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Aligning SEO Strategy with Your Social Media Strategy

By on November 15, 2012

The line between social media and SEO has been rapidly blurring for some time and today a SEO strategy without a social media plan is incomplete, while the social media user who neglects SEO is unlikely to have rapid success; or even success at all. This is because successive Google algorithm updates have given more and more weight to “social” indicators of popularity for websites, and where Google leads other search engines are sure to follow in a bid to catch up. Regardless of whether you’re looking at the problem from an SEO perspective or a social media perspective it is important that you have both social media activity and SEO working hand in hand if you want to maximise your effectiveness and reach. Here are three ways you need to make sure your social media and SEO efforts work together to increase effectiveness:

Use SEO Best Practice in Your Social Media

When you’re making use of social media you’ll still want to use some of the same SEO techniques you use for your content on your main website. You should have a particular set of keywords you have decided your business will target and you should use these in both your social media and your more traditional content creation. While you won’t be able to use all your keywords in your social media all the time you will have opportunities to drop them in every now and then. Just when using SEO in articles you don’t want to keyword stuff you won’t want to use too many through social media. If you’re providing high quality content you should naturally be including some keywords and with a bit of tweaking you can get just the right amount. Just as you want to include keywords you should also consider your social media to be part of your internal linking strategy. A visitor to your website or any one of your social media outlets should be able to navigate to and from your main website with ease.

Getting Started With SEO and Social Media

Before beginning the implementation of any search engine optimization (SEO) strategy you’ll first need to do keyword research to discover which keywords are best to target to get the most visitors. A keyword is simply a word that sums up a topic and that people might search for on a search engine. (Explained in detail in a recent article about how SEO works under the hood of your website.) Keywords can be very broad for example “dogs” which will return millions of search results or they can be something quite narrow such as “Golden Retriever grooming techniques” which is likely to return a lot less results. It is important to aim for specific keywords in order to get the most visitors possible because some keywords will be more or less relevant to your site and some will be harder or easier to rank for in search engines depending on the competition. Keyword research is one of the most important activities you can undertake when starting SEO because it will ensure your efforts are put into the areas that will bring you the most customers.Aligning SEO Strategy with Your Social Media Strategy

The First Step to Keywords

At its most simple level you can decide upon keywords simply by writing down the top words or phrases that describe what your site is about. For example if you had a site about dogs you might choose “dog, dogs, dog training, dog food, dog grooming, dog walking, dog illnesses” as your keywords. The only problem with this is that you are a) not finding very many keywords and b) the keywords you are finding are highly competitive and it will be very hard to get into the top ten search results for them.

To find additional keywords you can use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Start off by inputting one or several keywords into the Keyword Tool and the tool will return to you hundreds of suggested keywords that people are searching for along with estimates of the number of times they are searched and an indication of the number of sites ranking for that keyword. From the list you can then select certain keywords to target by including them in your content.

Here are some great pointers to keep in mind when selecting keywords:

1)    The quality of a keyword depends not only on the amount of people searching for it but also on the amount of websites you are competing against. You want to have as many people searching for it as possible while as few people competing for the keyword as possible. You can compare two keywords in a simple way by taking the number of people searching and dividing by the number of websites ranking for it. Whichever keyword gives a larger number in this formula is better – this is a very simply method but can be quite effective.

2)    Up to 70% of searches are for “long-tail keywords” – ignore them at your peril! A long-tailed keyword is something like our previous example of “Golden Retriever grooming techniques”. While many less people search for these keywords there are also much less sites competing for them so they are often the best keywords to go for.

3)    Keywords are constantly changing and fluctuate in popularity. What may be a great keyword to aim for today may not be so good in six months and vice versa. One of the most profitable ways to get traffic is to find a keyword at the beginning of a trend and ride the up-wave of traffic that results from the increased number of people searching for it.

Now Let’s Marry SEO and Social Media

Okay so now you have your basic search engine optimization strategy in place because you know your keywords, it is now time to join your SEO with your Social Media.

Promote the Same Pages through SEO and Social Media

One of the biggest mistakes people new to social media make is to not promote the same landing pages that you’re promoting through your standard SEO. Your social media should be linking through to your main pages rather than to a new one, this way your SEO and social media have a cumulative effect rather than distributing your incoming links across several pages. It is much better to focus on a few main pages and get them to the top of the rankings than have several pages hitting the bottom of the second page of Google.

Quantity without Quality Is Pointless

No matter where or how you are creating content for your customers it is the quality of your content that will draw people in rather than the quantity. If you have to choose between creating content twice as fast and doing it twice as well the latter will always be preferable. This works doubly so for social media where an overabundance of content can be a turn-off for potential customers. You might have the most interesting and useful content in the world but no customer will want to receive 50 twitter updates from you in one day, the best case scenario is that they’ll read a few of them, worst case they’ll remove you from their feed.

