Social Media SEO: 10 Effective Social Media Strategies to Improve SEO

Often, social media and SEO conversations happen separately.

Social media is meant to build relationships and engage with your audience, while SEO seems more scientific, with specific keyword analyses to attract as many eyes as possible.

However, these two facets of inbound marketing can work together to amplify each other’s results. In this blog, you’ll realize that compromise is in sight.

This guide will help any marketer integrate their efforts across both platforms.

Below, we’ll cover the following topics:

• Social Media vs. SEO
• What is social media SEO?
• 10 Social Media SEO Strategies
• Social Media SEO Strategies in Action

Social Media vs. SEO

SEO and Social media management relate to posting and optimizing your content on social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. SEO strategy is making your website or content more searchable so that people looking up phrases or questions about products or topics related to your industry will find your site in the results.

Now that you know the difference between social media and SEO, let’s explore social media SEO.

What is social media SEO?

Search Engine Optimization Social media allows you to optimize your social profiles to better attract potential customers through search. SEO best practices will vary across platforms.

However, the goal remains: find the right audience for your brand and expose them to products they could buy.

While SEO and social media marketing services tend to be very different strategies, they can complement each other. Leveraging both can help you gain traffic from a variety of different sources.

Our survey in January, involving 1,528 social media marketers, emphasized the growing importance of social media in 2024.

42% strongly agreed that people now prefer finding brands on social media rather than traditional search engines.

Our findings suggest that in 2024, more people will buy directly from social media apps than from other channels. 82% said they’d choose social media over a brand’s website, and 84% said the same compared to third-party sites like Amazon.

It’s becoming increasingly clear: Social media is no longer only a place to connect with friends. It’s a connection spot between businesses and customers.

And will social search replace search engines?

No, both hold their ground because they serve different purposes.

People use Google to find an answer to a question. On the other hand, they use social media to discover answers to questions they haven’t yet thought of.

The difference between search engines and social media platforms is blurring.

10 Social Media SEO Strategies

1. Social Sharing Buttons on Your Website

There needs to be more debate regarding social media sharing buttons. Are they powerful tools or just unnecessary clutter?

Social sharing buttons can be practical if you place them strategically — for example, on blog posts.

Grammarly does a great job using this method.

In other scenarios, social sharing buttons might not yield any results.

For example, a VWO study suggests that removing those buttons from landing pages can increase click-through rates by 11.9%.

This indicates that while blog posts benefit from social sharing buttons, pages with clear goals may perform better without them. Conducting A/B tests can help you determine your site’s best placement for social sharing buttons.

2. Integrated Keyword Strategy

As mentioned earlier, the line between search engines and social media platforms must be clearer. When appropriate, take the keyword strategy you use for your website and apply it to your social media engagement.

Do research and find what keywords are most famous for your particular platform.

For instance, in January 2023, Statista found that “how to…” keywords were the most searched terms on TikTok during the examined period. Following closely behind was the term “what is…” with an index of 10.

Once you write the list of the top keywords for your social media posts, you can start creating them. But, don’t overload your posts with too many keywords.

Instead, be aware of how you word social media messages. By adding keywords to social media content, you can increase the reach of your messages.

Here’s how to identify the right keywords for each platform:

– Reflect on phrases people might use to describe your business if they couldn’t recall its name. For instance, for a productivity tool, users might search for terms like “task manager” or “organizer app.”
If there is significant competition, Opt for more specific terms. For example, a “budget-friendly travel app” might yield better results than a “travel app.”
– Select keywords that align with the associations you wish to establish. For instance, if you offer discounts, use something like “discount app,” “best deal,” etc.
– Revisit any previous SEO keyword research to incorporate relevant terms. Keywords that performed well in web searches may also be effective on social media.
– Tailor your keyword selection to suit the nuances of each platform. For instance, a restaurant might use keywords like “best restaurant in New York” on Facebook to attract guests, while on LinkedIn, terms like “hospitality jobs in New York” could attract talent.

3. Include Links in Social Profiles

The links in social media messages, such as tweets and Facebook status updates, are traditionally no-follow links. This means they don’t pass any SEO authority to the site they’re linking to.

But before we continue, let me first debunk two myths about nofollow links:

-Nofollow links are useless. Although they may not boost your site’s authority, they can still drive traffic and potential customers.
-Nofollow links hurt your site. This is not true. They can even improve your search ranking and shield you from penalties when used correctly.

For example, comments on social networks or forum posts should have a nofollow link. It tells search engines that these links “aren’t meant for advertising purposes.”

On the other hand, it’s important to understand that the URL in a social media account’s bio is a follow link.

