Whether you are a TikTok influencer or a small business owner, Social media SEO has become essential for everyone. It's time to forget about outdated SEO tactics like keyword stuffing and basic link building and focus on mastering the social media scene to skyrocket your brand's visibility faster than ever.
You would love to see high traffic and engagement on your social media profiles. You would also be thrilled to see that your content is topping on search engine result pages and that more businesses are discovering your website. What if we shared a secret that lets you have the best of both worlds?
Social media SEO can skyrocket your brand's visibility, and we will help you find out effective strategies to increase rankings.
What Is Social Media SEO?
Social media SEO is a powerful digital marketing strategy to optimize your social media posts. It helps in increasing the chances of attracting potential customers through search. Your content can rank higher on search engines and social media platforms with an effective strategy.
You can optimize your content by incorporating specific keywords and utilizing all available features on platforms such as location tagging if it's an option. Social media platforms also have their own algorithms like search engines to determine which content to show in news feeds and search results.
Why Is Social Media SEO Important?
Gen Z, Gen Alpha, and Millennials, often use social media for online searches rather than Google. It connects potential customers on a personal level and indirectly influences visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs).
If you use social media the right way, your brand will remain memorable to users. This will lead to more links to your website content, increased site visits, and boost your SEO.
Most business owners also prioritize SEO because they know its importance for ranking on Google. But SEO alone doesn't promote conversations with customers, connect with potential customers, or generate user content on social media platforms. Social media excels at these tasks.
How Does Social Media Help with SEO?
Recent studies show that over 2 in 5 Americans use TikTok as a search engine, while 1 in 10 Gen Zers rely more on TikTok than Google. Though social media performance isn't a Google ranking factor, there is a link between social share and page search ranking.
Here is how social media helps with SEO:
Increases Brand Reputation
Almost 50% of brand reputation comes from online sociability. Social media users spend time on their favorite platforms to learn about brands, and their presence impacts human perceptions and Google's algorithm.
The mission of Google is to deliver the best, most relevant, and high-quality results. Websites that are trusted and have a good reputation rank higher.
According to human perception, companies can lose 22% of business if customers find a negative article in search results.
But with the help of an effective social media strategy by Branding agencies like FOR®, it is possible to replace negative coverage and swap the bad press with a link to your profile. This can happen due to the higher domain ratings of social media sites than most publications.
Boosts Branded Search Traffic
Social media has the power to boost the number of people who are familiar with your brand. But with the help of a more engaged audience, your business can achieve higher engagement rates.
If you post relevant content, there is a high likelihood that followers will buy your products or services when they need them. Followers will either click the link in your bio or search for your brand on search engines when making a purchase.
This branded search also extends to online shopping. According to research, 82% of people choose a familiar brand after researching on search engines.
Builds Authority
Google always looks for ways to boost its search results and releases several algorithm updates every year. All this is done to make Google searches more reliable. The major change to its algorithm includes the E-E-A-T model that refers to:
Experience: The website owner has life experience related to the content
Expertise: The evaluation of the knowledge of the author on the subject matter
Authority: Assessment of the credibility of the website publishing content.
Trustworthiness: Measurement of the level of trust people have in the publisher.
By collaborating with influences, you can determine the chances of meeting their E-E-A-T guidelines.
Creates Potential to Acquire Backlinks
Backlinks, the links from one website to another, are essential to a page's ranking in search results. Google values backlinks to indicate that your site is more valuable than others. With effective social media SEO, you can gather quality backlinks from authoritative sites.
Social media platforms have larger audiences than websites. According to Statista's 2024 report, almost 5.17 billion social media users are present worldwide. The remaining percentage is covered by website publishers, writers, and marketers.
If your one blog post goes viral on social media, you will receive backlinks from major media outlets and established influencers.
Improves Rankings
With social media SEO, you can grow your website traffic. You can share blog posts or guides on social platforms to direct users to your content even if they are not searching for those topics. This will improve rankings and increase your brand awareness. You can generate brand awareness with social media to translate it into online searches for your business and its services.
Read More: Google I/O: 2024 Highlights On Updates & Future Prospects
What Platforms Are Best for Social Media SEO?
Though all social media platforms offer SEO opportunities to some extent, a few are way better in this regard. The choice of platforms depends on your resources, goals, and wider marketing strategy. To help you, we have enlisted six platforms ranked for using social media for SEO:
Social Media SEO for Facebook
Facebook is one of the best platforms for social media SEO that gives personalized search results. These results are based on the user activity and can be filtered by posts, videos and marketplace.
If you want to succeed in Facebook search, get familiar with its tools and formats to boost engagement with your followers.
Generate meaningful and accurate content to build trust. Facebook may suppress or remove posts that don't follow its guidelines.
Social Media SEO for Instagram
Instagram tops the charts as the most popular social media platform for searches. So, if you want to dive deep into social media SEO, you can take your first step from Instagram.
To increase your chances of discoverability, choose a fitting username and profile name. You can also add relevant keywords and locations in your bio.
Before publishing posts, add target keywords and hashtags in the captions. Try to optimize your alt text to describe images with image SEO.
Remember, followers and engagements are very important for social media SEO on Instagram. The users who have previously engaged with your account will get the relevant search results.
Social Media SEO for YouTube
Another best platform for social media SEO is YouTube because the videos often rank in Google results. Also, the search function of YouTube is quite popular and helpful.
