In today’s business world there are so many hot topics like social media and search engine optimization (SEO) that are constantly thrown around without people fully understanding what they are and how they work together. The purpose of this article is to define what exactly social media and SEO are, their relationship to each other and how they can help your business grow.
Social Media
The official Merriam-Webster definition of social media is: forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos). From a business perspective it is a channel that allows you to connect with your customers and followers on a more personal level. You can quickly communicate with your followers, share your expertise and show your business off to a community that is passionate about your brand.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
According to Search Engine Land, SEO is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines. It involves optimizing your website with keywords in the content to help Google when it ranks your site. There are many elements that go into SEO such as content, social media, video, links and more. You want to make sure to avoid keyword stuffing (ie: placing large amounts of keywords throughout content even if the content does not make sense) Google will knock you for that and will lower your search ranking. SEO is a complex topic so more research may be needed to fully understand the topic.
Social Media & SEO Together
Social media and SEO have an important relationship together when it comes to search rankings. Google will look at your social posts and urls and information and consider the information there in the search rankings. You want to make sure that you fil out all of your company information on your social profiles to help with recognition and your rankings. The higher visibility your posts and pages receive will also help with your rankings so the more engagement your page receives the better your rankings will be. But an important thing to keep in mind is that you want quality followers over quantity. Buying large amounts of followers will not help your rankings and some social media sites will go through and occasionally delete out fake followers. You want to focus on building up a loyal following on social media who are genuinely interested in what you have to say. The biggest thing to keep in mind when it comes to social media is to be honest (aka no fake accounts or followers) and create quality content that your followers will want to share with others.
