6 Social Media Practices that Boost SEO

SEO and social media marketing are organic, inbound tactics that work collectively to develop an attractive identity that naturally entices visitors. Since social media depends on a visible, strong brand presence and high-quality content, your search engine optimization efforts may improve your social media reach. Simultaneously, your social media presence may extensively increase your search rankings.

Unfortunately, many search marketers omit the details when talking about how social media can impact, and boost your Google rankings. This leaves social media marketers questioning whether their tactics are reliable. 

To fix this, here is a compiled list of 6 social media strategies that are proven to improve your SEO effectively. 

1. Growing your followers

The total number of connections and followers your social media profiles have determines your rankings. A business with a hundred Twitter followers will not get nearly the ranking bonus of a mega-company having one million Twitter followers and one million Facebook likes. But there are a few stipulations to this; Google can detect the quality of your followers, which means purchasing a hundred-thousand proxy Twitter followers is not going to do a lot for your overall rankings. Rather, you will have to build your following organically.

It is a slow process when it comes to growing your number of followers, but highly-effective provided that you are consistent. You should present your brand consistently and uniquely, with the use of the same voice to update your prospects every day. Post general discussion items, helpful tips, relevant content, open inquiries, then follow up with your readers by engaging with them in discussion directly. Direct client engagements and discussions are the answer to building and retaining a huge, engaging following because they motivate current followers to come back and help grow your authority for new, prospective followers.

2. Locally-optimized content

Local communities are advised to improve the search engine optimization by updating copy associated with the business. The business engages in local events to boost the brand's popularity. Any content on the social media by the local communities improves the SEO. Local optimization consists of engaging festivals and also the locals to remark on the social media, thus helping to make the brand popular, says Denny, author and SEO expert at thealmostdone.

3. Influencing social sharing

Social sharing plays an important role in a brand’s authority a lot in the same manner that external links do. To search engine such as Google, any sign of a verifiable external source authenticating your content or your brand is grounds for a little improvement in domain authority. So, if you can get five individuals to share your Facebook post, that is terrific; however, if you can get a thousand people to share it that is far better. Retweets, favorites, likes, replies, and shares all count toward this increased authority.

The best method to encourage greater social sharing is to attract it directly. For instance, you can provide a particular reward for those sharing your article, such as an entry into a drawing for a big prize. You can also carry out engaging surveys that encourage people to “like” an article if they agree with you on something, or if they are excited about seeing particular kinds of new articles. The most exciting part of this technique is that it is a self-perpetuating cycle; the more your content is shared, the more new followers you will win, and the more you have, the more shares you will obtain.

4. Encouraging external inbound links

Social media is also beneficial since it encourages more external websites to link to your articles, and the more varied external links you have, the more authority you will gain in the eyes of Google. Obviously, the catch to this is you should have high-quality, authoritative articles to start with. 

For this reason, social media serves just as a broadcast channel. Your copy, assuming it is useful and original, will work as bait, and your social channels will function as fishing poles, placing the bait in front of the right eyes. For your initial rounds of syndication, you can use hashtags to gain visibility, and you should not hesitate to bring your copy into existing conversations and threads. This will boost your social popularity as an authoritative leader; however, more importantly, it is going to maximize your potential external link sources.

5. Optimizing your content for searches

This technique also depends on the pre-existing copy; however, it opens a secondary channel for search. Along with news Knowledge Graph entries and news articles, Google also tends to prefer social media updates in the top parts of its search engine results pages (SERPs). It is an important, short-term position you can achieve by ensuring your content is optimized for the opportunity.

To start with, you will require a strong anchor for your article. That may be a link to a full-detailed article, a video, or even an infographic. 

Whatever it is, it will work as your foundation, and you have to title it in a correct, descriptive manner. After that, when you post it, you should frame your foundation using text that is optimized for a specific kind of search. For instance, if you have put together a detailed post on best practices for making gingerbread, you can frame it with a specific query such as “Have you ever asked yourself how to make the perfect gingerbread?” You can also toss seasonal key phrases into the mix to make the most of your timeliness and your probability of coming up in search results, says Jayson DeMers Founder & CEO of AudienceBloom.

6. Increasing the awareness of the brand

This might appear like more of a branding benefit than a specific SEO benefit; however, the SEO advantage is important. Using social media to increase your reputation, through high-quality content syndication and increased engagement will result in increased online brand presence. This will result in more branded searches on Google, and the more searches your brand gets, the higher it is likely to rank for non-branded keywords. It is a complex relationship; however, it starts with having a powerful and effective brand presence on social media and concludes with higher search visibility across the board. There is no specific approach to improve your authority aside from giving your to audience a quality experience; however, that is where it all starts.