One of the greatest benefits of content marketing is the organic reach or free website traffic. SEO works to ensure your web page ranks high of results pages, and receive the most natural traffic possible. Similarly, social media seeks organic traffic but accomplished this task through promotion and audience building. Does that sound about right to you? Not surprisingly, marketing in the digital age is a bit more complicated.
The world of organic and earned online marketing is interconnected. Content marketing, SEO, and social media are all elements that combine within the same system. Therefore, each must work in unison to attract visitors and increase the traffic to your website. This marriage exists because search engines are working hard to provide their users with only relevant and authoritative results. When the three are linked within the same strategy, a self-sustaining cycle develops.
How SEO and Social Media Work Together
1. Content Discovery – The great challenge of search engines is finding all the available content on the internet. New web pages appear at such a rate, it is time-intensive. Social media networks serve as a repository. Search engines can then use social shares to create lists of content, sorted by the total amount of engagement. The faster search engines find your content and index it, the faster you start receiving organic search traffic.
2. The New Link Building – While old-school link building is not completely dead, the value has diminished. Today, search engines generally only give credit for backlinks from relevant and valuable websites, which are extremely difficult to acquire. However, the diminished value of backlinks has been replaced by social shares, likes, retweets, and +1s. These signals are used to determine popularity, reliability, and authority.
3. Your Online Influence – Search engines seek to provide their users with content from credible sources. Your social media footprint is a factor. The greater your social media audience and the more they engage with you, the more you are identified as an influencer. Therefore, building a large and relevant audience is essential.
Ultimately, SEO is no longer just technical. Content must attract social engagement by being unique and helpful. This does not diminish the value of on-page practices such as the effective use of focus keywords. However, it does mean content must also provide a real value for visitors. The days of ranking from keyword-stuffing or generic writing are gone. Relevant and reliable content is shareable. Consequently, shared content receives a higher placement in search results.
What haven’t we covered yet that is important to you? If you would like to talk about the relationship between SEO and social media, or need more information, please contact us.
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