How Exactly Does Social Media Marketing Benefit Your Search Engine Optimization?

This statistic that states the number of social media users worldwide from the year 2010 to the year 2016 is astounding, to say the least. As per industry experts, the number of worldwide users is set to reach around 2.95 billion by 2020.

Brands, smart ones, are never far behind when it comes to leveraging a practice in order to benefit their business. In fact, a huge number of brands use social media to connect with their audience and serve them better.

With an abundance of social media platforms nowadays, and the preference of Millennials to 'go social' with everything they do, it is sad to see that many brands still regard their social media marketing efforts in somewhat of a vacuum. Sure, they focus on increasing the number of followers or friends, and they put in increased brand awareness. However, there is another significant, albeit peripheral, benefit of establishing a strong social media presence and that is improved search engine optimization results.

So how exactly does social media management (SMM) help search engine optimization services? Take a look at the following points:

High-quality inbound links:

Social networking sites are undoubtedly the most popular ones in the online space today. Moreover, social media presence is one of the major factors that search engine rankings are based on. Search engines like Google consider sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest and any other site with huge traffic volume as the most reliable sources. Thus, links coming from social media profiles can boost a business' rankings on social media search pages (SERPs).

Capitalizing on this opportunity would require the inclusion of links to the brand's official website in the static information on social media profiles. Page Description and About section are where most businesses include the links to their websites. Occasionally, posts containing website links can also be made on social media. However, there should be a balance between posts that include links and posts that don't. Otherwise, one runs a high risk of getting marked as spam.

Increased volume of inbound links:

Not only does social media marketing boost the effectiveness of SEO services by improving the quality of inbound links to a website. In the case of a website, a person can come across a piece of content, think it is amazingly awesome but still not link to it. However, on social media, if a person thinks that a piece of content is good, they are likely to share and like it. This engagement will expose the content to even more people earning more engagement and eventually more traffic to a website. Many experts even think that social data is being used for ranking algorithms, even though Google and Bing deny it.

Convenience:

Today, many brands create chatbots on popular social media messaging platforms like  Facebook Messenger, Slack, Twitter, and Skype. From the conversational user interface of these bots, people can look for information regarding a brand, place orders and even make payments. The more convenient a brand can make its services to its customers, the better rating it will get on social media, which in turn, will boost its SEO ranking.

Personalization:

Personalization is a significant factor that impacts customers' opinion about a brand. Every individual wants to be treated as an important client no matter how many customers a brand may have. The brand also tries to give personalized attention to each of its customers irrespective of how many clients it is handling at the same time. The task of providing personalized attention to every customer is made significantly easier by social media channels, where the brand can have one to one interaction with every person who messages, comments or even likes a post. The more a brand communicates with the members of its target audience on a personal level, the more they will be convinced that the brand cares about them and the ratings will improve. It will ultimately help to boost search engine rankings.

Performance data:

The results of social media marketing can be scaled and evaluated in real time. Social listening data, in addition to sentiment data, can help to streamline the keyword research process. Keyword research is, of course, an instrumental part of search marketing. It must be mentioned that the benefit is enjoyed by both social media marketing and search engine optimization. It is noteworthy that these two data sources are reflections of clientele's desires, needs, beliefs, and opinions.

Now that the benefits of social media marketing for SEO are evident, it is important to incorporate strong SMM strategies in a brand's marketing programs. Combining both SEO and SMM can help a business grow strong online presence faster as these two services reinforce each other. With both the strategies working hand in hand, the brand will witness remarkable growth, better customer engagement, more conversions and improved ROI.

What a brand must remember is that social media management, though supremely beneficial, is not a replacement for search engine optimization services. It surely helps to improve SEO results but cannot fulfill all the needs that SEO serves. The fundamentals of search engine optimization are still very relevant and should be followed. If the search crawlers cannot get access to a site, there is high chance that the site will not show up in search results at all. If there is a lack of textual content on a site, the site may not rank satisfactorily on search engine results pages.

Thus, without SEO, there is not much that SMM can amplify. Therefore, it is important to develop robust strategies for both SEO and SMM in order for a business to do well in a highly competitive online arena. Consider the facts and factors stated above and strengthen your SMM and SEO strategies. Make sure they complement each other.

Source: How Exactly Does Social Media Marketing Benefit Your Search Engine Optimization?