How SEO and Social Media Intersect

Have you ever thought about how social media impacts SEO or vice versa? If not, start moving it to the front of your mind. Search engine optimization (SEO) and social media are two very different marketing channels, but they have complementary effects on one another. Here we explore how the two intersect and how you can use this power duo to your advantage.

What is SEO?

First, let's take a step back and provide a simple definition of what SEO is. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing the quality and quantity of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. Organic search engine results are the listings on a search engine results page that appear because of factors such as relevance to the search term and how effective your SEO efforts are. An example of your SEO efforts working well is if your site, blog, product, etc., is on a search engine’s first results page, especially on the top of the first page (without you having to pay for it to be there).

How do SEO and social media intersect?

These two marketing tactics are able to intertwine with each other in the sense that you need to be developing quality content on all of the social media channels that you have. One part of this is that you want to make sure you are reputable on social media. Here is where quality over quantity comes into play. Producing relevant content for your social profiles that's genuine, make sense, and is what your target audience wants to see should be your main goal. This way, you can naturally become more and more reputable and gain followers who hit your target demographic. When you are crafting your social posts across channels, be sure they are optimized for search as well. Think about aligning your posts with the keyword research you have done. Some ways you can optimize for search is by adding a relevant image, including a link to your website, and publishing well-written content that clearly communicates necessary information to your followers.

The second part of this is you want to make sure your content—whether it’s from your website, blog, or social media posts—is being shared. If you notice that your content is being shared a lot by different people in different ways, then kudos to you because this means what you are creating is quality work! This is what you want to aim for. Shares, likes, retweets, and so on, are all important, and search engines notice them and start to rely on social proof rather than backlinks to rank your site. Gaining social proof is important if you want to be known in the social media world. Having social proof demonstrates that people trust you, your brand, your content, and the message you are sending out. The bottom line here is that all of the quality content you are producing should be easily shareable. A tip to make sure your content is getting out there is to have social sharing buttons on content you want to go out to the social world. Your website should also contain links to all of your social media channels and keep your branding and messaging unified.

The advantages?

I’m calling this the power duo because by following the above tactics, your search engine visibility will increase. Who doesn’t want that? Combining these two powerful resources can bring more qualified traffic to your website and social channels. It’s also likely that if your posts are optimized and the content you have is SEO-friendly, people will be able to find you faster and easier.

Always keep in the back of your mind that even though SEO and social media are different marketing techniques, combining them and creating a strategy can be very beneficial to your business! Optimize away!