What is Search Engine Optimization?
The process of improving the site of an organization to increase its visibility for relevant searches can be called as Search engine optimization or SEO. The organization is more likely to gather attention and attract prospective and existing customers to their business if their pages have better visibility in search results across different search engines.
How does SEO work?
Search engines such as Google and Yahoo use bots to crawl pages on the web which goes from site to site and collects information about those pages and put them in an index. Then, certain algorithms analyse those pages in the index, taking into account hundreds of ranking factors or signals and determines the order in which pages should appear in the search results for a given query.
The search algorithms organize the pages based on its overall importance to SEO. Let us take an example, the quality of the content and keyword research are the key factors for content optimization and crawlability and mobile-friendliness are important site architecture factors.
These search algorithms are designed to be surface relevant and provide users with an efficient search experience. Optimizing a particular site and content with these factors in mind can help those pages rank higher in the search results.
How does social media influence SEO?
Though social media can’t directly influence SEO rankings, it does have an impact on the factors that affect the rankings. Social media is highly capable of driving traffic to a particular site. If the organization shares a link to their page on their social media handles, it can drive more traffic to their page. Social media also helps with the content. Content creation is known to be one of the most valuable ways to increase SEO rankings.
When someone creates content, they provide their audience with valuable information. Those come in the form of blogs, eBooks, videos, and infographics. The marketing of content involves sharing valuable knowledge with your audience that they are seeking.
Once leads find that specific content, they’ll spend time reading it. More time spent on the page sends a signal to the search engine which marks that page as valuable. This will rank that page higher to help more leads find their valuable information.
Many people will find content organically, but the organization can use social media to help more people discover their content. Social media enables organizations to share valuable content with their followers. They know their followers are interested in their business, so their relevant content will help get the followers engaged with the organization’s content.
This process also creates the opportunity for the organization to spread the content further. Their followers can share the content with others and create the opportunity for new leads to see the content. This creates more brand exposure and drives more leads to the page.
An increase in traffic on a particular site means that more people are reading that content, thus improving the SEO rankings. Social media is the key to help organizations increase both traffic and SEO rankings.
Which are the best social media sites for SMM?
Given are the top three social media sites that work best for social media marketing.
1. Facebook
Facebook is known to be one of the best sites for sharing content. Facebook makes it easy to post and share content with followers. Facebook also allows sharing links to blogs, videos, and infographics.
And the best part, Google can crawl links on Facebook. This means that if someone links their content on Facebook, Google will investigate and index it. It’s extremely helpful if the link is shared on multiple pages.
Facebook even allows users to share content directly with their followers. They can post a new piece of content whenever they like. It is a great way to drive social media traffic to their website.
2. Twitter
Twitter is also a great social media site for sharing content. One can share photos, videos, and content links with their followers.
Though Twitter’s pages can’t be crawled like Facebook, it does have another unique feature. The use of hashtags is extremely prevalent on Twitter. While one can use them on Facebook, they are mostly used on Twitter and Instagram.
Hashtags in simple terms are keywords for the content. If people search using those keywords, they’ll come across the hashtag which the organization used and find their content. It is another great way to help more people discover the brand and visit the site.
3. YouTube
YouTube’s popularity has climbed significantly in recent years. Video content nowadays is increasingly more valuable to the audience. The audience wants to watch videos to obtain information that is valuable to them.
Videos are an exceptional tool to boost organic traffic. By adding videos to the site, organizations can keep leads engaged longer. Longer engagement sends a positive signal to search engines, and it ranks the site higher to reach more valuable leads.
Whether an organization's goal is to keep track of the number of social media shares per post or see how much social referral traffic they are generating, it’s important to measure the metrics that according to the organization are helpful. Before they jump on the social media SEO bandwagon, they should have a clear idea about their actions, and how they will measure them. Without any guesswork, they should move their attention to data. And they will have the needed clarity to move forward.
