By Janeene High
Source: Tap Into
“The best place to hide a dead body is on page 2 of the Google search results”
That quote was published on inbound.org years ago and while it has been floating around the internet since it is still as relevant now as it was then. Nothing emphasizes the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO ) ranking on Google’s result page as well as this quote.
Below are the findings of some recent studies:
Google gets over 100 billion searches a month. (Mashable, 2015)
Facebook has 1.13 billion daily active users. (Statista, 2016)
61% of marketers say improving SEO and growing their organic presence is their top inbound marketing priority. (HubSpot, 2017)
All these figures imply that Internet marketing is the essence of any business today. Businesses can improve their online visibility through paid or unpaid mediums. SEO marketing is the process through which a business can affect the online visibility of its website or webpage in an unpaid or organic result of a web search engine such as Google.
A brand can choose from multiple digital marketing strategies such as content marketing, social media marketing, and SEO marketing to amplify its SEO ranking. However, a smart brand strategy is to use all of them in sync with one another.
Let’s look at the impact of social media marketing on SEO.
Focus on local search
To improve your online visibility, you may begin by listing your business online using business directories and news directories like Yelp, Merchant Circle, Citysearch, TAPinto, etc. According to Search Engine Land, roughly four out of five consumers use search engines to conduct local searches. The listing data in these directories can further be used by search engines like Google to create their own directory for local businesses, boosting the online presence of your brand.
Connect with external sources
You can improve the visibility of your website by publishing your content on external sources. For examples, answering business-related questions on Quora may attract diverse readers to your platform. Such exposure also makes your target group familiar with your brand, directing traffic to your website in the long-run.
Link your website
Another way to improve your SEO ranking is to make trustworthy sources link to you. You can do so by publishing quality content that can grab the interest of such sources. For example, if your brand gets an inbound link from publishers like The Guardian or Forbes, the reputation and the linked authority of your website increase. This authority is one of the main parameters considered by Google for site ranking on its result page. Another parameter is the relevance of the content of your website, that is, how closely your content meets the requirement of the searched query. Thus, SEO ranking corresponds to the relevance and authority of a site.
Amplify the impact
Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram allow you to post your content and share it with others. Thus, your content gets exposed to a broader audience. If the reader finds the content interesting or valuable, they may further share the content in their groups, increasing the reach of the content. A lot of brands work towards creating viral content with catchy headlines that may grab the attention of the users and make them share the content, driving the traffic to the website and in turn, improving SEO.
Influence-based marketing
Social media allows a brand to engage with bloggers and influencers (people who have a considerable following) to get its content published through influencers’ channels. The influencers can share the content with their followers, increasing the visibility of the brand’s online campaign or an event. In return, the brand may offer an incentive to the influencers. Such influence based marketing is built on trust of the followers on the influencer and thus, adds to the credibility of the brand.
Sharing on social platforms to gain visibility
Social media has become more relevant and powerful than it ever was as now Google fetches data from social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Thus, if the content of your post is relevant and timed correctly, and if it’s worthy of getting shares from renowned websites or influencers, it just might appear on Google’s search results.
If you’re looking for a fool-proof social media marketing strategy that will get your website on the first page of Google, find a reputabile digital marketing agency.