Even though social media and SEO are viewed as separate entities under the umbrella of digital marketing, social media should be an intrinsic part of any SEO campaign. Despite the fact that Google has categorically stated that social signals are not a direct search engine ranking factor, social media does have a significant impact on SEO which ultimately contributes to improved rankings. As an SEO marketing company will know, not only does an effective social media strategy help to improve your brand’s visibility and awareness but it also helps to drive more organic traffic to your site, build quality links and generate high engagement rates with your target audience.
If you have been keeping abreast of all the current trends in digital marketing, then you are aware of the term, content is king. The main aim of search engines is to provide users with the most relevant content in the search results. If your content is deemed relevant and useful to users by the search engine bots, then it will be given priority enabling your site to rank higher.
Social media offers you a platform to promote your content to a wider audience. You might strive to produce stellar quality and keyword-optimized content, but without a proper channel for reaching out to your target audience, then the content might be of minimal use. When you post great content on social media, your followers will share the content with their followers and friends and the cycle continues. People will provide links to your content and this helps to capture external links.
Authoritative sites also use social media. If several authoritative sites come across your content and link back to it, your credibility and authority are greatly enhanced leading to a higher ranking. When it comes to link building, having a high number of backlinks doesn’t do you much good rather the quality of the links. Social media provides you with a platform where you can easily capture quality external links from authority websites. Without social media, achieving this feat can be a monumental task.
With a strong social media standing, you are able to increase the number of branded searches related to your website. Targeting branded searches is an effective technique for generating qualified leads. Branded searches are searches that include the name of your brand or other brand-related terms. Since people will be more aware of your brand’s name and what it offers, they’ll conduct more specific searches to get to your site.
The following section looks at some of the tips on how to use social media in your SEO campaign.
Build Your Following
Your social media following and influence does not directly affect your search engine ranking. However, having a huge social media following ultimately translates to a higher search engine ranking. It may be a bit difficult to wrap your head around the above statements but it’s as easy as that. When you post to a large audience, your content will have more shares and will be seen by a large number of people. In effect, it’ll have more backlinks from other websites and it’ll also be able to capture more quality links from authority sites. These increased number of backlinks is what helps to improve your ranking.
Optimize Your Posts For Search
Nowadays, keywords are not only important for website content. Considering the recent partnership between Google and Twitter, it is highly likely that your posts will appear in the search results. Optimizing your posts for search ensures that your tweets appear in Google’s search engine. Google bots crawl social media sites as they do websites. Optimized social media posts will help to enhance your brand’s authority.
Social media platforms also have search engines, optimizing your posts help users searching through social media to find your content. If the content is relevant and useful to them they’ll end up sharing it and linking back to it, hence, more people will end up visiting your site.
Include Links In Your Social Media Profiles
As discussed earlier, Google puts more value in links from quality authority websites. Social media sites are considered high-value authority sites. Including links that direct users to your website in your social media channel helps to improve your authority in search engines. Social media platforms help you to capture lots of quality links since your profile will be viewed by many users. This significantly boosts your rankings in the search engines.
Focus On Posting Quality And Engaging Content
Content marketing is essential in digital marketing. The content you post should be of value to your target audience. The content should also motivate the audience to engage more with your brand. If you constantly post relevant and useful content, your followers will keep coming back for more while sharing with their friends. Your brand will start receiving more attention and people will be interested in learning more about you and what you offer.
Viral Content Rapidly Gets You More Shares
Viral content is one of the main reasons most social media marketing campaigns are a huge success. One has to be very creative and keep up with the current trends and happenings. Your brand will be exposed to a wide audience within a short period of time. In addition, earning thousands of shares helps to enhance your authority in the search engines.
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