Everything about Social SEO & its importance!

Most people have heard of SEO and you are probably already doing SEO for your website. But, have you heard about Social SEO yet? Do you know that the search industry is commonly reactive about how social media has an influence on SEO? Especially, whether Social Media is beneficial for your SEO efforts in actual or not! For that matter, we would like to form a crystal clear concept of Social SEO. First, we should find out what is Social SEO and second, how does Social SEO help to grow your business?

So, does Social SEO help your business for all intents and purposes? Yes! It does. Social SEO helps your business to grow successfully by targeting the following factors:

• Higher in ranking

• More visibility

• More traffic

• More leads

• More prospects

• More sales

What is Social SEO?

Social Media: In general, it refers to the websites and applications that enable the users to share ideas, knowledge and information through virtual networking and communities. E.g.- Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Quora, Google+ and etc.

SEO: It defines Search Engine Optimization, that applies in enlarging the visibility and traffic to your websites through Search Engine results.

The intersection between the Social Media and SEO is named Social SEO. The objective of doing Social SEO is to enhance and reinforce the volume and quality of your website's traffic through Google and other search engines, with the assistance of Social Media content strategies and campaigns.

3 Things you should know before considering the influence of Social Media on SEO

1. Social Links may or may not increase your Search Ranking

There has been a long-running debate over whether Social media has any impact on SEO or not! In 2014, after Twitter temporarily blocked Google's access to their social network, Matt Coates, the former head of Google's Web spam, released a video to give an explanation of how Google can't rely on signals, that may not be there tomorrow. This is where the conversation stopped. Since 2014, Google has openly denied that there is any direct social impact on rankings. However, now it has changed a lot in the last six years. It is 2020 now! A remarkable shift is that social networks begin to appear on search engine results to great extent. Let us try doing a simple google search for a brand such as Noraa:

Image 1: Google Search Result of Noraa

As can be seen from Image 1, PR Activities such as blogs/articles from yourstory, newindianexpress, and social media page of Noraa's Facebook Page comes in 1st Google Search Page. On the other hand when we do a quick search for CrissCross Lab on Google, we got the following:

Image 2: Google Search of CrissCross Lab

In Image 2, we see that when we searched for CrissCross Lab on google, the top results showed our LinkedIn profile, our website link, and then our Instagram and Twitter Pages.

2) Social Media Profiles rank in Search Engine Results...

Your social media profiles aren’t just limited to social media; they also rank in search engine results. They are often visible on the first page in branded search results. So your brand can increase the visibility of your search engine and drive more traffic by creating social media profiles and optimising them. Now, we have heard from brands that the more social media profiles a brand will have, the better Search Engine Ranking the brand will have. However, that is over-reaching as per us. It is of utmost importance that a brand focuses, optimises, and promotes only such Social Media Platforms that has the brand's target audience.

Also, at times, we have noticed brands opening social media platforms initially and not posting any content, this is especially true for YouTube Channels of the brands. Brands must understand, any social media profile that does not have content, the User Trust Index will fall.

Furthermore, your Social SEO rankings will be directly proportionate to how individually your performance is on that Social Media Platform. For example, when we started with Backyard Valley we found out that the User Trust Index was -13.42 (Negative shows Distrust in Brand, Range: -50 to +50). The Brand has only about 530 Followers against about 2120 Following. This hugely impacted its SEO Rankings. As of 1st December, the User Trust Index was at +17.16, the brand started seeing better campaign performance (increased by almost 82%), better engagement rate (increase of about 22%) and decided to run influencer campaigns after Diwali 2020.

3) Social Media Platforms are Search Engines too!

It works in a few ways. First, if you're active on any social media, it's absolutely possible for any person to come across your company's website or app after finding your posts there in the form of static post, video post, story, blog etc. Furthermore, if you also have offline presence, as per our survey for almost 1,000 brands, we found out that users purchase after searching for the brand in their preferred Social Media Platform. Do you also do it? We would love to get your opinion, click here.

How is Social Media beneficial for SEO?

1. Sharing is caring: Social Media posts broadcast innovative, intelligent, well-informed, and motivational content. Useful content helps to increase the reach of your content. The more reach you will have on your content, the more search engines will like it.

2. Prospective for recommendation: Social Media gives authorisation of Link Building practices. Google clearly says that reliability and integrity are the key factors of SEO. Hence, by placing related, safe, reliable and authentic links to your website concerning the other recommended websites, it makes sure that your website has appeared as a top and valid search engine result. Remember how Backyard Valley changed for its customers?

3. Well-built audience: Social Media gains followers & subscribers while the website improves its visibility and traffic. The more people will share your social media content, the more your website will gain recognition in the market.

4. Communication is fundamental: Persistent communication made with the help of Social SEO strengthens a brand's popularity. Communication is the key for any brand's success. As, anytime and anywhere, it provides all the detailed information which the consumers ask for.

5. Helps to get Engagement: Users see and notice websites organically through search engines. Social SEO helps to boost a website's traffic and visibility. As the content will go around the social media platforms, people will view, and engage with the content.

Components of Social SEO

Now, a well planned Social SEO campaign is a mixture of Social Media Management, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing (Pay per Click - PPC Ads), Social Media Marketing (Ads), Website Optimisation, and many more. Let us discuss about each components in detail and how it integrates into Social SEO.

Social Media Management:

Any Social SEO campaign requires that your Social Media Platforms are in top shape, use of correct keywords in every post with combination of general high ranking hashtags and personalized hashtags are a great way to get started. Also, to increase engagement rate, it is of utmost importance that the content on your Social Media Platforms is absolutely breath taking.

Image 3: Social Media post of Backyard Valley

Search Engine Optimization

On-site and off-site SEO still plays a major role when it comes to Social SEO. To reap the maximum benefits, your SEO plan should be in align with your Social SEO Campaign goal. The biggest difference we have seen with brands is that brands have different strategies for SEO and Social Media Platforms. At the end, brand must understand that User Trust Index is a combination of Social Media performance and Search Engine Performance. Thus, the more aligned both will be, the better User Trust Index brands will get.

Search Engine Marketing (Ads)

Any Social SEO plan is incomplete without SEM. It is important to run Search Engine Ads even if your brand allocates minimum amount of marketing budget for it. We prefer running a smart keywords ad at least.

Social Media Marketing (Ads)

To increase reach of your Social Media Content, it is imperative that you boost your social media posts. Remember, for best results, a new brand should first focus solely on Brand Awareness and Reach Ads as your brand needs to tell your target audience that you exist. Furthermore, your entire SMM Campaign will be based on how the performance of your first month ads. This will increase the chances for your brands to do conversions in the upcoming months.

Website Optimization

Another major component of a well planned Social SEO campaign is your Website. A simple cheap static website with the right on-site SEO and well planned layout have higher chances of conversions than even a very expensive dynamic or e-commerce website.

At CrissCross Lab, we thrive on data analysis and as a 360 degree digital marketing solutions provider in India, we use our AIs to validate, boost, and target the right content to the right audience. Social SEO is a necessary step and at CCL we are all on it!

Conclusion

Social backlinks and social signals will surpass conventional backlinks alone, if you only create conventional backlinks you will be left behind. By focusing your attempts on advanced social media marketing, you are more likely to gain the right target audience and higher User Trust Index. This can be noticed, if the number of social media shares of your content is high. Not only influencers, but also, the bloggers or webmasters may contact you with a proposal of collaboration and also your brand will get popular and gain visibility across the internet.