In the pre-social media days, it was okay with marketers to rely only on SEO, but since the time social media has made its mark in our lives; marketers have to include it in their SEO strategy. There must not be any second thought because it is beyond any doubt that social media impacts SEO. There is always a debate going on about the uncertainty surrounding social signals and the way search engines use it for search rankings. Although it is not clearly known how social signals can be beneficial for earning good ranks in search results, there is another reason why you must take social media into cognizance when creating SEO strategies. The focus of SEO is on building organic traffic by increasing visibility in search results in an organic way. And, according to the experts at Kotton Grammer Media Orlando SEO, the social media behave like search engines.
Giving too much emphasis to search rankings coupled with Google’s admission that it does not use social signals as a factor for rankings is the reason why people get confused in using social media alongside SEO. If you take a fresh look at the marketing objectives and see beyond search rankings, you could discover a new perspective of using the social media for SEO. You want to drive traffic to your website, build trust and authority, grow your brand equity, convert web traffic into sales and provide better user experience by serving them exceptionally well. The social media and SEO when executed separately can both play essential roles in attaining these objectives and when you couple these, the results could be simply exceptional.
The togetherness of social media and SEO
Since 80% searches happen on Google and other search engines, people construe that these are the only search engines available. All SEO strategies revolve around the conventional search engines. However, the intelligent marketer would know that even beyond Google, Bing. Yahoo etc. there is another set of search engines that are no less effective than the traditional ones. If you look at YouTube, you will discover that it is also a search engine, second largest just after Google. Moreover, being a video platform, it generates almost 1.5 times the organic traffic as compared to search engines. If you do not include the social media in your SEO strategy, you deny yourself of a large chunk of organic traffic.
You can make your SEO much stronger by exploiting the powers of social media in driving traffic, increasing your web influence and promoting your content. Start using the social media to gain mileage in SEO and give it some time for results to show up just as you would do for SEO. Since marketers often turn restless with social media in their eagerness for quick results, almost half of them consider social media difficult marketing activity.
To know more about why you must give more time and attention to social media keep reading this article.
Indexable content on social media
Your target is to attract viewers to your website content which is possible when search engines crawl sites. Similarly, search engines also crawl social media content but do not go through each and every piece of content as it does for websites. However, the possibility of gaining visibility from social media content remains quite high, and marketers must take advantage of this aspect. The indexed pages of social media appear in search results especially for searches made for brand names or individual names. In addition, it has now come to light that the social media content can accelerate the indexing of website pages. Search engines will quickly index content that gains popularity on the social media as it receives more shares and links and the viral potential of content provides immense opportunities.
Link building is social proof
Links are social proofs responsible for earning good ranks in search results. The links you receive from some resource are like votes cast in your favor because the voter has found your website content valuable. Therefore, more links translate into more influence and authority of sites in organic searches. Higher authority means higher ranks as it has a clear relation to Google's search algorithm. Since Google recognizes social proof as a sign of the website’s good quality, the links that emanate from it are above scrutiny as it is of genuine quality. Therefore, being on the social media would only generate more favorable links that not only push up search rankings but also drive organic traffic to websites.
Social media can boost local SEO
If you have the interest of doing business in the local market, then you must adopt local SEO and include it in your SEO strategy. Local SEO is important because it has high conversion prospects as research shows that 50% of local searchers who use smartphones visit a store on the same day. The salient feature of local searches is that these are location-based searches and searchers have an immediate need. It raises the prospects of quick conversion as searchers are likely to take immediate action. You can use the social media to boost local SEO by including the location and even the city and zip code in social media content. You can even provide directions for reaching your business and include CTA in the media posts.
Social media influence demonstrates authority
The value of a web page or a domain indicates its authority which is a significant SEO factor. More is the authority of a web page higher search rankings it earns. The backlinks to the domain and the quality of content together determine the authority. Since the social media plays a vital role in building links and distributing content, it plays a dominant role in determining authority. Spreading more influence across the social media will enhance your authority as it also helps to establish the relevance of the brand and content to viewers. To take a more people-centric approach to SEO by getting up close and personal with the audience, you have to make the best use of the social media platform.
