SEO, Meet Social Media: How to Integrate the Two and Drive Results

In this day and age, it is best to think of SEO and social media as one entity when creating a digital marketing campaign. Digital marketing strategies have changed a lot since SEO and social media have become so integrated. Social media is how a lot of people learn about their favorite companies or brands, therefore it is imperative that you incorporate SEO into your social strategy.

Doing so will give you an advantage over your competition because it will produce higher rankings and authority as well as more brand recognition in general. There is so much competition these days within the digital space and all measures need to be taken in order to make your brand stand out from the crowd. Higher rankings and authority equal higher click through rate and revenue.

Below I discuss both the how’s and why’s behind SEO and social media integration.

The Why’s

Integrating SEO into your social media efforts can help deliver a higher ROI and expand the reach of your social media campaign. This is something every business should do, as the benefits are seemingly endless. The more exposure your business enjoys, the more well-known your brand becomes and the more revenue you’ll generate.

When utilizing social media efforts effectively you’re reaching a much larger audience across many search engine platforms such as Bing, Yahoo, and Google. Optimizing how your audience searches while on Facebook, YouTube or Instagram contributes to the success of your social media efforts by gaining more likes and shares, therefore helping your business grow.

It works both ways: increased social media exposure equals more shared links, which means even more consideration by search engines. Overall, this results in a higher ranking and more brand recognition.

The Four How’s

1. A best place to start integrating SEO into social media is to ensure your business is utilizing all social media platforms that pertain to your business and your audience.

2. Make sure your company information is consistent across all profiles to promote a sense of professionalism and avoid customer or search engine confusion. All your social profiles should be as complete as possible, so remember to fill them out with important URLs, hours, forms of payment, etc. This also helps Google and other search engines recognize your business more efficiently, therefore giving you more authority and helping you achieve higher rankings.

The more complete social profiles you have, the more people are likely to see your business in their search results, which can lead to higher conversions and more revenue.

3. Humans are very visual creatures – especially when it comes to engagement within social networks. The use of images, charts and infographics help tremendously in prompting people to link back to your site or share company information. Remember to use alt tags for every image on your site, which makes it easier for search engines to crawl and recognize images.

4. Concentrating on building a large local following for your website. Using geo-targeted content allows you to target local keywords to attract more local consumers. Location-based social media hubs such as Yelp, Menu Pages and Yahoo Local are key to gaining local credibility as well as more recognition through search engines.

Again, it is essential to make sure all your information is consistent and up-to-date. Check these profiles regularly and update information as needed, and respond to any questions or reviews consumers might post on these profiles.

In Conclusion

SEO and social media efforts together have a great impact on building a successful digital marketing campaign. When used correctly they can greatly impact traffic, ranking, and overall authority in your local area of business.

Social media and SEO go hand-in-hand and work alongside each other to help businesses grow and gain notoriety. It is so important to make sure you are succeeding in both areas and are constantly updating social media profiles and adding fresh content. Being knowledgeable about the relationship between SEO and social media while creating social media campaigns helps you achieve the wins you are looking for.

For more SEO tips and strategies, click here to download your complimentary copy of our eBook, How Stream Does SEO.