How to Improve Your Social SEO

Social Media and SEO used to be considered two separate things. SEO helped people find you on search. Social Media helped you better engage them. SEO purists believed that one had no real impact on the other. This is no longer the case.

Social networking now influences search results to a fairly significant extent. It draws traffic to a website and the more traffic it brings, the bigger the impact on the website’s search rank. But the topic of this article looks at another aspect of this dynamic relationship between SEO and Social Media – the fact that people are now using the search function of their preferred Social Networks to find a business.

In the following article I provide a few tips on how to optimize your online businesses presence for Social Media search:

Build Your Brand on Primary Social Networks
I can’t even begin to provide Social SEO tips unless your business first has a brand profile on the primary Social Networks. Millions of users are searching for businesses everyday while logged into their Social Networks. If they don’t find you on there, they’ll find a competitor who is. Be sure to use your brand name when creating the page on each of these networks:
* Facebook (essential)
* Twitter (essential)
* Google Plus (essential)
* LinkedIn (essential for B2B businesses)
* Pinterest and/or Instagram (important)
If you don’t have a brand page on all of the above (including either Pinterest or Instagram), stop reading here and come back as soon as you do.

Put Social Media Icons on Your Website’s Home Page
In addition to improving the visibility in the eyes of the public that you have your Social Media in order, search algorithms like to see that your website – the most trusted representation of your brand – is pointing links towards your Social Network brand pages. Place the Social Media links on your home page AND on all pages under your website’s menu.

Use Social Sharing Plug-ins on Your Website
Allow users on your website the opportunity to Comment, Like, Share, +1, and Follow on practically every page of your website using Social Media plug-ins provided by all of the major Social Networks. The days of the old “comment box” are done and have been replaced by Facebook comments. The more public interaction with your brand that is visible on Social, the better your chances for being found on Social Network search.

Use Your Brand Name on Every Post
Let Social Network Search see that every topic (related to your industry) you post on is connected to your brand name. Using a Realtor as an example, instead of posting “Great Home Staging Tips” they should post “Great Home Staging Tips by ABC Realty.” As well, if the informative post gets shared by users, you don’t want your brand name to get lost in the message. Always perform a mental check for your brand name before clicking the Post, Comment, Pin, or Share button.

Get Liked, Followed, Shared, Repinned
This goes without saying but still needs to be said because many businesses still feel that setting up their Social Media is enough in itself. If you want to get found on Social Network Search for your type of business and reap the financial rewards then you need to embark on campaigns that get your Likes, Follows, Shares, and Repins up. This will require some clever Social Media Marketing but it’s worth the investment.

Conclusion
Covering your bases by optimizing your Social Media for Search will not only help with your Search rank within each network, it will affect your overall SEO and rank on Google as well. The better you are doing on Social Network Search the better you will do on Google Search in the long run.