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Social Media and SEO: Better together
How to use Social Media for SEO
Many say that Social Media will be the death of Social Media; however, as we argued in our recent blog on the topic, we believe that websites can maximise their achievements by using SEO and Social Media together. We like to bear in mind this mantra when marketing online: Optimise for social media and be popular for a day (at most), optimise for the search engines and be popular for months (or more). Of course with search engines such as Google embracing real-time search, this idea is changing. But using social media for SEO bridges the gap perfectly; Google loves your current content, whilst your optimisation for search and creation of external links will help ensure its longevity.
Read on for some key steps to successfully using Social Media for SEO.
If youve found these posts interesting, you may want to consider our Social Media Training and SEO Training courses.
Social Bookmarking Websites
If youve got a particularly strong piece of content, then bookmark it on sites such as Digg or Delicious. If your page makes it onto Diggs or Delicouss homepages, this will result in a huge amount of traffic and lots of back-links not to mention the search engine bots thinking youre important and pushing you up their results pages. Its worth submitting all your blog posts to a few of these bookmarking sites, as they usually result in at least some traffic.
Other good bookmarking websites include Reddit, TechMeme, Magnolia, Sphinn (for SEO and Social Media related content) and StumbleUpon. Be sure to check the conditions before submitting content e.g. is it a bookmarking site for certain topics only, or does it ban self-promotional posts that announce new products?
Good headlines are crucial and again should be adapted to the type of Social Bookmarking site youre using. Current topics will attract traffic and recently updated pages will be favoured by Google. Therefore maintaining a business blog is an invaluable tool see our WordPress Training and Blogging Training courses for help with this, or take a look at our guide to what to write when blogging if youre struggling for ideas. Its also important to give your website and your posts search engine friendly titles see these top tips for WordPRess SEO. When submitting to bookmarking sites be sure to include keywords in your title especially as those who link to your post will generally just copy this. If there is a box for summarising your post, dont be lazy and be sure to fill this in with engaging and keyword-rich text many will even vote for your content based on this, without even reading it!
Social Networks
Submitting your content to LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr is an excellent way to get traffic, generate feedback and hopefully get others linking to you. However, these are Social Networks, and most users look down on / steer entirely clear of those who just promote themselves. Again, this is why blogging is a great idea, as you can create content that may be of value to those in your network.On Facebook post your new content to your profile or fan page, but mingle this with other content. Likewise, on Twitter mingle promoting your own posts with re-tweets of others. LinkedIn groups tend to frown upon those who post links all over them, unless its a particularly stimulating topic instead submit your link as a news item to popular relevant groups.
Make sure any company profiles, e.g. on LinkedIn, are keyword rich, and that and group / fan page names are search engine optimised (see here for how to change your Facebook fan page URL). Although most links will be nofollow (see How do I get dofollow links? and Whats the latest on nofollows?), its still worth getting links from these high-profile and often authoritative websites (on this note, if you can think of a reason to get linked on Wikipedia do it!). With search engines moving towards real-time search, optimising your tweets on Twitter is also a great idea especially if youre talking about something in the news. Also optimise for Twitter search tools, with relevant hashtags.
Google loves Twitter results for breaking news
Review Websites
Many searches for local businesses will bring up a review on a website such as Yelp. If theyre not clued up to the web and social media, this may even appear as the first result! Therefore be sure to look out for reviews of your business on these sites, and add business profiles where its allowed, e.g. on Yelp. Its also worth asking your customers (or giving them incentives) to review you again, the more people talking about you, the more important the search engine bots will think you are.
The Yelp listing is the first result for this Brighton-based cafe – that’s before videos, blogs and their Facebook fan page.
Google Maps
Google Maps is even more powerful than review websites, as it will be the first result for many search queries including a collection of reviews of your business. If someone enters Brighton computer repairs and youre not listed on Google Maps, youll be pushed down the search rankings and probably left unnoticed by potential customers. This also applies to Yahoo, which will put location and reviews at the very top of results for a location-based query with businesses with the most reviews ranked highest. Many businesses have yet to use this aspect of social media optimisation just see below for how few restaurants Yahoo finds in central Brighton!
Youtube
Podcasting Training is a key component of our range of Social Media and SEO Training, as video and audio content are favoured on search engines such as Googles results pages. In addition, comments to your video content on Youtube will tell Google youre important. Whether youve got an idea for a great viral video or not, its well worth getting some content up. Plus, all your online profiles are creating an additional back-link.
Tagging
At the moment tagging is most popular for blog posts, social bookmarking websites and Youtube videos. However tagging is being introduced in more and more places its a way of choosing relevant search-friendly keywords to associate with your content so where its available, use it!
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sem, SEO, smm, smo, social bookmarking, social media, social media and seo together, social networks
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