Do social media platforms have any impact on search engine optimization (SEO)? Totally!
An infographic the state of SEO released by Quicksprout recently demonstrates just how the world of SEO has changed to adapt to Google’s recent algorithm updates. It also shows that content continues to rule the online marketing game.
With the new updates, only those websites with the highest quality will be published on Google’s search index. The more people share your website on their social media accounts, the higher its quality will be making Google love your site.
It takes more than creating a Facebook business page or a Twitter account for Google to recognize your website. You have to optimize your social media accounts as well as the content you share so that more people can share it with others.
Top Social Media Tactics to Improve SEO
With the help of a good SEO Singapore company, you can employ some clever tactics to get the most out of your social media tactics and increase your company’s bottom line.
- Graph Search
Use your social media accounts to build traffic and links back to your website. The more traffic and high quality links you have the more authority your website will gain and the higher it will go in search results.
One of the little-known gems of Facebook that seems to be doing wonders for SEO is the Graph Search. This is the technology that enables Facebook users to search the platform using not just keywords but also responds to complex user queries. Graph Search will also pull results from Bing if content the user wants is not available on Facebook.
What does this mean for your business? People are depending on peer reviews now more than ever. Consumers consult friends and family before they decide to buy something. They turn to social media platforms to find out what products and services their peers are using.
If your social media content is highly shared then your brand will be more visible online and will more likely appear on the Graph Search when users search your line of products or services.
2. Research the Content Users Want
Now that we agree that social media has an impact on SEO, we can also agree that you need to optimize your social media content. If you want more social shares you need to give your fans content that they will find valuable enough to share with others.
Before you start posting on your social media platforms, do a thorough research to find out which content social media users are looking for. You can use Ahrefs or Buzzsumo to see the most popular content based on social shares.
You can then create content based on what is popular on social media. Of course, you should not copy the content, just make it better and relevant to your brand and target audience. Your Singapore SEO company will be able to help you out with effective copywriting that suits your industry needs. You can then post this content on social media platforms accompanied by links that redirect to your website.
- Optimize Your Social Media Business Pages for SEO
Other than the content you post on your social media accounts, the structure of your accounts will also have an effect on SEO. Here are some effective ways to optimize your social media pages for SEO.
- Optimise your page URLs: Change your default URLs to custom ones that match your business name. You may think this is obvious but you’ll be surprised by the number of businesses that overlook it.Custom URLs are great in promoting your brand recognition and make it easy for people to remember your name. They also make it easy for people to find you on various social media platforms as well as on search engines.
- Edit your “About” section: This is the section on all your social media accounts that lets people know who you are, and what you do. Optimize this section with your best keywords to make it easy for people to find you. Don’t go overboard with your About section. Use the keywords naturally and strategically.
- Add your business info: Add as much business info as every account will let you. Add your location, business operation hours, contact info and website on the main page of your profiles. This makes it easy for potential customers to know where to find you or how to contact you.Adding your business info also lets the social media platforms index your business for local search. Local search means that your content is presented more to people in Singapore who are your customers than to the international audience. This is especially good for small businesses trying to break new ground in Singapore.
- Promote Your Content on Social
Once you have established the type of content that your audience will love and you have optimized your pages for SEO, now it is time to start posting and promoting your content. One of the best ways to promote your content is through sponsored (paid) ads on the various platforms.
Paid ads on social media platforms are inexpensive and can push your content further exposing it to more than just your fans. The more people like, retweet or share your content the more authority it will get and get recognized by search engines giving you more visibility.
Your SEO Singapore company should be able to help you set up effective ads that will reap huge benefits. Other than ads, the company can use other outreach tools to promote your content. Use of social influencers is a great way to generate social media shares from very high-level influencers.
When approaching influencers, make sure that you have great content that will be of value to them and their fans. Also, find the right influencers not just anyone with a huge social media following. This will bring you social shares which will ultimately help your SEO.
5. Include a Call-to-Action
Believe it or not many people will not take an action, unless you ask them. Want people to buy your product? You have to tell them so.
When posting and promoting your social media content you have to add call-to-actions that ask people to take specific actions.
For instance, you can ask people to share your post, leave a comment, click on a link, download something etc. Just make sure that your call-to-action is compelling enough to make them take the action.
6. Get Link Backs
The more links your content gets the higher your authority. If more and more people are sharing your links your credibility goes up because it basically means these people are recommending your brand. When one fan recommends your brand their friends will pay attention and be curious to find out more about you.
A good Singapore SEO company will make effort to see that your pages are being linked to by many sources, both on and off of social media. Remember, however, the authority of the people linking to you is of importance. You do not want to be linked with spam. A social like from a popular, recognized source such as a media outlet will be more valuable than a lesser known source.
- Remember to Use Your Keywords
Optimizing your social media content with relevant high-traffic keywords can improve your visibility within your social networks. The better your keywords, the easier it will be for social media users to discover your content.
People use keywords to find content on social media platforms and search engines. If you optimize your content with a keyword that people are more likely to use for your industry then your brand will more likely show up in the search results every time someone uses that keyword.
Use keywords in your social media content, in your URLs, about us pages, page descriptions, and headlines/taglines so that search engines can index them. Do not overuse keywords otherwise, the search engines will mark you as spam.
- Optimize Your Visuals
Visuals are more memorable than text due to diminishing human concentration spans. People want to see more than reading. According to research, people are likely more to remember only 10% of something they read compared to 65% memory of an image about the same information.
The content you post on your social media accounts will have a bigger impact if it is accompanied by a good visual either an image or a video. Search engines will, however, not index images and videos if they are not optimized. But how do you optimize your visuals for SEO?
Add titles and descriptions with keywords to your videos and remember to add keyword rich ALT tags to your images. These are the parts of your visuals that the web crawlers will identify and index.
So, folks, we’ve taken an in-depth look at how you can use social media to improve your SEO and you are now better informed on how Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the likes can help improve your search ranking and online visibility.
With these actionable tips, you are ready to get started today. Don’t have the time or resources to do so? Worry not. You can easily find an SEO Singapore company today to help you utilize your social media for better search ranking.