Make Your Post Titles Eye-Catching

Your post titles are important for both search engine optimization and for social media. This is the only thing that the human will focus on when searching or browsing through social media. Google plus gives SEO benefits that seem to be different to other networks and one of the main features is to be able to edit your entries for SEO. This means you can change your post titles to suit these users. Maybe you need a short and sweet post title, maybe you need a bigger description?

Just think about this, when you search in Google, you immediately read through the results, scanning all of the post titles. Then you will click on the one that is the closest match to your search query. In social media you will click on the title that is also related to you your interests.

About Mitz

My name is Milica Pantic but everyone calls me Mitz. I am addicted to internet marketing and making money online. Who wouldn't want to live that life? I started out with one website as a hobby and now have over 20. Building websites and making money online is not that hard. You have to actually take action to make money...that is the biggest hurdle! :)

45 Comments

  1. Prakash

    March 1, 2013 at 10:54 am

    Social media has a big role in SEO nowadays using social media is essential for getting good results in search engine. It depends on how well is your post responding over social media.
    Prakash recently posted..Top 5 Free and Best Virtual Assistant for Android | Siri Alternatives

    Reply

  2. Shane

    December 31, 2012 at 9:52 pm

    Social networking has become so important these days when it comes to SEO, it is almost like you won’t get noticed or picked up unless you are involved with Social Media.
    Shane recently posted..Why keyword negatives are important

    Reply

  3. John

    December 13, 2012 at 11:48 am

    social media is the most important part of seo, seo is nothing without this. Today social media is so vast every one use this type of services every one can get huge amount of traffic or promote business immidiately to use social media as well.
    John recently posted..work

    Reply

  4. go here

    December 11, 2012 at 2:36 pm

    now a days social media is the main focus of the companies on the internet because most of the user comes to these website so companies target these areas for marketing and i think they get good result
    go here recently posted..Garden-fresh, Get your Rhubarb!

    Reply

  5. John Will

    December 11, 2012 at 12:48 pm

    Hi Mitz!

    Its Really Quality over quantity so true! Personally, i will remove an account from my feed who posts more than 50 twitter updates on one day, especially if those tweets are of no interest to me at all. SEO strategy in my social media accounts.I will definitely do that

    Reply

  6. Richa

    December 9, 2012 at 12:22 pm

    This is quite an insightful share, Mitz. Social media strategy plays a big role in SEO these days and has become unavoidable as its benefits are many. Thanks for this great share.

    Reply

  7. Alyssa

    December 7, 2012 at 6:40 am

    This article is very helpful to me in the SEO to make my website very effective.Thank you for sharing such a great article.!!
    Alyssa recently posted..ANGULAR CHEILITIS TREATMENT – Home Remedy updated Wed Dec 5 2012 3:51 pm EST

    Reply

  8. Ann

    November 30, 2012 at 2:35 pm

    Great post. Social media is great but it’s not for all businesses. Should the shoe polishing company down the street get into this? I believe in certain industries, social media works well and in others not so well. We cannot take everyone and throw them into one basket. But one thing is for sure, social media is a signals in the algorithm. Still dont lead media overhype the social media thing..it is what it is..
    Ann recently posted..Bad Links – How to Tackle this Problem

    Reply

  9. Daniel

    November 27, 2012 at 2:23 pm

    Wow great information here. Currently I’m using the babygator hosting plan, and I’m LOVING it.
    Thanks again.
    Daniel recently posted..Bad Links – How to Tackle this Problem

    Reply

  10. Ben

    November 26, 2012 at 3:31 pm

    I think more and more the two are going hand in hand anyway. Social will become SEO in time

    Reply

  11. Patrik

    November 21, 2012 at 7:10 pm

    Indeed SEO and Social media are made for each other. The blogger with strike gold when he adopts the right ways to put these things together..
    Patrik recently posted..How to Make Long Distance Relationships Work

    Reply

    • Mitz

      November 22, 2012 at 9:57 pm

      Yes you have to try a few different things until you get it right and when you do, you will strike gold. Every strategy is different because every website or business has its own personality.
      Mitz recently posted..My Daily Blogging Routine Exposed! (dofollow)

      Reply

  12. Abhishek

    November 21, 2012 at 12:28 pm

    Thanks for this insightful share, Mitz. SEO and Social Media goes hand in hand today. Together they can help a great deal for a blog or site.
    Abhishek recently posted..Hello world!

    Reply

  13. Frank Thomas

    November 20, 2012 at 10:44 am

    Just start sharing the social media friends images weather they active or not, you have to do certain activity on social channels and create new sort of videos a month after month.

