Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process of improving your website to increase its visibility in search engines. It has become a tried and true digital marketing technique that can increase targeted traffic to your website.
The goal of SEO is to increase visits to your website by ensuring that the content on your website aligns with what users are looking for on search engines. To achieve that, marketers use strategies like keyword optimization and backlink building.
On the other hand, social media marketing focuses on creating a solid presence and engaging with your audience through compelling content and interactions on popular social media platforms.
Combining social media marketing and SEO can elevate your brand’s online presence.
In this article, we uncover how social media and SEO can positively impact your online visibility and share social SEO tips that will help your business stand out.
5 Reasons Social SEO is Important for Your Brand
The relationship between social media and SEO is an indirect one. Your social media activity can signal search engines about your brand’s relevance, authority, and popularity. These signals indirectly influence your website’s search engine rankings and overall SEO performance.
For example, you share content on your social media profile and include the link to your website. If your followers click the link, your site will experience a significant increase in traffic.
The spikes in traffic will signal search engine bots that your website might have useful and relevant information that people are interested in.
By scanning your content for relevance and authoritativeness of the content, Google can determine a site’s ranking. And as a result, you can rank higher on the search engine results page (SERP).
Now that we established the link between social media and SEO let’s dive into reasons why social SEO is important for your brand.
1. Increases Visibility and Brand Awareness
Social SEO involves optimizing your social media profile by including the most relevant keywords in your niche in your profile title and description. This way, you ensure that your brand’s social profile appears on search results, increasing your visibility and building brand awareness.
One effective area this social SEO strategy helps is with specific branded keywords. For instance, a Google search for Sony Music shows us the brand’s Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook pages.
Social media platforms like Pinterest can also appear on search engine result pages when users type in relevant search terms and the social profiles are optimized.
For instance, if you Google the search phrase “how to style a long skirt,” you’ll see a Pinterest curation among the results on the first page:
To find the best keywords for SEO relevant to your brand, you can use tools like Google Keywords Planner or Surfer SEO. Enter the primary keyword phrase to uncover other related keywords. Then, include them in key places such as social post descriptions and image alt texts.
2. Builds Customer Relationships and Trust
Reposting your content on social channels is a great opportunity to nurture customer relationships.
Social media lets you initiate strong relationships with your audience. Fostering customer relationships won’t just help you boost Instagram followers, increase TikTok comments, and enhance Facebook shares. It can also help you build trust with them, resulting in these customers also promoting your brand for you.
In cases where customers have had a good experience with your brand, they won’t hesitate to share positive feedback on social media. Here’s an example of some positive social reviews of Huda Beauty on Twitter:
The result is that you can ensure more engaged audiences that are likely to go and explore your site as well. As we’ve seen, this sudden boost in traffic can help enhance your SEO indirectly. With your site potentially ranking in SERPs, you can further enhance that trust you’ve already built with potential customers. People consider the sites that rank high in search results credible. Over two-thirds of all clicks go to the highest-ranking search results.
Ultimately, thanks to the trust and relationships built with prospective customers by combining social media and SEO, you can boost your sales.
Take advantage of social SEO this way by collaborating with social media influencers or encouraging user-generated content with relevant hashtags and brand mentions. Both tactics will go a long way to helping you build relationships and foster trust with your target audience.
3. Drives Traffic and Conversions
As we briefly mentioned, using social media is a great way to direct traffic to your website for SEO and conversions.
You can do this in many ways. Why not share links to your site’s longer pieces of content or specific offers and products on social media?
You can refer your followers to a helpful article on your website such as a how-to guide or a frequently asked questions (FAQs) page. You can also direct customers to the product or service page they’re interested in. This is a universal technique that works whether you sell ebooks, physical products, or software solutions.
Also, social platforms like Instagram have a shop feature that allows you to share products from your website. When they click a product on the social platform, they are redirected to your site. Essentially, that’s more traffic for you. Here’s an example from Nodspark:
Another strategic way to improve your website traffic with social SEO is to add a link to your website in your bio, just like you see in the image above. This ensures that people who are interested in your products have easy access to your offer.
4. Boosts Website Authority
Backlinks are links that come to your website and are an essential part of SEO. The amount and quality of these links show search engines that your website has authority and relevance in your niche. As a result, these search engines rank you higher in search engine results pages, ultimately giving your brand more exposure.
Social media is a great way to share your web content on social media sites. And because social media platforms support sharing, other users can easily repost the content when it’s useful and relevant.
Check out how Ogilvy, for instance, reposts site content from The Lacek Group:
Ultimately, with social media, it’s easier to get discovered by other websites that may want to link back to your site content.
You can also take the approach used by SaaS link building agencies to reach out to other websites instead of waiting for them to find you. When these see that you’re creating high-quality content that can benefit their audiences, they will likely link to it.
But when acquiring backlinks, avoid low-quality websites that are spammy or not credible. Look for high-quality websites that create valuable content based on relevant keywords that your target audience will find helpful.
Consider reputable websites like news outlets, educational blog sites, or brands with established topical authority. You can use the Moz or Ahrefs domain authority scores to determine the sites you want to build backlinks from. Ideally, you want a site with a Moz DA of at least 50 or Ahrefs DR of at least 60. This can significantly boost your website’s authority and improve your SEO rankings.
5. Increases Content Reach
Social SEO helps amplify your content’s reach by leveraging the vast user base of search engines and of social networks, and social platforms’ sharing capabilities.
When you promote your brand on social media and, ultimately, potentially secure a top ranking for your site in SERPs, you end up reaching more people with your brand content. The more people you reach, the more potential customers for you.
You can follow the best practices I shared with you to drive website traffic and conversions (see tip number three).
If you don’t have time to create site content or social posts, you can easily leverage generative AI tools like Writer. These tools can help you create on-brand content that sparks your reader’s interest.
You can also use social media to look for trending topics and create content based on what you find. This will help increase your content reach on the social platform (social media users search for trending topics, after all), also for the best website SEO results.
Measuring Success
To make sure your social SEO strategy works, you need to measure results. To do this, track metrics such as traffic, CTR, time spent on the page, or conversions.
To track your website’s SEO performance, use Google Search Console and Google Analytics. Social networks also have built-in analytics tools and can track metrics such as engagement, impressions, or reach.
You can constantly monitor with analytics tools to adjust your social SEO strategy.
Conclusion
Social SEO can be a powerful tool. It combines social media and traditional SEO techniques to enhance your online presence.
Social SEO can help you increase brand awareness, build customer trust and improve your website traffic. It can also help you enhance your website authority and boost your content reach.
As a final tip, take advantage of useful analytics tools to measure your success. You’ll need to know what works and what doesn’t so you can revamp your social SEO efforts if needed.
Now it’s time to leverage the power of social SEO for your brand. Good luck!