With PPC ads getting more and more expensive, marketers are adopting new organic marketing strategies to help decrease their dependence on ads. Out of these strategies, two stand out the most; SEO and social media. Did you know that 70% of businesses still don’t have an SEO strategy?

Well, that’s great news for you, as it means there’s still room for new players! You can even use your social media strategy to boost your prospects. Let’s talk about how to build an SEO and social media strategy for your business!

How SEO Works

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a popular marketing strategy in which brands optimize their websites’ content to rank higher on search engines like Google. If you carry out this strategy yourself, it’s entirely free.

Ideally, this is a great way to boost your organic traffic, which is the traffic you don’t have to pay for or prompt in any way. Google will promote your content to the right users if you meet their standards. If you own the content on your website, you can reap the rewards indefinitely.

Search engines like Google use software called “crawlers” to crawl through, index, and rank hundreds of billions of web pages every day. All of this is done automatically and with an advanced algorithm aimed at delivering relevant, high-quality content to users.

By using the right keywords, UX design, and quality content strategy, your pages will appear for users seeking relevant information. For example, if a trade school ranks for keywords like “plumber school near me” or “vocational training in Pittsburg”, this could drive greater sales, increase brand recognition, and more. 

Users tend to trust organic results far more than paid ads, so using organic marketing in your strategy is important. Another form of organic marketing that integrates well with an SEO campaign is, you guessed it, social media. First, let’s talk about the most important SEO strategy elements.

Website

We like to think of SEO as having three major pillars. The first is the quality of your website, which acts as the foundation of your strategy. If you think about it from Google’s perspective, it would reflect poorly on their service to promote sites with poor usability.

That’s why Google uses over 200 ranking factors dedicated to the quality of your website. Most importantly, you need a fast-loading site with original content, and it needs to adapt to any screen.

To test your site’s page speed, use Google Pagespeed Insights. If your pages are running slowly, it could mean you need to reduce your heavy CSS/Javascript files, or it could be an issue with your server. Either way, this is important for your strategy.

For testing mobile-friendliness, use Google Mobile-Friendly Test. Since most web traffic comes from mobile devices, many businesses are adopting the “mobile-first strategy”. Either way, it’s important to ensure your site is usable on any device.

From there, try to build a clean navigation system, offer a clear page structure, and keep the user in mind while designing your site. Building a house on a broken foundation won’t get you very far.

Content Marketing

To stick with the metaphor, content marketing is the house itself. If your website is 100% perfect, how would you expect anyone to find your website on search engines without some type of content marketing strategy? Unless they search “XYZ brand contact page”, it’s unlikely they will.

Users typically search for information, not brands. Your content marketing strategy should seek to offer that information in an engaging and user-friendly way. Remember, you’re building content for users, not search engines.

Using the right keywords and always offering useful information to your audience is what’s most important. For example, a mechanic might have topics on “how to replace a valve cover gasket on a Honda Civic”. From there, they’ll explain the process, highlight some of the pain points, and offer their services as a solution at the end.

If you use the right keywords and optimize your content, users should have no trouble finding your website. To find the right keywords, topics, and everything else, look at your competition. Insert their URLs into your favorite keyword research tool and try to diversify your keyword strategy as much as possible for the best results.

From there, try to eliminate “fluff” or filler content that doesn’t serve a purpose. Always have something to say, don’t skimp on research, and try to build something better than your competition.

It doesn’t matter if you’re building a blog, video content, or anything else. Quality content and proper keyword usage are always the keys to success in SEO.

Off-Page SEO

If your website acts as the foundation and your content strategy is the house, then your off-page SEO strategy is what ties it all together. While it isn’t all up to you, there is a lot you can do to boost your off-page ranking.

Using the right directories, business listings, and social media platforms can help you build off-page SEO. However, the most important off-page factor is backlinks or links from other sites to yours. Either way, this is one of the most important ways that social media can help your SEO strategy!

SEO and Social Media Marketing

When used in tandem, SEO and social media marketing strategies can create a mutually beneficial relationship. For example, boosting organic traffic to your website can help drive more engagement and followers for your social media platforms, and more website traffic from your social media can help boost SEO.

Here’s how to get started!

1. Share Content

Sharing your new website content is the easiest way to get started. It will reduce the amount of new social media posts you need to create, expand the reach of each post, and boost traffic to your website.

2. Link to Your Website

Links from social media sites won’t count the same as a backlink from the Washington Post. However, they are still important to help Google find, crawl, and index your website. Also, it will help users find and interact with your content, which will help your SEO rankings.

