The Merging of SEO and Social Media

Social media and SEO are powerful tools within digital marketing, although often seen as two separate entities. Their cross-over offers unique opportunities for brand visibility, driving traffic, and improving search rankings. 

We discuss how these two strategies complement each other to provide actionable insights to leverage growth. 

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How Social Media Impacts SEO 

While social media signals (likes, shares, comments) are not direct ranking factors for search engines like Google, they can indirectly influence SEO in many ways. 

• Increased Content Visibility. Social media amplifies your content’s reach, driving more traffic to your site. The more visitors your content attracts, the better chance you have of attracting backlinks to your website, a signal that boosts rankings in general. 

• Brand Awareness and Search Demand.  A strong social media presence can increase brand searches on Google. Higher search demand signals relevance and authority, indirectly boosting rankings. 
• Faster Indexing. Sharing new content on social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, X) can help search engines discover your brand, allowing for quicker indexing through social sharing and referral
• links. 

Using Social Media To Support SEO 

Aligning your social media campaigns with your SEO strategy will have multiple benefits that can drive brand/business growth. 

• Share Evergreen Content. Promoting your optimised blog posts, tutorials, and listicles through your social media channels is a great way to see consistent traffic over time, which can highlight your authority on a subject matter, i.e. your chosen niche. 

• Link building through Social Media. When you share high-value content, the one you’ve spent hours on, sharing it on platforms like X and Facebook, you’re increasing the likelihood of it being picked up by bloggers, influencers and other businesses in your niche, who are likely to link back to your original content. 

• Engage in Social Listening for keyword insights. Using tools like Brandwatch can assist in monitoring conversations and trends your ideal customers are talking about, which you can then use in your keyword research and SEO strategy. 

Creating a Cross-Channel Content Strategy 

When creating a cross-channel content strategy, the following efforts should be considered. 

• • Content customisation. Optimise content for both search engines and social channels. For example, a blog post should include your target keywords while having an engaging title for sharing across your social channels. When crafting your descriptions, include a short description that summarises your blog effectively. 

• Repurpose content across channels. Turn long-form articles into carousels on Instagram, short videos on TikTok, or even mini-blogs on Substack. Using articles you’ve spent a long time on can help maximise your reach and engagement. 

• Optimise Social Profiles for Search. Include relevant keywords from your keyword research in your social media bios and captions to improve social and search visibility. 

Measuring Success with SEO and Social Media Metrics 

Everything we do in terms of digital marketing needs to be measured and tracked to ensure we’re actively overseeing the effectiveness of our campaigns. 

• Referral Traffic from Social Media. Using Google Search Console, you can create specific reports to understand how much of your traffic is from Social Media, although Google does generate a default overview of traffic sources, you can be more specific in your tracking. 

• Engagement Metrics. Meta, and other social media platforms each have their own analytics, often called insights, that allow you to monitor and track your engagement (likes, shares, and comments) across campaigns. 

• Backlinks and Mentions. Third-party tools, like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and SE Ranking offer options to track backlinks and mentions that you’ve attracted through your social media efforts. 

SEO – Social Media Connection

Even though Google and Bing, dominate the search market – Google still wins this battle – Search is evolving with many of the younger generation choosing to use social media channels like TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest as search engines. This trend means SEOs need to adapt their strategies towards these types of searches. 

Conclusion

Aligning SEO and Social Media strategies is fast becoming a necessity for digital marketing agencies. Building a comprehensive campaign strategy that involves SEO and Social Media as a combined entity will help your business drive traffic, build brand authority and improve your overall online presence. 

Contact us today if you want to boost your Digital Marketing effort through Social Media and SEO.