Boosting SEO With Social Media: The Organic Factor

An organic approach to digital marketing, with SEO as the end goal, can be a powerful method. Digital marketing is crucial to any business. It encompasses the use of digital technologies by brands to collect relevant leads and convert them into customers.  This applies to all types of business, large and small.

What do we really mean by ‘digital marketing’? All types of online platforms, as well as offline digital channels such as SMS. In addition to traditional internet resources, digital marketing also includes mobile and web apps.

Right now, social networks reign as the most popular and frequented online destinations. As a result, they command the attention of marketers who aim to use those sites to promote their brands. Basically, if you’re managing a business, online presence is a must.

Long-lasting social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn attract hundreds of millions of daily users. They give businesses unprecedented opportunities to deliver marketing messages to targeted audiences. Other popular social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and SnapChat have gained traction in the digital world and offer distinctive features that attract wider, and particular demographics.

Start by planning from scratch. That’s the organic approach.

When executed in conjunction with other digital strategies, such as search engine optimization (SEO), the marketing benefits of social media become eve more obvious. Social media is perhaps the most powerful digital marketing tool.

What is organic in terms of SEO?

Search engines continue to play a major role in online marketing. For the most part, two overarching challenges guide SEO. First, shoppers turn to search engines to find answers to their problems and products that meet their needs. Companies want to get noticed in the search engine results for relevant queries and generate natural, ‘organic’ traffic to their website that results in sales.

The other challenge stems from the fact that the sites listed at the top of search results pages attract the majority of clicks from users. Internal factors such as page structure, readability and keyword content directly impact SEO.

But, so do external factors such as backlinks and domain authority. Of course, external factors can represent more of a challenge for digital marketing than do the internal aspects of SEO. Fortunately, social media can help.

Search engine algorithms may not directly consider the social popularity of a page and its domain, they do detect ‘social signals’ which indicate its value. By leveraging social media marketing in ways that benefit SEO, you can get better results from the same level of effort. Here’s how.

Link building for SEO is a proven method. How can it be organic?

Link building for SEO is a proven, and direct method that gives results. Social media channels, on the other hand, do not have a direct impact on SEO. It grows over time, with the help of your audience. As you publish content to social media,always include links to your website. That way, people can use to find more information. Upon arrival at your website, users have a chance to become a lead, prospect or customer.

Pointing people to your website from social media can contribute to your marketing effort. The links you create will further your SEO effort
because they are ‘no-follow.’ Still, you can indirectly boost SEO by linking to external pages that have ‘do follow’ links to your site.

Another way to use social media for link building is to use it to discover new opportunities. For example, you can use the search features of social networks to build an outreach list of influencers and websites that might link to your content.

Use social media to gain a larger audience.

A well-executed social media marketing strategy can build the organic value of your brand. For instance, you can use buzz-generation tactics. Contests and promotions can introduce your brand to an expanding base of users.

Websites such as Constant Contact give you a complete platform for managing your content marketing effort. In addition to keeping tabs on vital metrics, the site will also help you create and manage a monthly newsletter.

Another tool, HootSuite, will simultaneously manage multiple social media platforms and help you publish your content at the right time to gain the attention of industry influencers who can promote your brand.

Sharing is caring and your audience knows this.

Ask yourself: What are the characteristics of your business? What personality does it have? Is it a startup, a small family-owned business or are you working from home as a freelancer? Having a personal approach can actually be the basis of your digital marketing strategy, as it can create both brand awareness, and loyalty.

Don’t pester your audience with sales pitches. Spend time interacting with people on a personal, organic level. Part of this involves sharing interesting and valuable content, even if it is outsourced.

Of course, you also should share content from your website with your social media audience. Search engines monitor social sharing and assume that frequently shared pages are more valuable than those with either few or no shares. Beyond social sharing, the metric of social engagement also affects SEO.

Publish compelling calls to action, sponsor contests and hold live Q&A sessions. Engage your audience in ways that boost the value and authority of your brand and domain. Better search engine visibility will soon follow.

Let’s summarize, so you can get to work.

In conclusion, you can boost the effectiveness of your digital marketing strategy by leveraging social media to earn improved search engine visibility for your website. Aside from generating relevant visitors to your website, this tactic will increase your value to search engines.

Share your website content on social networks. Talk with your audience, implement organic interaction. You build the social strength of your brand in an organic way.

When can you start? Anytime. Log in and begin using your social media accounts to build links, grow your audience and organically boost your SEO.