Sharing on social media, especially on platforms like LinkedIn, is also a great way to potentially build backlinks. If other blogs or businesses find your content and enjoy it, they may want to direct users to your website. This is critical for establishing domain authority.

Google’s algorithm is powerful, but it can’t instantly fact-check every piece of information on the internet. For that reason, they rely heavily on other websites to “vote” on other websites’ behalf. A link from a website with high domain authority could be the difference between the first and third page on Google, depending on your industry, so don’t miss out on organic approaches to link-building!

It’s easy to add a link to your website in your bio on every social media platform you use, but don’t stop there. Share your content on social media regularly, promote new discounts or promotions, and more.

3. Boost Engagement

Two important factors in SEO are your engagement rate and click-through rate. Essentially, the more traffic you have, and the more that traffic sticks around, the easier it is to build more. Expanding your reach with social media is a great way to help build your SEO strategy.

Also, this works in reverse. Engagement rates are also critical for your social media strategy, so this is another way the two strategies can benefit one another.

4. Add “Share” Buttons to Your Website Content

“Like” and “share” buttons are easy to add to your blog posts or another content strategy. If you use a CMS like WordPress, it’s as simple as installing and enabling a plugin of your choice.

This is a great way to build free engagement on social media and potentially expand your reach. Every share from a new user could increase your reach by hundreds or thousands of new users. If you don’t have share buttons on your content, you’re missing out.

Other engagement including likes and comments from social media will also help increase your engagement rates on your website. This is an important metric for SEO, and you can easily track it using Google Analytics or other analytics tools.

5. Influencer Marketing

Another great way to expand your reach, boost engagement, and directly improve sales is with influencer marketing. Some influencers have built high levels of trust with their audiences. If you find one with a similar target audience, this is a great way to help boost traffic, engagement, and conversions on your site.

Of course, this is also a great way to boost your follower count and social media engagement. If you want to get started with influencer marketing, then Instagram is the best platform for this, followed by YouTube and TikTok.

6. Market Research

Social media is one of the best tools out there for identifying and learning about your target audience. Tracking metrics for your SEO campaign is essential, but it shouldn’t only take place on your website. You can gain valuable insights by tracking the behavior of your followers.

When you post something new, track engagement rates, try A/B testing, test different promotional material, and see what type of content your target audience prefers. This could go a long way to boosting your SEO campaign if you use this information wisely. Social media is far more forgiving than SEO, so it’s a great place to test new types of content.

Tips for Using SEO and Social Media Effectively

We’ve established how SEO and social media can be integrated for success. Now, let’s go over some tips to help you get the most out of your SEO and social media strategy.

Use the Right Platforms

The platform can make all the difference. It’s unlikely you’ll find as many middle-aged working professionals on TikTok as you would on LinkedIn. Optimizing your platform can help expand your reach greatly.

Yes, Facebook has the most users by a large margin, but if your target audience is younger, you may have an easier time finding them on Instagram or TikTok.

Also, depending on your strategy, some platforms are better than others. For example, if your SEO marketing strategy relies on video content, then YouTube or TikTok is better than Twitter. If you will be relying on influencer marketing, then try Instagram.

There are many factors to consider. It doesn’t hurt to use multiple platforms at first to see which works best for you and your strategy!

Optimize Your Profile

Regardless of the platform you use, you should open a business account and optimize your profile right away. Your profile picture should be clear and legible on every device, and your name and bio should be as concise as possible.

If your brand is called “Providence Generic Software Company”, try to condense it a little for mobile devices. You don’t have to use an abbreviation, but “Generic Software” could suffice, or you can follow it with “- Providence”. This just helps users identify you right away.

Your bio should be one or two sentences followed by a link to your website. You can add whatever else you want after that, but that’s all that will fit on most devices without having to click “read more”. Get the most relevant information out as concisely as possible.

Post at the Optimal Times

Posting at the right times on social media and using the right trends or hashtags can greatly expand your organic reach. Different platforms and target audiences will have different optimal times for posting, so it’s best to try different approaches and see what works for you!

Enjoy Your Traffic

Now that you know how to use SEO and social media together for the best results, put these tips to use and get the most out of your strategy today. Both tools are excellent for building an organic following and reducing your dependence on paid ads, but only if you use them appropriately!

Stay up to date with our latest digital marketing tips and feel free to contact us with any questions or for help with your strategies!