How to Use Social Media to Optimise Your Search Results

 

What does social media have to do with your SEO?

A lot as it happens.

Everyone online wants to stand out and this includes both search engines and social media channels alike.

You need both social media and search engine optimization to succeed online.  

It's understandable that SEO can look like a long and complicated process, with algorithms, and keywords. While you're trying to create content to get enough traction online.  It looks like a never ending task just to be seen.

Don't despair!

Social media is more than just a place for pinning your content and images.  You need to have the knowledge to know how to build your own brand and really earn the trust of your audience.  Able to show what you can do for others, and drive traffic to your website at the same time.

We're going to look at how your social media SEO can improve your overall SEO.

Why Social Media is Important for SEO

Social media is one of the key factors in search engine ranking online, and not unlike SEO, popularity is the name of the game.

The Critical Importance of Social Media to SEO

The idea of SEO is to be seen in the search results of search engines, especially Google.  Social media SEO works in the same way, the more followers and likes you get the more chance you have of being seen.

That doesn't mean you need to be making videos on TikTok or YouTube. 

Social Media Channels and Search Engines Operate in the Same Way

All social media channels use keywords and hashtags to categorise information.  Hashtags can also be used in account profiles to help people engage with each other.

Let's take a look at how social media is similar to SEO:

• Over 50% of people using social media search for products.
• Normal users prefer other people's products to those of celebrities.
• Over 70% of users who have tried a brand via social media will recommend products to their own friends and family.

Social media can engage people through posts, questions and polls, in ways normal SEO can only dream of.  This gives users a direct link to their audience, as well as valuable insight into how their audience thinks and what it wants.

All of this information goes towards improving what you have on offer, whether it be books, products or information, you can target your audience

The Power of Social Media on SEO

Take a look at five points that show the power of social media on SEO.

1. Widens content reach, enabling you to reach more people, and pushing your blog posts up in the rankings.
2. Build your online presence with exposure that ensures your name appears in more search results.
3. Gives your name the trust and credibility it needs to support your online reputation.
4. Builds natural links to your website that will earn you SEO friendly inbound links.

All of the above points happen organically and help boost your SEO ranking often without you even realising it.  

Helping your website to appear in more searches, and in turn helping search engines index your tweets which can help your website to appear in search results.

Are Social Signs a Ranking Factor With Google?

What are social signs?

Any engagement a brand/business receives from social media is classed as a social sign.  These include likes, comments, retweets.

Yes Google does look at your social media accounts for the validity of your website or brand, but it will normally look at your NAP (name, address and phone number).

Google is pretty thorough when it comes to checking your details, so make sure your email, and website address are all up-to-date and not fake.  Otherwise Google may suspect suspicious behaviour and put you at the bottom of the pile or worse.

With so many fake profiles on platforms like Twitter, Google doesn't bother looking into someone's social media account profile to see if it's trustworthy.

Google won't take into account the fact your social media profile has had a lot of shares, instead it looks at website traffic, volume and frequency.

What About Other Search Engines?

Bing does use social signals to rank websites and utilise social media accounts to verify a person's credibility online.  If an account happens to get a lot of shares via social media, Bing's algorithm takes this as a good sign and ranks the website user high in its rankings. 

How to Improve Your SEO Ranking With Social Media

We're going to look at five points that will help optimise your SEO by using social media.

1. Use Social Media to Amplify Your Content Outreach

Unfortunately not all of your content is going to reach the first few pages of Google Search, it just doesn't work that way.

You also need to know that over 25% of people will click on the first result they see on Google Search, and 75% of people will only read the first page and no further.

This makes your chances of showing up in the first few pages of Google Search slim to none.  Which sounds really depressing.

Even with the best writing in the world all of your hard work feels like it's slowly going to waste because nobody is reading it.  Imagine all of those images, blog posts and all of the products you have on your website, and nobody is going to see any of them.

But this is the silver lining to that big grey cloud.  You need another way of being discovered, of enabling your content to be on that first page of Google Search, and any other search engine for that matter.  Social media to the rescue.

• Every time you share a post on social media it draws in traffic.
• The more traffic that comes to your website, the bigger the bell is sounding to Google Search, telling it your website is worth reading.
• Your blog posts will be ranked more quickly, pushing you further up the list of indexing.
• Your social media posts will be targeting a specific audience which also brings in potential opportunities in the future.
• You can post all of your blog posts old and new, which means your older posts will still get a regular look in.

All of this mounts up in a big way in the eyes of Google, it means people are taking notice of your website, which equals more visitors and more page views. 

2. Use Social Media to Spread Brand Love

It doesn't matter who you are online, people need to know who you are and what you have to offer them.

Organic SEO will help your website be found through keywords and other optimisation strategies, social media will really take it to another level.

Through:

• Influencer marketing, using specific hashtags for your business or brand.
• If you make a video for YouTube or TikTok and people really like it your brand will go viral.
• You can use your own branded hashtags to gently nudge people to share with their own friends and family.
• Social media can be used to hear from customers or readers who really liked your product or books, helping you amplify your outreach online.
• Use commenting on other businesses and brand's social media posts to get more engagement from your followers.
• Use hashtags on your posts and profile to gain more exposure.

All of these points drive traffic which in turn boost your SEO.

The more people that share and view your posts on social media, the more you become visible online and on other platforms when people start spreading your links around.

All of these people are more likely to come back to your website and visit again and again because they know what to expect, because they've been getting it from social media.

3. Use Social Media to Build Trust

If someone trusts you they'll buy from you, or look at whatever you have to offer them, and it's essential to your growth online.

• Did you know that social proof is a huge thing these days?  Receiving good reviews and testimonials scores you and your business brownie points with Google.
• Over 50% of social media users will do their own research about a brand or business using social media platforms.
• You can use your social media channels to highlight your expertise, showing people how helpful you are as an authority online.
• The more people see that you are trustworthy, the more they'll share your content on their own social media channels.

People want to know the far end of everything, and they want to know that what you're offering them is unique and useful.

They want to know if you're environmentally friendly.  Or how you treat your customers and employees, and what really makes you tick.

Showing your personal life on your website can feel uncomfortable, but on social media you can show snippets of your life, and give your brand a human face.

4. Use Social Media for Link Building

Backlinks still remain a big part of SEO.

If other websites are approving yours and they have a lot of authority themselves then you know you're getting somewhere.

The more you share the more chances you have of getting this kind of inbound linking to your website.

Every person that shares your content has the potential to create an inbound link that will really boost your SEO juice, and it's all thanks to social media.

How Social Media Compliments Your SEO

By concentrating on both your SEO and your social media you kill two birds with one stone.  You get to know what your audience is thinking about, and what they like or want.

So overall it's a win-win situation.

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Read more:

The Essential Guide to SEO for Writers

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