Social Media and SEO used to be considered two separate things. SEO
helped people find you on search. Social Media helped you better engage
them. SEO purists believed that one had no real impact on the other.
This is no longer the case.
Social networking now influences search results to a fairly
significant extent. It draws traffic to a website and the more traffic
it brings, the bigger the impact on the website’s search rank. But the
topic of this article looks at another aspect of this dynamic
relationship between SEO and Social Media – the fact that people are now
using the search function of their preferred Social Networks to find a
business.
In the following article I provide a few tips on how to optimize your online businesses presence for Social Media search:
Build Your Brand on Primary Social Networks
I can’t even begin to provide Social SEO tips unless your business
first has a brand profile on the primary Social Networks. Millions of
users are searching for businesses everyday while logged into their
Social Networks. If they don’t find you on there, they’ll find a
competitor who is. Be sure to use your brand name when creating the page
on each of these networks:
* Facebook (essential)
* Twitter (essential)
* Google Plus (essential)
* LinkedIn (essential for B2B businesses)
* Pinterest and/or Instagram (important)
If you don’t have a brand page on all of the above (including either
Pinterest or Instagram), stop reading here and come back as soon as you
do.
Put Social Media Icons on Your Website’s Home Page
In addition to improving the visibility in the eyes of the public
that you have your Social Media in order, search algorithms like to see
that your website – the most trusted representation of your brand – is
pointing links towards your Social Network brand pages. Place the Social
Media links on your home page AND on all pages under your website’s
menu.
Use Social Sharing Plug-ins on Your Website
Allow users on your website the opportunity to Comment, Like, Share,
+1, and Follow on practically every page of your website using Social
Media plug-ins provided by all of the major Social Networks. The days of
the old “comment box” are done and have been replaced by Facebook
comments. The more public interaction with your brand that is visible on
Social, the better your chances for being found on Social Network
search.
Use Your Brand Name on Every Post
Let Social Network Search see that every topic (related to your
industry) you post on is connected to your brand name. Using a Realtor
as an example, instead of posting “Great Home Staging Tips” they should
post “Great Home Staging Tips by ABC Realty.” As well, if the
informative post gets shared by users, you don’t want your brand name to
get lost in the message. Always perform a mental check for your brand
name before clicking the Post, Comment, Pin, or Share button.
Get Liked, Followed, Shared, Repinned
This goes without saying but still needs to be said because many
businesses still feel that setting up their Social Media is enough in
itself. If you want to get found on Social Network Search for your type
of business and reap the financial rewards then you need to embark on
campaigns that get your Likes, Follows, Shares, and Repins up. This will
require some clever Social Media Marketing but it’s worth the
investment.
Conclusion
Covering your bases by optimizing your Social Media for Search will
not only help with your Search rank within each network, it will affect
your overall SEO and rank on Google as well. The better you are doing on
Social Network Search the better you will do on Google Search in the
long run.