Social media marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies are interdependent. Both strategies bring organic traffic to your website and enhance your brand’s visibility. Your efforts to engage followers on social media boost social media boost your SEO strategies. On the other hand, effective SEO will expand your social media reach. In the current digital world, every business is turning to social media to reach potential customers.
The highest percentage of buyers spends hours on social media every day. Major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have millions of active users. Hence, social media offers businesses an opportunity to reach millions of potential buyers with their products and services. You can use social media to boost your local SEO strategies in the following ways.
Increase the number of followers
A large number of followers can improve your website’s rank on Google search results. If your business has hundreds of followers, it cannot compete with large organizations with thousands or millions of followers. Start building the number of followers organically. Google and other search engines can detect fake followers. Avoid buying followers or likes to boost the number of followers.
The reality is that it takes the time to increase your number of followers but the long process is worth. One way to increase the number is to share quality content that initiates discussions with your followers. Consistent engagements with your clients or prospects build your presence on each platform. It is easier to attract new followers with a strong online brand.
Optimize your posts for the local audience
As you prepare content for your social media platforms, bear in mind that you want to reach buyers in your area. Hence, your posts should be optimized to reach the local audience while remaining relevant to the global audience. Talk about any events in your area that your business participates in or supports including community projects. Post photos and videos of the events where possible. Social media users read and share posts with photos more than the normal text.
Another way to reach the local audience is to engage other businesses in the area on social media. Comment on or share their posts on social media and blogs. Encourage them to share your posts as well.
Build your brand’s awareness
Social media offers a platform to increase the awareness of your brand in the local and regional market. You have an opportunity to build a good reputation and win the trust of your clients. Sharing quality useful content and engaging your clients consistently build your online presence. Your followers will begin to search for your brand on search engines. The branded searches improve your ranking for non-branded keywords on Google.
The secret to building your reputation on social media building your reputation on social media is to give your followers a great experience. Be kind in your responses and address negative comments as well especially regarding your product or service. Keep your followers expectant of exciting new posts daily.
Share optimized content
Your posts should not only keep your followers engaged but also rank high on search engines. Popular or trending posts appear among the top search results on Google. Add relevant keywords to your posts and strong anchors such as videos and infographics. You can also create informative blog posts and share their links on social media.
Encourage your followers to share your posts
Social sharing improves your domain authority by validating your website as a reliable source of information. All responses to your social media posts help in building your domain authority. Ask your followers directly to like, comment, and share your posts. Ensure that you post interesting, relevant, and accurate content before soliciting for social sharing.
An alternative way to encourage your followers to respond to your posts is to conduct surveys. You can create posts that request them to like or comment with a certain response if they agree with your posts. Such posts attract thousands of comments, which will improve your domain authority significantly.
Use social media for link building
A link strategy is necessary to boost your SEO practices. You can get new inbound links on social media by encouraging your connections to link their websites to your business website. For this strategy, engage followers whose websites have a high domain authority. Such followers will only agree to your request if you share quality content consistently. Share original content with an authoritative voice every day as you send requests for inbound links. In addition, participate in trending discussions to connect with new sources of external links.
From this discussion, it is clear that the quality of content on your social media platforms influences your search engine rankings. Start reviewing your content before sharing to ensure that it is optimized, accurate, engaging, and shareable. High-quality content will also help you increase your followers and build your brand authority on social media.