5 Effective Techniques on Social Media for SEO
If you are doing search engine optimization, then social media should be a part of your activities. Unfortunately, about 50% of the companies that are struggling for better Google page rank are not integrating social media to SEO at all. It is because they are missing one of the ingredients withrising importance to SEO, and that is the social signals. While social signals are not as important as backlinks in search engine optimization, they are one of the ranking factors today.
In fact, according to a study by SearchMetric about social media for search engine optimization , websites with strong positions in the search engine result pages have many things in common. One of them is good social profile as represented by the significant amount of Google Plus One, Facebook likes, Facebook comments, pins of Pinterest, and tweets of Twitter.
According to the same study, at the top of the list of social signals is Google Plus One, which is the equivalent of Facebook like. Next on the list is Facebook share, followed by Facebook total and Facebook comment. The fifth are Facebook likes, while Pinterest and tweets are ranked 6th and 7th place, respectively.
This data implies that Google Plus One is the most common signal among high ranking websites. Therefore, you have to include Google Plus marketing in your social media mix for better results from your SEO campaign. But, of course, this must also include Facebook marketing, being the leading social network today, as well as the all-popular marketing with Twitter. Therefore, don’t just focus your social media marketing on Facebook, but you must also give equal importance to Google Plus.
Tips on Using Social Media for SEO
1. Connect Contents to Google Authorship and Google Plus
One of the first things that you should do is to create a Google Authorship profile that inter-connects all your published contents in various sites. As you keep on adding new post in varied sources, your Google author profile will improve its visibility, and over time its reputation will be enhanced as well.
If all your contents are superior in quality you will be able to establish trust and confidence among your readers, thereby making it easier for you to close deals and improve your conversion. On top of that, you will also capture more followers to your Google Plus profile.
If one of your posts shows up in the front page of Google, your post will enjoy higher click-through-rate. This is due to the fact that your author profile-photo will be shown at the side as the author of the post, thereby easily attracting more users.
Another important benefit is the added value to your profile. Once you achieve certain milestone in your Google authorship activities, you can command higher rate if you are offering website content writing services. This is useful in guest blogging, as well. Some high-profile authors keep on receiving invitations from different blog-owners asking them to make some guest posts because of the reputation and credibility that they have already attained.
2. Reinforce Your Takeaway Message with Photos
When publishing blog posts, it is highly recommended to insert relevant photos not only to reinforce the takeaway message of your content but also to make it easier for you and for your readers to share your post in photo-sharing social networks like Pinterest and Instagram. Sharing your post in Pinterest is just one click away if you install the ‘pin it’ button in your site.
Photos can also attract more readers to your content, especially if they are shared in social networks, thereby giving your post an added boost in page views. This will also compel others to insert some comments not just about the content of your post but also about the photo image.
3. Insert Relevant Videos
Just like images, videos are powerful mediums for igniting social engagement. This will reinforce the understanding of your readers regarding your content. Make sure to add relevant videos that precisely support the takeaway message of your post. If your videos are entertaining, exciting, and valuable to the readers, you will easily attract more shares, more likes, and more comments from your audience.
4. Add Social Media Buttons
To effectively integrate social media to search engine optimization, insert social media buttons in your contents, or at the side widget. This is a better way to make your post go viral in various social networks since sharing your content can be quickly done with just one push of the button.
The buttons serve as a reminder to your readers to share the content to their friends so that they, too, can enjoy the value of the information that you shared in your article. The button logo of Facebook, Twitter, and of other social networks can aid the readers in making a quick decision to share the post to the social media of their choice with just a button-click.
5. Engage and Socially Interact with Others
Unless you are socially engaging with your friends, you are not effectively integrating social media to your SEO. Thus, you have to be active in Facebook, in Twitter, in Google Plus, and in Pinterest, among others. While you can do this by just liking other posts and images, the most effective method of social engagement is by adding comments. This will help make your post go viral, as well.
Comments can help build relationship over time, and this is an effective method of getting more fans. The same is also true with sharing posts along with short comments. Thus, diversify your methods of social interaction, focusing not only on likes, but also on comments and shares.
Takeaway Message
The main component of search engine optimization is still link building. Supreme-quality backlinks are very powerful in pushing websites higher in page rank. Unique contents are also among the main SEO components. But, the rising popularity of social media today compels Google and other search engines to start integrating it in their ranking factors, making it all the more important to start doing social media for SEO today.
