It’s a Friday night and the bar is noisy and crowded. You catch the eye of a handsome stranger and before you know it they are coming over to check you out and (hopefully) strike up a conversation. Unfortunately, barely anything you say can be heard over the busy hum of the crowd of people who are all trying to accomplish the same goal as you. He quickly loses interest and, in an instant, is on to the next.
Trying to meet someone and form a connection with them that will extend beyond that night is surprisingly similar to the workings of social SEO. While having a high-quality website is important, it is not enough anymore if you wish to compete with other businesses in your field. You have to interact with your audience and maintain active participation in order to drive traffic to your site. Social media is a great way to achieve these goals and can drastically help you improve your performance. You may believe you have all of your bases covered by simply planting your business’s flag in every viable social media site (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.), but so does every other business. In order to stand out and boost your website’s search engine results ranking, you must optimize the content and information available on these platforms and keep your audience engaged.
Here are 3 tips to help you improve your social SEO:
1. Use social media profiles to your advantage
You can’t just walk up to a stranger and start talking his ear off without introducing yourself first. Besides, what better way to find out his name? Fill in the ‘About’ or ‘Information’ sections of your business’s social media pages as descriptively as possible. Doing so is not only polite, but smart. You will be putting your best foot forward and making your potential customers feel like they know you. This step will be the foundation for building better connections with the users, while also providing yourself with the perfect opportunity to insert keywords or phrases that describe your business in a way that users search for you.
2. Build links to build successful social SEO
You know how if you and that handsome stranger you met are having a good conversation and you buy him a drink, and maybe he’ll show his appreciation by getting the next round? Adopt this same idea when trying to improve your social SEO – update your content often in order to increase the amount you link to other sites. By making sure they are credible sources, you will be able to garner a lot of ‘shares’ and ‘likes’ from the audience, further solidifying their authority and promoting engagement. Eventually, it is likely that they will reciprocate and link back to you due to your growing credibility. Likes, comments, and shares of your posts also demonstrate high user engagement, which along with your link-building, will improve your SEO value and subsequently your SERP rank.
3. Keep the new content coming
You and this handsome stranger seem to be hitting it off, but you still need to keep him interested. You’ll use plenty of fresh and exciting anecdotes so he not only stays, but wants to keep coming back. The most effective way to stay relevant and visible in the whirlwind that is social media is by updating your social media often with new content. Whether it be with your own blog posts from the company’s website or links and videos that are applicable to your field, new content should be uploaded almost daily. inSegment can offer you more tips on how to write content for these various platforms in this blog post.
In order to create a long-term relationship with your audience, you have to have a long-term plan for your social SEO. It will not happen right away, but then again not many extraordinary long-term relationships happen overnight. Most take time, effort, and a good plan. Maintain clear, measurable social media goals and once you have gained a strong following, determine what social media are most effective and focus your energy on those. Then, maybe the next time a handsome stranger sees you on a night out, they’ll have already heard of you.
Think your business could use some help with your social SEO strategy? Learn more about inSegment’s SEO services.
