ image might use ‘How’s everyone’s day going? 😊’ to represent the same sentiment as ‘How are you today?’ with different language SEO implications.
Utilizing social media analytics for SEO insights
Using Google Analytics Social Reports to compare last-click and assisted social conversions to site landing pages can provide insight into what content keeps your social audience engaged and what content drives them to your site. This information can be used to adjust social content strategies to lead more users to the site. Social Reports also show which pages receive social referrals and the correlated landing pages for users that were referred from social sites. Use this information to optimize these landing pages to better engage the social audience.
Understanding how your social media audience relates to your site and discovering ways to increase that relatedness is an important part of a marketing channel analysis. However, it’s no secret that social media data and SEO data are disjointed. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have done little to make their content accessible to search engines, and search engine APIs provide virtually no useful data on how content is being shared within their platforms. Google Analytics Social Reports aggregate data from disparate social channels to show how social media activity contributes to website metrics. Social plug-ins from search engines and third parties can be used to track how SEO and social efforts affect one another.
Engaging with influencers and industry leaders on social platforms
The key to success in the digital world is networking with influential players. Social engagement acts as a gateway to a relationship which would otherwise be hard to establish through digital channels. By connecting with industry influencers, these companies can potentially gain a powerful advocate. This advocacy can then lead to a new piece of content hosted on the influencer’s site that is search engine optimized. This content will serve as a double whammy in terms of SEO value. Firstly, the company will receive a backlink for the piece, which is an obvious win in terms of search engine authority. Secondly, the new content can be keyword optimized to compete in organic search with the company’s existing content. If outranking the influencer is a possibility, the company can look into a sharing agreement in which the influencer will share the content to his or her social following in exchange for continued promotion on the company’s part. This shared content will also have high impact, as it’s common knowledge that content shared via social media has a strong implication in search engine rankings. Once a strong connection is made with a particular influencer, they can collaborate on a variety of promotion tactics such as PPC social ads and Facebook sponsored content. Through all these efforts, it’s important to note that relations with industry influencers are best implemented and maintained by a strong social media presence. While direct communication methods such as email are effective, the casual nature of social media interaction will help solidify the relationship in the long term. In closing, there is a strong synergy between social media and search engine optimization when it comes to influencer relations. The content created through said relations can be highly optimized and quite beneficial to organic search aims – this in mind, the initial outreach through social media interaction is the first step to what can be a very prosperous relationship.
Monitoring and responding to customer feedback on social media
When responding to feedback, timely responses are always best; however, it is more important to first determine the right action. Ensure that the course of action you take is the best one for your consumers and for the long-term success of your brand. Depending on the nature of the feedback given, it is often best to respond on a one-to-one basis with the individual who provided the feedback. This makes the consumer feel appreciated and understood, and it also prevents any unnecessary public discussion of issues that could be damaging to your brand. Always act with the intent of creating a positive outcome, and if you are successful, use the situation as a case study to share with your team on how to turn a negative into a positive. Finally, it is sometimes appropriate to communicate changes or solutions to issues with your community to ensure that they are informed and that the changes have been well received.
When monitoring feedback on social media, it’s important for companies to keep in mind the broader context of what they are hearing. This means looking past specific comments and gaining an understanding of the attitudes being expressed by the community as a whole. Only by achieving a clear understanding of consumer sentiment can a company begin to take steps towards acting upon the feedback they receive. Sometimes the feedback given will be unsolicited and off the mark, but it is at other times insightful and constructive. All feedback should be appreciated as it is an opportunity to learn and grow. Use feedback to build a better understanding of your consumers and improve the products, services, and experience you offer. This understanding should be used to set priorities and make decisions on changes to various areas.