Ensure you use these extra opportunities to draw your audience to your site.

4. Add Links Into Video and Presentation Content

Our stats suggest that short-form videos, like those on TikTok and Instagram Reels, have given the biggest ROI this year, with 36% of respondents choosing them. So, sharing links to TikTok and Instagram is a good idea for better engagement.

You can do the same on other social media platforms, too. For example, on LinkedIn, you can use carousels to break down your blog article into a few engaging slides and link back to that article.

You have two options for adding links to videos or presentations:

– If the social media platform allows it, you can embed them directly into the video or slides.
– You can place the links in the description below/above the video or slides.
Both methods provide extra information or resources to your audience, improving their engagement with your content.

5. Optimize Social Profiles

Think of social media profile pages as extensions of your website.

Just as you would optimize website pages for page titles and keywords, audit your social media profiles to ensure they mirror your website’s search engine optimization strategy.

This can fall under your About Us, Services, Products, or the other editable sections to help search engines further understand your website’s relationship to those keywords.

Here are some tips on how to optimize it:

Don’t be anonymous. A profile picture is a must to establish credibility. Use eye-catching, high-quality images.
– Regularly update your cover photo on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. For instance, you can announce events or new releases.
– Add social badges and email signatures to your website to direct traffic to your profiles.
– Use SEO-friendly keywords in the About section. Remember — only the first 140 characters appear in search results, so lead with essential info.
– Link your website in your bio sections and make sure your website is mobile-friendly.
– Verify your account to get a verification badge. It helps to distinguish it from fake or fan accounts with your name. This study shows that verified badges on social media greatly affect how much consumers trust profiles and their posts. They also help make commercial posts more acceptable.

6. Building Links and Social Media Reach

Search engine optimization has long been about inbound links to your website. While inbound links are still significant, a secondary metric for marketers looking to increase search traffic should be social media reach.

To encourage more people to share your content on social media, you need to increase your account’s number of fans or followers.

However, don’t pay for fake followers or likes; the platform will likely catch and penalize you.

The Artios study found concerning results—the number of fake followers is increasing yearly. Across platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, there’s a rising trend of people seeking to purchase fake followers.

But trust me, buying followers doesn’t work. Sure, your numbers might look good, but what about the engagement? It’s practically non-existent.

10k followers but only getting 10 likes per post? Doesn’t add up?

Purchased likes are also worthless. Those bots won’t engage with your content, care about your brand, or become actual customers.

Instead of enjoying fake fame, grow your reach through quality content creation and engagement. You will build not only social media reach but also inbound links.

7. Establish Relationships

Similar to sales, relationships are enormous for driving inbound links and social media attention. Building relationships using social media can open opportunities for guest blog posts and other link-building opportunities.

You can also implement this by polling followers to drive engagement and responding to comments to show users you are willing to communicate.

8. Monitoring Your Brand on Social Media

As marketers, we can take steps to monitor our brand on social media to track interactions, mentions, and sentiment.

You can take it further and respond to those looking for you. Create brand monitoring alerts for keywords related to your brand, your actual brand name, and misspellings of your brand name.

This will allow you to identify those talking about you, even if they misspell your brand name. You can respond to conversations to guide potential new visitors to your website.

9. Tracking and Measuring Social Media SEO

Tracking and measuring social media SEO efforts can help to identify what’s working and what isn’t.

For example, Google Analytics can track how visitors arrive at your website. This will tell you if they were referred by a social media site or a search engine.

You can adjust your strategy accordingly once you know what channels drive traffic.

10. Influencers and Social Media SEO

Influencer marketing has grown in popularity over the past few years, and there’s no sign of slowing down.

Influencers are now more sought after than traditional celebrities for endorsements and promotions.

Since the rise of social media, influencers have developed a strong relationship with their audience. Because of this, they can help your business by increasing exposure and links.

Influencer endorsements can also build trust and drive traffic to your website.

Getting Started with Social Media SEO

Now that you have a comprehensive guide to integrating social media and SEO, it’s time to implement these strategies. Start by optimizing your social media profiles and content to ensure alignment with your SEO goals. This will drive traffic to your website and enhance your search engine rankings.

If you want to elevate your strategy further, consider partnering with SEO and Social Media Marketing Services experts. Our team at Engage Coders specializes in SEO and Social Media Marketing to provide tailored solutions that bridge the gap between Search Engine Optimization and social media efforts.

By leveraging Social Media SEO Services, we help you harness the power of social backlinks and effective SEO and Social Media integration. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to boost your online presence and drive more targeted traffic to your site.

Ready to see results? Contact us today, and let us help you amplify your Social Media SEO strategy. Reach out now for a consultation!