SEO and social media profiles might seem like two separate marketing methods that aren’t intrinsically linked, but when one works effectively, it can benefit the other. Social media platforms provide a wealth of opportunities to enhance your website's visibility, engage with your audience, and create relationships with your customers. 

In an ever-evolving digital world, it's not just about being seen but about being recognised as a valuable and engaging resource, and social media plays a crucial role in achieving that status. Infoserve can help you put this into practice. 

How social media boosts SEO 

1. Boosts website visibility 

One of the most apparent benefits of using social media for SEO is its impact on website visibility. 

The truth is that social media has no direct impact on SEO, but Google and other search engines take engagement from socials into consideration when determining a website’s ranking. This engagement is known as ‘social signals’. 

If there are a number of people clicking through from your social media, browsing your website and buying from your website, then search engines will take note. Therefore, the more website visibility you gain from social media, the higher you are likely to rank in the SERP (search engine results page). 

However, there are a couple of other ways that social media visibility can impact your rankings: 

1. Shares and engagements: The more your content is shared, liked, and commented on across social media platforms, the more it's seen as relevant and valuable by search engines. These social signals can influence your website's ranking.

2. Social media in search results: Social media profiles often appear in search engine results pages (SERPs). When users search for your brand, your social profiles might show up, expanding your online presence.

2. Boosts content performance

Customers are more likely to share a social media post with their friends and followers than they are to share a blog post directly. However, the true power lies in using social media as a launchpad for your content. 

For instance, you can share an infographic on social media and encourage users to visit your website for more information.

Blog posts are an incredibly powerful tool in SEO. They give your audience the opportunity to find your company through secondary keywords that wouldn’t otherwise exist on your website. When a blog post drives traffic, and improves the average amount of time spent on your website, it boosts your overall rankings. 

Imagine how much more effective this result can be if your follower-base on Instagram all clicked through and spent three minutes reading your blog without needing to prompt its appearance through a Google search. 

Our top tips for sharing blog content on social media: 

1. Leverage visual content: Infographics, videos, and eye-catching images are more shareable and can drive traffic to your website when strategically used in social media posts.

2. Engage and Entice: Use compelling captions and descriptions to pique curiosity and encourage users to click through to your site.

3. Relationship building 

Social media platforms are not just about sharing content but also about building relationships with your audience. This is one of the most important factors in developing a solid, reliable base of people who are likely to become lifetime customers. 

You might not feel like this links to SEO, however, brand loyalty on social media is a vital component when it comes to sharing content and word of mouth reviews in order to drive traffic to your website. 

As we established before, higher website traffic and an increase in average time spent on page boosts where you sit in the search results. 

Ensure that you are replying to comments on social media and creating a consistent brand voice across platforms, regardless of whether you’re invested in Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest or TikTok. 

4. The link tree 

Giving your audience a direct link to your website from your social media reduces the number of steps your customers need to take to find you online. 

Originally, the ‘link in bio’ function would only lead consumers to a single page on your website. But now, the link tree function is taking over and it can have a bigger impact on SEO than you might think. 

Link trees allow you to add multiple links to your bio, directing potential customers to different pages who’s traffic you want to boost. 

5. Opportunities for teamwork 

In the world of digital marketing, teamwork can lead to incredible results. When your social media and SEO teams collaborate effectively, the results become more powerful.

Let’s say you were a non-alcoholic drinks company who saw a decline in the sale of alcohol-free beer. On further inspection, an SEO expert discovers that alcohol-free beer has declined in the SERP and wants to work on boosting its presence on Google and Bing. 

To begin with, they run an audit and discover on-site and technical SEO elements that can be improved but they spot another opportunity: Social Media. 

What they decide to do is enlist the social media team to run an ongoing campaign to promote alcohol-free beer across platforms with links to the category page in your link tree, and products linked to posts. 

Together, the efforts from both SEO and social media experts can bring the traffic, conversion and time on site rates up in one fell swoop, demonstrating to search engines that you are a valuable company to their users. 

6. Increased backlinks 

With more attention on your company, you have a higher chance of gaining backlinks organically. 

Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors in SEO. They demonstrate trust to Google by acting as the online equivalent of recommending a product/company to a friend. You wouldn’t tell your friend to use a terrible product, and other companies don’t want to lose their customers’ trust by recommending terrible content. 

Your content might be amazing, but if it goes unnoticed, you’re not going to get backlinks. It is as simple as that. 

Social media provides a stepping stone to influencers, bloggers, and like-minded industries who will want to share your content to boost their own reputation. 

Social media and SEO are not misaligned; they are interconnected and interdependent. A strong presence on social media platforms can significantly impact your website's visibility, increase engagement, and even enhance the user experience through link trees. By fostering collaboration between your teams and leveraging the power of social signals, you can take full advantage of how social media boosts your SEO efforts.

Don’t know where to start?

Here at Infoserve, our web design experts are on hand to help you create and build a unique, functional and responsive website, and our PPC and SEO team help your website get found.