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Successful SEO Part 2: Social Media

As you might already know from my previous blog post, content is a huge part of search engine optimization. But content is just one piece of the SEO puzzle; a successful SEO strategy involves many elements.

For part two of my ‘Successful SEO’ blog series, I’ll be discussing social media and how you can use it to improve your SEO rankings. Here’s what you need to know…

Be an Active User

Online engagement plays a large role in your company’s SEO rankings. A great way to increase engagement is to make sure your business is active on various social media platforms. Like, comment on, share and retweet content; if someone reposts, shares, retweets, or pins your content, show them you appreciate it by sending them a personal thank you. Think of your social media activity as an online extension of your in-store customer service efforts. Managing your social media accounts doesn’t have to take a long time, but it can certainly go a long way.

Build Your Brand

Your social media presence should mimic your brand’s look and feel. Your profile picture, cover photo, and Facebook tabs, for example, should all adopt the same look like your website. If you’re not sure how to create branded cover photos or tab photos, you can hire professional graphic designers to take care of that for you. In addition to mirroring your brand visually, your social media sites should also match the tone you use on your website. This will ensure that your company’s online identity is uniform across platforms.

You can also help build your brand’s online presence (and improve your company’s SEO rankings) through social media by plugging your website and other social media sites. Most social media platforms have an “About” section. This is where you can include keywords, links to your website and other social media sites. Some social media sites, like Facebook and Google+, even have the option of adding tabs that are specific to other social networks. For example, Facebook allows you to add a YouTube tab that, when clicked on, leads you to a new page within Facebook that displays all of your YouTube videos. Linking your website and all of your social media sites to each other will help improve your SEO rankings by making your online presence stronger.

Make Your Content Easy to Share

What’s the point of posting valuable and interesting content on your website if nobody can share it? Make sure that every page of your website includes buttons that allow users to share your content on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest (at the very least). These buttons are easy to install and allow your website’s visitors to share your content with their social networks—that’s a lot of free impressions! Every time someone shares your content, your social media presence grows a little bit more, which will ultimately help increase your SEO rankings.

Know what Platforms to Use

In a perfect world, your business would have a strong presence on all social media platforms. In reality, however, that just isn’t feasible. Do some research to find out what social media sites your target market is using the most. Once you know more about your target market’s social media habits, you can build up a presence on the social media platforms that they spend the most time on. By targeting specific social networks, this strategy will increase awareness about your brand as well as your SEO rankings.

Get Google+

Google+ may not be the most popular social network, but it certainly has the most influence on your SEO rankings. Although Facebook and Twitter do play a role in increasing your SEO rankings, many of the search results from those networks are blocked due to privacy settings and data sharing restrictions. Without going into too much technical detail, Google+ content is more search engine-friendly than the content posted on any other social network.

Make sure you have a Google+ profile that links to your website, as well as your YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook accounts. It’s also important that you fill out your Google+ page information completely—include your business hours and address and don’t forget to use keywords in your company description.

So what’s the big takeaway from all of this? If used properly, social media has the power to greatly improve your SEO rankings. Hopefully, this blog post can serve as the foundation of your company’s social media strategy.

For information about IMP Canada’s social media management services, visit us online at www.impdigital.co. Don’t forget to check back next week for the third and final installment of my ‘Successful SEO’ blog series!