That ‘content is king’ is often repeated when businesses and digital marketers discuss search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts for websites. The same rule should apply for social media content. Businesses should push their content to go viral and create a big buzz on sites like Facebook and Instagram. How? With the help of a company providing professional SEO services with social media as part of its digital marketing strategy.
SEO and Social Media
SEO is constantly improving, as it catches up with the developments and changes in the industry. It is in the nature of SEO to understand the algorithms that the search engines lay down. The problem is that the only way to find out is to read the guidelines and experiment. One specific vague area is how search engines try to tone down the impact of social media.
Current SEO strategies emphasise the concept of authority. Content should be trustworthy, informative and entertaining. It also means that some types of content would not be included in computing for search engine rankings. Specifically, these include tweets, images and other social media posts that have a low number of shares, comments or likes.
One disadvantage of these social media posts is that they are short and do not establish credibility on their own. However, the account themselves are included in the searches, after their authority has been established.
Social Media as a Complementary SEO Platform
Social media is used to complement SEO strategies. Specifically, the platform is used as a gateway to a website’s content. It is a way to promote the site and its content. A website might have an article or blog entry that is shared on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Instagram is one of those few social media platforms where it is hard to share content, and yet, it is a powerful tool when it comes to viral media. Monthly active users doubled between 2015 and 2016, jumping from 500 million to 1 billion. Created in 2010, Instagram has grown into a powerhouse social media platform for digital marketers, influencers and brand ambassadors.
Besides search engine results, shared content, especially viral content, has a side effect where users go directly to the post by clicking on the link. These are users who did not go to a search engine to find the page. They clicked on the link because they are interested in the article, product or service. These are counted as organic searches and visits for the websites, which are highly valued by the algorithms.
The changing face of SEO keeps website owners up all night about their traffic. They want a continuous flow of visitors to their site, and they also want people to browse the pages and read the articles. Keeping these visitors interested and going back to the site is the main goal. The primary strategy is to increase visibility and ranking on search engines. Social media may not be the prime tool, but the platform is useful for bringing visitors to websites.