    Reply

    • Mitz

      November 22, 2012 at 9:59 pm

      Yes sharing images with social media friends does work. One of my friends takes pictures of sunsets and uses these to get traffic from social media sites and it works!
      Mitz recently posted..20 Often Forgotten Website Traffic Tips (dofollow)

      Reply

  14. Aaron

    November 20, 2012 at 3:40 am

    Hi Mitz.
    As of post promotion through social media – would you recommend Social exchangers or just regular social accounts building? I dont know where to start to be completely honest – my social pages could use more followers but I dont know how to get them. Any advice would be appreciated!
    Thank you for this great article!

    Reply

    • Mitz

      November 22, 2012 at 10:01 pm

      Interact with people. Ask them to follow.. Give them buttons to push.. Give them gifts when they follow..Make friends with others that have a lot of followers.

      Reply

  15. John

    November 18, 2012 at 4:44 pm

    Hi Mitz!
    Its Really Quality over quantity – so true! Personally, i will remove an account from my feed who posts more than 50 twitter updates on one day, especially if those tweets are of no interest to me at all. SEO strategy in my social media accounts – I will definitely do that
    John recently posted..Live Cricket Streaming

    Reply

    • Mitz

      November 22, 2012 at 10:02 pm

      Same here. I will remove an account that posts too many updates because I like to see an overall view of everyone’s updates. Posting too many updates is like spamming and I hate it! :)

      Reply

  16. Mayina

    November 18, 2012 at 8:42 am

    SEO and Social media is a great combination, with more focus on social media these days, I feel it will only have more weight in the future.
    Mayina recently posted..Sasol Vacancies: Senior Mechanical Engineer

    Reply

  17. D. Dixon

    November 17, 2012 at 5:35 pm

    Absolutely on point, Mitz. The marriage of SEO and Social Media can be seen with Bing. Bing has really taken up the mantle of considering social context as it pertains to search results. SEO has become so holistic and it’s refreshing, to be honest. I just signed with Bing’s Webmaster tools because the more I research, the more I’m realizing that I don’t want to be paralyzed or pushed around by the “fear of Google” I’m also really researching my keywords with a keener eye (I hope :) )
    Thanks!
    D. Dixon recently posted..Creating Your Basic SEO Checklist Part 1 (dofollow)

    Reply

    • Mitz

      November 18, 2012 at 12:50 am

      Sounds like a great idea! I might go and check out the bing Webmaster tools too. :)

      Reply

  18. Clarkmartin

    November 17, 2012 at 9:45 am

    Hi Mitz
    Excellent post. Social media is great but it’s not for all businesses. Should the shoe polishing company down the street get into this? I believe in certain industries, social media works well and in others not so well. We cannot take everyone and throw them into one basket. But one thing is for sure, social media is a signals in the algorithm. Still dont lead media overhype the social media thing..it is what it is..Thanks for share great tips.
    Clarkmartin recently posted..Most Loved Destinations Around The World During Christmas

    Reply

    • Mitz

      November 18, 2012 at 12:54 am

      I think that social media does work for most businesses but they need to think about how it will work for them. I am using social media for a few bricks and mortar businesses and they do require a different strategy.
      I have a petrol station/convenience store and have done some funny things with Facebook and I am amazed at what people share and like. I personally underestimated the power.
      Mitz recently posted..My Daily Blogging Routine Exposed! (dofollow)

      Reply

  19. Jean-Luc

    November 16, 2012 at 9:57 pm

    Social Media seem to be more and more relevant for Seo.
    Which is good if your audience is quite young
    But what if your audience is above 50 and not using much facebook & co?
    Jean-Luc recently posted..Corum Convictions – 3e Trimestre 2012

    Reply

    • Mitz

      November 18, 2012 at 12:55 am

      Yes this is a bit hard when your audience does not use Facebook or Twitter or even a computer in some cases. Even know many of the older age group are moving towards a computer, social media is still under heard of in there eyes. They only know of Facebook because they cannot get their grandchildren off it.
      Mitz recently posted..Blog Advertisement Checklist – When and Where to Promote (dofollow)

      Reply

  20. Suzanne

    November 16, 2012 at 9:37 pm

    Mitz, integrating social media with keywords and landing pages is a very complicated concept to me and I’m sure to many others. Learning how to target the right keywords, let alone how to use social media takes time and experience. And thus, I am still learning.
    Suzanne recently posted..39 Financial Advisor Marketing Ideas That Rock

    Reply

    • Mitz

      November 18, 2012 at 12:57 am

      Yes I can see how integrating social media and the right keywords for your pages can be complicated. But once you get your keywords and your goal down pat, you will see that it is not as hard as you think.
      We must refocus with social media because we do not want to attract the wrong audience. That would be a waste of time.
      Mitz recently posted..20 Often Forgotten Website Traffic Tips (dofollow)

