Living in the digital age means you need social media accounts for your business, and it is also important to your search engine optimization (SEO).

As important as social media has become, search engines pick up different posts and profiles as results to a search query; tweets are even showing up in Google search results now.

You may be wondering how your social media is connected to your SEO, and how you can better optimize your social media. Let’s take a look.

How Social Media Affects SEO

The purpose of SEO is to help people find you whether they are looking specifically for you or for a service you offer. If a customer looks you up on social media or Google, you want them to be able to find you. If you do not come up in their search, they may turn to one of your competitors, or possibly stumble onto a company with a similar name.

When you look up someone on a search engine, if they are a public figure, their social media accounts are usually in the top 10 results. For example, when you Google Oprah, her Twitter account is the third result, and her Facebook account is the fourth. The only things above those are her website and her Wikipedia page. You will get similar results for many celebrities and companies.

Google has said that social media itself is not a direct factor in SEO ranking. However, there is evidence that shares and likes can impact your rankings. Bing, on the other hand, has said that your social media is a direct factor in your rankings, so you may see more for your efforts from that search engine.

While your likes and shares may not directly impact your Google rankings, social media does amplify other factors that do affect your rankings. If hundreds of people are sharing your content, this means more people are linking to it, which is a key factor in your ranks on Google.

Why Google Does Not Use Social Signals

Google will crawl and index social media profiles, but it does not view the number of shares or followers a page has into consideration when it comes to rankings. This is partially because of how easy it would be for someone to cheat the system and have dummy accounts give them more likes and followers, bumping the page that truly earned its followers down in the ranks.

Things are also shared so quickly on social media that Google is not always able to keep up, especially if something becomes viral.

Social Media is a Search Engine

People do not always turn to Google for their searches these days; many people will use social media to conduct searches, so we need to consider social media when we work on SEO. Posting interesting content and attractive images are important here since people searching for things on social media usually will go for something eye-catching, instead of just choosing the top result like they might do on Google.

Optimizing Social Media

Since social media interacts so differently with Google, optimizing your social media accounts is a little different than your typical SEO.

Your Profiles

Your profile is the first thing someone sees when they come to your page, so getting it optimized is important. If you are on multiple social media platforms, your branding needs to be consistent on all of them. You need the same profile photo, coloring, and information; this helps with your brand recognition, so people know they found the right profile.

Make sure your hours and location are displayed on each profile, and there is a link to your website.

You can also add hashtags to your profiles, which can help you get further exposure when people look up those specific hashtags.

Post Regularly

Your account needs to be active, with you posting frequently. The only way you will get the likes and shares necessary is if you are posting things regularly. Make sure your posting schedule works for the platform; not all platforms have the same needs.

On Twitter, 15 posts per day is the commonly suggested amount, with three on the low end and 30 as the maximum. The suggested amount for Linkedin is one post per day with twice a week on the low end. It is recommended for Facebook to make one post per day, with three a week on the low end and twice per day as the high. And finally, on Instagram, the suggested number is once or twice per day, with one per day as the low and three as the high.

Create Compelling Content

To boost your SEO through your social media, you need to share compelling content. You will need attention-grabbing headlines and images that catch the eye. Using hashtags will also help, since they are another form of keywords. They will help organize your content and allow more users on social media to find it more easily.

It is important to note that hashtag use will vary between platforms, so while you may use up to 30 on Instagram, you should use them much more sparingly.

Another thing that can help boost your shares is if you explicitly ask your audience to share your posts.

Optimized Website

You want to encourage people to read and share the content on your site, so it needs to be optimized with that in mind. This goes beyond just your written content. Videos are wildly popular these days, and they often show up on their own in search engine results; creating branded videos for your site can boost your SEO.

Including buttons for social sharing on all of your content will also help. If it is as easy as hitting a button to share your page, people are more likely to do it.

Engage

There is much more to your social media than just posting things and hoping for the best. Make your presence known on social media; engage with your followers, join relevant conversations on each platform, consider connecting with influencers.

Conclusion

These tips can help get you started on optimizing your social media accounts. If you have questions or need help, Seattle Digital Marketing is here to help. Contact us today!