Social Media Best Practices For SEO

Notice how they have placed keywords in their profile.  The use of keywords in this way helps users find their company page if they type queries such as e-learning providers or authoring platform in LinkedIn’s search box.

Post regularly

Social media SEO is not a set-and-forget operation. Similar to all other aspects of SEO discussed in this guide, social media will also take our ongoing attention. Post regularly to maintain consistent engagement of the audience. The more frequently we post, the more likely people are to see them. Keep in mind, though, that posting promotional content too often may put off our followers.

If we don’t have a lot of time to spare on posting fresh content to social media, or a social media team to handle the work, we can use software to automate the process for us. For example, Yoast SEO Premium’s Zapier Integration lets us automatically share on different social media platforms whenever we add a new post to our website.

Hootsuite is a more advanced tool that lets us schedule our social media posts in advance, among other features. Scheduled posts allow us to maintain our company’s presence in newsfeeds even if we’re away on vacation or busy elsewhere.

Bring diversity in posts

The above point mentions that too much promotional content can be annoying. Don’t limit to posting our website’s content. We can post relevant updates about our industry, which is especially welcomed by the LinkedIn and X audience. Memes and GIFs are especially popular on Facebook. Videos are also captivating to many people.

One of the most promising ways to engage an audience is to make question posts. As an interesting question, depending on our audience’s interests, and create a poll similar to the one in the screenshot below.

The likes, comments, and shares on our posts will tell us what type of content our audience wants to see.

We don’t always have to create a post. Resharing someone else’s posts also counts as an activity. If we come across something our audience will like, don’t hold back.

Focus on the quality

Though the frequency at which we publish posts is important, it’s not going to win us traffic unless the quality is up to par too. Publishing keyword-stuffed posts several times a day may hurt our ranking instead of boosting it. Instead, research the audience’s intent and deliver them rich posts accordingly.

Engaging, original, non-commercial content related to our industry will generate the most likes, comments, and shares. It may also compel the user to follow the link to our website. One way is to go through the daily news happenings in the industry and share them with followers.

Our content can be insightful, entertaining, or emotional. In all cases, it should offer some value to the audience. An analysis of the buyers’ persona for our target customers will tell us what the audience is interested in and their pain points. When we publish something that addresses the audience’s requirements, it’s hard to go unnoticed.

The number of likes, comments, and shares will tell us the size of impact our posts are making. If the posts are sitting untouched in newsfeeds, we might need to put more effort into their quality.

Use hashtags

Smart use of hashtags improves the visibility of our posts. Users can easily find our post when searching for these hashtags. However, don’t add too many hashtags as it makes the post look spammy. Only use strong, relevant hashtags, limiting the number to one or two for the maximum user engagement.

Researching the social media trends will give us the best hashtags in our niche. We can add the relevant ones to our post to improve its visibility. We can also use branded hashtags to create brand awareness.

The most popular use of hashtags is to highlight social issues. Using these hashtags makes it possible to stand for a cause, engage with a bigger audience and paint a positive picture of our brand.

Add visuals

Similar to our web pages, visuals also increase user engagement for our social media posts. Images often capture more attention of the users than text. Though they might scroll through their newsfeed without reading our post, a captivating image is hard to go unnoticed. Images and videos can help create brand awareness and increase click-through-rates, bringing more traffic to our website.

Engage with the audience

Social media is all about building connections. For brands, it offers an excellent opportunity to engage with their potential customers, and understand their preferences and concerns. When we take interest in our audience’s needs, it builds our brand’s trust in their eyes.

We can build engagement by responding actively and positively to people who comment on our posts. Answer their questions professionally and thank them for their positive comments. Handle negative comments tactfully. The best approach is to respond politely, acknowledging their concern and apologizing sincerely.

Other than responding to their comments, we can also initiate a conversation by creating a poll or asking questions. We can ask for their opinion about our brand or request suggestions for improvement. We can strikes up a conversation with an interesting question.

Partner with influencers

Influencer marketing is becoming rapidly popular on social media and can take our brand’s SEO to the next level. In many ways, influencers are more effective in raising our brand’s popularity than paid ads.

Search for <keyword> influencers on the web and we’ll find several sources listing the top influencers in our niche. Pull out their contact information and reach them with a proposal.

Alternatively, we can join influencer communities. Influence.co, Acorn, and many other influencer communities exist. Their purpose is to help influencers and brands find each other.

Optimize web pages for social sharing

Other than our efforts on social media, there are things we can do on our website to build a stronger social media presence.

Share button

Make sure all our webpages have a share button for different social media platforms. If a visitor finds an interesting article on our website, they should be able to share it on social media with just a single click.

Open graph tags

Set up open graph tags for web pages. Open graph meta tags, present in the <head> section of the page’s HTML, are snippets of code that displays the URL as a rich object when shared on social media.

For instance, if the meta tag is set up as below:

We can set the open graph tags manually in the page’s HTML. Alternatively, Yoast SEO plugin lets us set it up in our site’s WordPress editor. In the Yoast SEO box, go to the “Social” tab and select “Facebook”. Add the three fields and the page is ready for social sharing.

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