Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a strategy to position your website as an authority in the search results game. You website will be judged against other websites (mostly in the same industry) in a ranking of which serves best as an authority for your particular search.
Originally, Google algorithms used search engine traffic as an indicator of that authority. Activity from search engine traffic and their behavior on your website helped algorithms to understand which sites were most relied upon, which sites were visited most often and which sites received the most engagement and therefore were deemed by that search engine traffic as most authoritative.
But in the past decade Google, Yahoo and Bing all have come to recognize the power of social media as an authority indicator. What that means is traffic from social media platforms can also support the websites in the quest for authority online. Social media traffic can not only show visibility factors (like how often traffic from social media makes its way to the website) but value of the content as well. For instance, website content that is shared and reshared on social media platforms more frequently is deemed socially valid. That validation helps to show that your brand is serving not only the search community but also the social online community as well.
Validity across social and search platforms packs a powerful punch! So it’s important to include a social media validation campaign in your SEO.
- Write Great Content: The first element of a great social media validation campaign is first-rate content that speaks to your customers’ and clients’ needs. For content to be worthy of sharing, it’s simply got to be good. There’s no getting around that. So finding the subjects that matter most to your audience is vital. Creating content that speaks to those subjects in a way that is most helpful to your readers will help seal the deal.
- Post it to Your Social Media Feeds: The next step is posting your content to all of your social media feeds with links back to your website. This is important because in order to get the validation you need, Google needs to see your website links have been shared on profiles that aren’t your own. For that, you need a link.
- Use a Keyword-Friendly Title and Content in the Post: Ensuring that your social media post includes keywords pertinent to your content and your customers is extremely important in getting your content noticed by the right people online. Be sure to include the keyword(s) for your article in the post, but don’t stuff the post whatever you do. It will cause more harm than good.
- Share Content From Profiles in the Same Online Community: As a practice, it’s important to become part of the online community with the most affinity with your business. One great way of doing this is engaging with their content. Commenting, sharing and liking posts from influencers in your industry will result in visibility and the potential sharing of your content. And when you start getting people to share your content, you get a digital “ataboy” from Google algorithms by way of SEO collateral.
If you would like to know how a comprehensive SEO audit can help ferret out any issues that can contribute to a high bounce rate on your site, call Proctor Digital at 773.664.5819. We’d love to help!