      Reply

  21. Tony Porto

    November 16, 2012 at 6:24 pm

    It all starts with the keywords, without knowing what your after and/or what your intended audience is after, the foundation of your SEO will be very unstable.
    Tony Porto recently posted..Disavow Links Tool Now Available for Webmasters

    Reply

    • Mitz

      November 18, 2012 at 12:58 am

      Hi Tony,
      Yes we all must think about the audience and what keywords they will be using and what keywords attract them to click. :)

      Reply

  22. Chris

    November 16, 2012 at 4:26 pm

    Hi Mitz, Another post full of good advice as usual. The key to success of your blog or website should be consistency. People should be able to find that your facebook page has a similar theme to your website, to your twitter account etc. A common subject, design and optimization strategy will help you look more like a brand. Brands are Google’s flavour of the month (or year) it seems.
    Chris recently posted..Website Ideas

    Reply

    • Mitz

      November 18, 2012 at 12:59 am

      Yes you are right that consistency is the name of the game. Stick to your topic and be consistent about it. Stick to your topic everywhere you promote and then you will attract the right people.
      Mitz recently posted..8 Solid Tips To Help You Build a Successful Website (dofollow)

      Reply

  23. george

    November 16, 2012 at 2:35 pm

    I was making the mistake of not using the same landing pages for social media too. One more thing is that you are a guest blogging genius http://basicblogtips.com/guest-blogging-genius.html
    george recently posted..Hostgator coupon 2012–25 percent OFF discount

    Reply

  24. Bryan Ring

    November 16, 2012 at 11:54 am

    Great tips Mitz! ! ! Since finding you, my social media present has soared! ! ! Communicating with current customers and being in front of potential customers has been a real revelation to the growth of Ring Lawn Care!

    Thank You Aussie!
    Bryan Ring recently posted..Lawn Care Website Traffic (dofollow)

    Reply

  25. Aasma

    November 16, 2012 at 11:46 am

    It’s important to target correct keywords as per your services and products. If you’re targeting wrong keywords it means you’re wasting your time and efforts.

    Plus content should be original and informative so that people love to read it & share it with their friends.
    Aasma recently posted..MLM Software Freelancer Developers (dofollow)

    Reply

  26. Rahul Kashyap

    November 16, 2012 at 10:53 am

    Great Article thanks for sharing. it is really informative and valuable for every one :) . I got some useful information in this post. Really you made my day.
    Rahul Kashyap recently posted..Frankenweenie 2012 Film Review

    Reply

  27. Joe Clark

    November 16, 2012 at 5:36 am

    Hi Mitz,

    What I feel is that Social Media should be the integral part of your SEO process. I mean search engine optimization is incomplete without being active on social media.

    Thanks,
    Joe
    Joe Clark recently posted..Heading tags optimization for good SEO (dofollow)

    Reply

    • Mitz

      November 18, 2012 at 1:05 am

      I agree Joe,
      You need to be involved with social media and I agree that it is part of your search engine optimization nowadays. It is amazing how important social media is.
      I remember when I inserted my first Digg button on my website. At that time there was no such thing as social media.

      Reply

  28. April

    November 16, 2012 at 2:05 am

    Hi Mitz! Quality over quantity – so true! Personally, i will remove an account from my feed who posts more than 50 twitter updates on one day, especially if those tweets are of no interest to me at all. SEO strategy in my social media accounts – I will definitely do that.
    April recently posted..REO Recruitment Website Copywriting

    Reply

    • Mitz

      November 18, 2012 at 1:03 am

      Hi April,
      yes I like to get rid of accounts that are hogging the feeds. I do not like to see too many updates from just one business or person, I like to see an overall view of everyone.

      Reply

  29. Elena

    November 15, 2012 at 4:57 pm

    Finding the right keywords seems like the most difficult task sometimes, but it’s really worth the effort. Great tips on SEO and Social media! You can never know too much about it!
    Elena recently posted..Latest Fashion Trend in Menswear Straight from Paris

    Reply

  30. cameron

    November 15, 2012 at 8:46 am

    Nice blog. thanks for sharing with us. We at Ondemand websolution is a internet marketing and web development company in Atlanta and provide social media services like seo, smo etc. It is the best way to promote your business.
    cameron recently posted..Bad Links – How to Tackle this Problem

    Reply

  31. Brenda Macalino

    November 15, 2012 at 2:07 am

    WOw this is cool, now they have a new aligning for SEO strategies that’s sounds good..
    Brenda Macalino recently posted..Dr. Laitman

    Reply

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