Social SEO: The Next Big Thing?

Social media has changed the way people communicate with their friends, families, and customers all across the world. In fact, more than 50% of Americans use their mobile phones to access social content. This has led many to suggest that social media and local advertising may be the only effective forms of online marketing in the near future. While it’s not clear yet who the winner will be, it’s clear that social is here to stay. Therefore, here’s how to create successful marketing with most important social networks and local SEO?

1. Facebook

One out of every five pages in the United States is on Facebook. And more than 1 Billion people worldwide use the infamous social network. This means that any business, entrepreneur or marketer should be using Facebook to their advantage.

In order to generate “likes,” “shares,” and “comments” on Facebook, you need to understand that its users are often using their phones to access the site. As they quickly scroll through their news feed, they won’t waste time on content that isn’t easy to read or interesting. Therefore, all Facebook content should use short, engaging copy, a simple call to action, and emotional imagery. If users like it, they’ll share it with their friends, which can create a huge boost in visibility for your business.

Now the problem is that Facebook recently announced that organic reach of pages is dead. Its less than 1% . This changes the game. However this does not mean that facebook is a worthless investment as many marketers are saying. Facebook is still valuable as it has better targeting for ads than Googles traditional offering.

When working on SEO and Marketing use Facebook as a alternative or supplement to traditional PPC advertising. Have a cool piece of content? Advertise to highly targeted people who would be interested in it. The ads are not used for sales/conversions in the traditional sense, but rather to get the ball rolling so people will end up sharing and linking to the content naturally.

Recently I came across this infographic because of a facebook ad and now the infographic is trending on reddit and twitter. Here I am among other people building links to it naturally as its an example of perfect content marketing mixed with untraditional advertising methods. I haven’t seen the ad for this infographic since the last I saw it, which makes me think it was a short run, targeted ad to agents and marketing enthusiasts. Once the ball started rolling they cut the cord and let the page work on its own.

This isn’t what I would call “easy” but this method of content marketing for SEO purposes did make this list of easy seo tools for 2015. Easy? maybe not, simple and effective? I’d say so.

2. Twitter

Twitter is all about getting straight to the point. With a limit of 140 characters, make sure you make your tweets engaging and timely. High quality photos are a plus, but certainly not required for gaining followers and getting retweets.

Twitter doesn’t really “rank” posts based of metrics like Facebook or Google. User’s feed is based soley of who they follow and the timing of each tweet. That does not mean you can’t do “SEO” in a sense. Learning the art of getting re-tweets and paid promotion is a free – to – really cheap way to get more eyeballs on your content.

3. Pinterest

Pinterest provides amazing images for lovers of crafts, DIY projects, and food art. This means that your pins should consist of professional level photography and speak to the aspiring nature of the platform. Be sure to include a hyperlink that leads to your website for further engagement.

The Front is an Australian camera hire site (camera rental for you non-aussies) that leverages its Pinterest really well by getting guest photographers a custom board linking to their portfolio sites , this board is embedded on a blog page which builds authority every time someone shares the fact they were featured on the board. Then that blog page internally links to a landing page.

4. Instagram

Instagram is the video and photo platform that focus on artistic styles. If your business is in a trending industry, post regular photos, apply unique filters, and be sure to include hashtags(#). This will make your posts look less like advertisements.

5. Youtube

Youtube is now considered a social media platform. In fact, Google now uses video marketing metrics in its SEO calcuations. Make sure your business has its own Youtube channel, and include industry keywords in the description with links to your website. Remember, people use Youtube for entertainment and learning purposes. Decide which genre you will focus on, then create viral content that people will be happy to tell their friends about.

6. SEO

Clearly, leveraging social media platforms can bring big results to your brand, but what about SEO? It turns out that Google and other search engines are increasingly deciding rankings based on local social statistics. This means that if you have a local business, you can beat out competitors by achieving more social engagement.

Submit to local business directories and be sure to include all of your contact information on your web page. This will ensure that search engines display your site when users search on mobile and desktop. Also include relevant topics about your geographical area, as this provides another boost.

In the end the macro picture is pretty simple

Create content -> use social media to leverage organic and paid reach to get eyeballs on your content -> A percentage of those eyeballs will share and link to your content building the content’s page authority -> internal link content to a SEO landing page optimized for a money keyword -> climb in rankings and make more money -> rinse and repeat.

As the web becomes more social, smart marketers will find ways to promote their content via popular networks. Gone are the days when spammers could cram keywords into articles to bypass the search engine algorithms. Today’s game is all about creating an interesting story that people want to share on social media. By making your marketing efforts social, local, and mobile friendly, you can reap huge rewards for you and your business.

Source: smallbusinesscan.com