Many people think of YouTube as the second biggest search engine online. To benefit from it, include primary keywords in your video title, description, captions, and within the video content itself. You can also add tags for the relevant keywords to increase your chances of ranking.
Social Media SEO for TikTok
TikTok is the search engine for Gen Z. If you are planning to generate content for a younger audience, you should use TikTok for your social media SEO strategy.
Make a video around a certain keyword and align all the elements, like captions, hashtags, on-screen text, and voice-over, with the keyword.
Social Media SEO for LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the right platform for professionals. You can increase the reach on your company pages by writing a detailed overview of your company. Experiment with different formats of videos and documents on the platform. You can increase engagement through comments and also monitor analytics to track records.
However, do not stuff keywords or hashtags into LinkedIn content, as this will be flagged as spam or low-quality.
Social Media SEO for X (Twitter)
You can find posts, profiles, videos, and photos in the search section of X. Users can also gain insights on trending topics. For social media SEO on X, you should:
Use an easily searchable username
Add keywords in the bio
Post regularly about relevant topics
Use trending and relevant hashtags
Increase followers and engage with them
Monitor analytics and try to add value wherever possible
You can also optimize images by adding alt text containing your target keyword.
Social Media SEO Strategies to Increase Ranking
SEO professionals optimize their content to improve rankings, traffic, and conversions. Brands should do the same with social media SEO. To increase social media visibility, you will need to generate more links, which will ultimately ensure higher rankings.
Here are some of the best social media SEO strategies to help brands increase their reach:
Do Proper Keyword Research
You can use paid and free tools like Google Keyword Planner or Semrush to conduct thorough keyword research. You can also find keywords from the search section of each social media platform. Type a relevant term and explore trending posts from search results. You can also analyze hashtags and themes on these posts to get ideas.
Almost all social media platforms with business accounts have analytics tools to offer valuable insights into campaign performance, key metrics, and paid search optimization features. So it becomes easy for you to research keywords.
Statista's 2023 report states that “how to” and “what is” were the most searched keywords on TikTok. This way, you can find the most popular keywords from each platform.
Incorporate Relevant Keywords
After finding keywords, try incorporating the most relevant ones into social media content. This will also increase the reach of your messages. You can identify the right keywords by:
Thinking how people might describe your business if they don't remember its name. If your business is around a productivity tool, they might use terms like organizer app or task manager.
Opting for specific keywords in case of high competition. It'd be better to use “budget-friendly travel app” than just using “travel app” as a keyword.
Using keywords that performed well in web searches. These keywords will also be effective for social media SEO.
Add these keywords to your site and social media. Incorporate them in:
Visual content
Alt text
Reel captions or titles
Page title
About section
Video description
Video file name (YouTube)
Board titles on Pinterest
However, avoid keyword stuffing to generate high-quality content and ensure you don't disrupt the reading experience.
Enable Social Sharing Buttons on Your Website
Adding social sharing buttons can be effective for social media SEO. It is good to add them strategically to blog posts. However, some studies suggest that removing them increased click-through rates by 11.9%.
So, they benefit blog posts, but some pages with specific goals perform better without them.
Optimize Social Media Profiles
Consider your social media profiles as the extension of your website. The way you optimize your website pages, do the same with your social media profiles to ensure they are the reflection of the SEO strategy of your website. You can apply these strategies on the About Us, Services, and Products pages. Here are a few useful tips for you:
If you want to build credibility, you shouldn't be anonymous. Use a good quality and clear picture on your profile.
Keep updating the cover photos of your social media accounts as soon as you announce events and new releases.
Add social badges to your email signatures and website to direct traffic to your profile. In the About section, try to add SEO-friendly keywords.
Add a link to your website in the bio section of your social profile and make the website mobile-friendly.
Note: Get a verification badge to build credibility and distinguish your account from fake or fan accounts.
Build Links and Increase Social Media Reach
Search Engine Optimization has traditionally focused on inbound links to your website. Though inbound links are important, social media reach has a significant impact on increasing search traffic.
To make your content go viral on social media, grow your followers. But, avoid purchasing fake followers or impressions, as it can lead to penalties for your content and profile. Instead, focus on increasing your reach by publishing high-quality content and engaging in genuine ways.
Collaborate with Influencers
Influencers have a significant impact on shaping the market today. Statista’s report states that influencers have a strong impact on purchasing decisions. In Italy, 24% of shoppers bought products based on recommendations of influencers in 2023.
If you also want to benefit from it, collaborate with influencers in the following ways:
Pay them to feature your brand
Give them free products for reviews
Run giveaway campaigns
Co-create products or launch new lines of products
Use them in the advertisement
Invite them to your brand event for promotion
Start a brand ambassador program for long-term relationships.
It is smart to team up with influencers to increase your brand's visibility and boost conversions.
Final Thoughts on Social Media SEO
Social media SEO is the act of optimizing your social profiles and posts to increase their visibility. It involves incorporating all SEO strategies like alt text, keyword-rich captions, and hashtags. This integration between social media and SEO works together to improve organic rankings and drive traffic to your website. It is important to master social media SEO in today's digital marketing world. Focus on the strategies we have mentioned and stay adaptable to new changes to make them resonate with your audience. This way, you can lead the game and transform your social media efforts into SEO gold.
