Different online marketing strategies have become more interconnected than ever. One important example is the merging of SEO and social media marketing strategies.
Around the turn of the century, online marketers were heavily focused on using search engine optimization to reach new customers. Their SEO-centric strategies made a lot of sense at the time, because few other quality online marketing channels were available and it was much easier for websites to rank for valuable keywords than it is today.
The world has changed drastically since then. SEO is still a valuable element of online marketing. Around 51% of all web traffic comes from search engines and conversion rates from organic search traffic tend to be higher than most other sources.
However, focusing entirely on search engine optimization is not a particularly effective approach anymore. It takes months or years to rank on the front page on Google. Also, sites that are entirely focused on SEO don’t tend to rank well, because they don’t have the engagement factors that Google is looking for.
Christopher L. Bower, Managing Director of a digital marketing company in Detroit has stated that combining SEO and social media is more important than ever.
“Standalone online marketing strategies are no longer viable in the digital marketing space,” Bower said. “It is important to implement comprehensive strategies that fuse previously distinct marketing disciplines. The days of having a marketing agency specialize in SEO or social media are a distant memory.”
He shared some things that you need to think about when merging your SEO and social media marketing tactics.
While your social media strategy can bolster your SEO efforts, the opposite is also true. You can get a lot more traction out of your social media profiles by making sure they are properly optimized for search engines.
People often discover your website through social media before finding it on Google. Part of the reason for this is that your social media profiles can easily rank for more competitive keywords a lot more quickly than your own website will. Facebook is currently ranking for 350.8 million keywords on Google. YouTube comes in at a close second, ranking for 344 million keywords on Google.
You should be able to get a lot more visibility for your brand if you make sure that your social media profiles are optimized for Google search. You can start off by targeting some long-tail keywords and building links to your profile and specific social media pages. You can go after more competitive keywords as you get more links to your social content.
Backlinks are a very important part of SEO. Unfortunately, earning quality backlinks is a lot more difficult than it used to be.
Fortunately, it is still possible to turn quality links. Social media offers a number of useful linkbuilding strategies. Some ways that you can earn links through social media platforms include:
- You can join Facebook and Pinterest groups dedicated to bloggers in your niche. Tailwind Tribes is a great example of a platform that you can use to connect with Pinterest marketers. The goal of these groups is usually to share each other‘s content on social media, but you can usually work out reciprocal linking agreements or offer just posting opportunities to each other.
- You can use your social media profiles to push viral, linkbait content. This content might get reception from other bloggers and media outlets that will link to it.
- Some social media platforms offer high-quality dofollow backlinks. Tumblr is a great example. If you share links to your content in your Tumblr profiles, then you will earn a new link every time that content is shared.
- You can easily generate a lot of nofollow links to your content from Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube and other social media platforms. Although it might sound odd to focus on earning nofollow links, they certainly serve their purpose. They show Google that you have a lot of link diversity and a more natural link profile, which will help you rank better. These are important social signals Google considers. In other words, even though it was the links don’t directly help, they will be beneficial to your SEO in the long-term.
Social media can be great for coming up with quality content that will rank better
Your social media community will also be a great source for quality content. You will get a better sense of the types of content that they are looking for through your engagements with them.
You can often get your community to help provide content directly, such as by asking them to complete polls or even giving quotes that you would like to share in blog posts or videos. You can even create social media contests and ask for video and graphic submissions to include on your website.
Content that is inspired by your social media engagements will rank higher, because it will be easier to create longer form, detailed posts that google prioritizes these days. This content will also probably be more engaging, which is also important with modern search algorithms.
