Site visibility is part and parcel of a good SEO strategy. The more often your site appears in front of your audience, the better.
Increasingly, your audience is on social media. In fact, the average adult spent more than 5 hours per week engaging on social media in 2016. That’s nearly a quarter of the time they spend on all media.
If you want to draw more eyes to your site, you need to get social with your SEO strategy.
Read on to learn how social media can help you increase your SEO visibility.
How Social Media Boosts Your SEO Visibility
It Improves Your Appearance
One of the main tenets of SEO is that user-friendly, authentic content should rank the highest in search results. While the relationship between authenticity and social media isn’t one-to-one—meaning more shares don’t directly translate into a better rank—many businesses use their social presence to signal their good intentions to search engines.
A good standing on social media can provide that signal to search engines. They may look at how many people you follow, how many follow you, and how frequently you interact to get a better understanding of your site and its content.
After all, spam sites are less likely to garner a big following on social media. If your social media audience is robust and healthy, it’s a good indication that you’re sharing quality content.
It Generates More External Backlinks
Social media can help cast a wider net for your content. Every time a member of your audience encounters a link to your site on social and shares it on their own blog, Google notices.
Backlinks are an important tool for encouraging greater SEO visibility—as long as they come from reputable sources. Good backlinks can:
- Improve your site’s relevance
- Indicate higher popularity
- Encourage more frequent indexing
Indexing is the process web crawlers use to collect and save the information on your site. The more frequently Google indexes your site, the better your search results will be.
It Encourages More Searches
If you manage to drum up more interest in your brand through your social presence, you’re likely to encourage more searches for your latest blog post, your product, or your business name.
A larger number of organic searches can do a lot for your SEO visibility.
Social Media Strategies That Will Improve Your SEO Visibility
Build Your Brand’s Presence
The first step to harnessing the power of social is to build a strong brand presence across all of your channels.
First, you need to ensure that your message and appearance are consistent with your brand’s core values. Next, try tweaking how you present yourself on each individual channel based on the different demographics that use it.
For instance, if you’re posting on Facebook, gear your content toward the site’s biggest demographic: Millennial and Gen X women. If you’re updating your LinkedIn profile, keep in mind that your viewers are high-salary and business-oriented. If you’re looking to build a brand following among users under age 35, Instagram is the place to do it.
Finally, set up a content strategy and stick to it. Plan the topics you want to cover in advance, post regularly, and share often.
Attract an Audience
To really feel the positive effects of social media, you’ll need to build a large audience.
Depending on how much of a presence you currently have, that may mean starting with the basics. Add social links to your site and share your presence across every channel.
If you’ve already started building an audience but growth has stalled, try some of these tactics:
- Share higher quality content
- Post more frequently
- Switch up your format to include pictures and videos
- Cross-promote wherever possible
- Follow and engage with other users
- Tap your real-world network to help you get the word out
Work with Influencers
When it comes to attracting quality backlinks, few tactics work better than engaging with influencers on social media.
Influencers are individuals or brands who could be considered subject matter experts on your topic of choice. They have a healthy social following, a great site rank, and top-notch SEO tactics.
Do a little research to find the big names in your industry. Reach out to them on social and engage with some of their posts, encouraging them to do the same. If you can establish a good relationship that encourages regular sharing, you’ll both benefit from better visibility.
Encourage Engagement
It’s not enough to send your social posts out into a void. You need to encourage your followers to like, follow, comment, and visit your site if they want to see more of your insights.
The best way to get your audience to engage with you is to always deliver high-quality content.
If your content is great but you’re still not drawing any comments, switch up your tactics a little. Try posting something short and funny that will draw some laughs and shares. Offer a giveaway or other contest for people who tag a friend.
And, as always, remember to add a call to action to every one of your social posts.
Use SEO Practices on Social Media
While web crawlers won’t search your social accounts for keyword frequency or title tags, it helps to incorporate some of the same SEO-friendly language on social media.
When you share a post, use the same general keywords in your title or description. Utilize relevant, popular hashtags to help users find your topic.
Make sure your bios and descriptions also use strong keywords associated with your brand.
A strong understanding of SEO can give you a leg up on social media.
Up Your SEO Game with Help from the Professionals
At webconfs.com, we offer the latest SEO tools and webmaster utilities you need to take your visibility to the next level. We can help manage your online reputation, check your keyword density, build your backlinks, and even simulate a search engine crawler.
If you’re new to SEO, start with a free SEO audit to gauge where you stand. No matter where you rank, we can help you reach your SEO goals.