With social media becoming the go-to for just about everything, it’s important to optimize your search engines to create a stronger online presence through social media SEO. Here’s how.

61% of marketers believe that search engine optimization (SEO) is key to increasing online traffic, awareness, and overall success, which means that you cannot deny the power that SEO holds in the digital world. However, it only works when done right.

While using SEO is the norm for digital publications and websites, not everyone knows that SEO can be applied to social media, too. And given how many brands and companies rely heavily on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms to establish their online presence, knowledge of social media SEO is certainly helpful and useful to have.

In this article, we tackle everything there is to know about SEO and how to use it properly.

What is SEO?

First, let us start by defining what SEO is. According to HubSpot, “The goal of SEO is to expand a company’s visibility in organic search results. As a result, these efforts drive more visitors to the company’s website—increasing their chances for more conversions, which leads to more customers and more revenue.”

In layman’s terms, optimizing your website for search engines increases the chances of people finding it on the first page on the likes of Google and Bing.

But why is it important to land on the first page of a search engine? If a website happens to land on the second page of, say, Google, there is less than a 1% chance that it can get an organic click. What’s more, that only has a 0.83% chance of that even happening. 

What is Social Media SEO?

On the other hand, LYFE Marketing defines social media SEO as “how social media activities can boost your website’s organic traffic through search engines.” Simply put, this helps strengthen your social media presence by making your page more searchable.

How does it work? Sprout Social notes that social media profiles rank high among top search engine results, especially when branded keywords are taken into consideration. Branded keywords refer to phrases that are associated with a brand and its product or services—examples of which include brand names, product names, and even misspellings of a brand name, basically words that trigger brand recall.

All this is important because optimizing a brand or company’s social media profiles ensure that they appear on the first page of the search results. This is especially critical if a brand or company does not have an official website. 

Another reason why social media SEO is important is the fact that social media is seen as a significant source of traffic. Linking your website and product pages, if any, to your social media pages increases the opportunity for users to visit them after or in the middle of browsing through your feed, which in turn, increases brand exposure. 

5 Social Media SEO Tips to Keep in Mind

So how can social media profiles be optimized for search engine rankings? Here are some practical social media SEO tips to keep in mind:

1. Keywords in the About Page or Bio Section are Key

The About page or bio section of your social media profile should never be ignored, as this is what people look at for information about your brand and company. Fill these spaces with as many details as possible, but still avoid putting unnecessary and redundant information. Take note that there is usually a word limit and even so, you need to keep your audience interested—not bore or drive them away.

If anything, the details you include in the About page or bio section should still be useful, such as website links and even industry keywords—basically, the words or phrases that people commonly search for in Google or even on Facebook and Instagram. 

Sprout Social recommends doing keyword research to figure out which keywords are best to be placed not just on your About page or bio, but on individual posts as well. 

2. Use Local SEO

Another tip when it comes to social media SEO is that you should embrace the concept of local SEO, especially if a brand or business has a physical address. Defined by Mailchimp as “a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy that helps your business be more visible in local search results on Google,” this specialized SEO benefits any business that has a physical location or a geographic area.

Moreover, “with a large majority of Internet users searching for local businesses on their mobile devices, local searches are bound to grow,” LYFE Marketing points out. In fact, 24.4% of all clicks usually end up going to the first result that appears in local business searches and this highlights the importance of following the best practices for local SEO.

When doing so, just make sure that all your brand’s social media profiles have the same and updated company name, address, and contact information such as phone numbers and email. 

3. Don’t Forget About Content

SEO is not all about just keywords and having the right details in the right places. In fact, the kind of content that you publish also plays a big role in SEO. Your social media page should have high-quality content that caters to what your audience is interested in or what they are looking for. 

Additionally, it is important to find out how often you should publish posts and at what time. To do so, you can check your social media pages’ analytics tab or analyze your market behavior based on past posts. This, of course, largely depends on your target audience, as each demographic, generation, and age group have different behaviors and preferences.

With that in mind, it is not ideal to post during time periods when your target audience is not online. For example, do not post during work hours if your target market is young professionals or during ungodly hours when everyone is asleep.

4. Image Optimization is Just as Important

These days, establishing a strong brand presence is all about optimizing the content on social media—from the overall look of your page to the content you post, which includes the words you use and even the images themselves.

Thus, it is good practice to optimize the images posted on social media by using “alt texts”—a keyword or two as the photo’s file name. This, in turn, helps optimize images used on social media. 

Another thing to take note of: make sure as well that the image you are uploading is in the right format, size, orientation, and resolution for your intended medium in order to ensure quality. Images that are meant for mobile devices will not suit desktop devices and vice versa. 

5. Sharing Your Website’s Content on Social Media

Did you know that 52 % of SEO experts believe that adding backlinks is important? These links connect one website to another, which can improve its searchability and increase a website’s ranking on search engines. While it may be challenging to do on certain platforms, it is good practice to provide backlinks on your brand’s social media pages. 

What’s more, you should remember to share on-site content if your brand or company has a website. To make this more convenient, the kind of content you put on the website should be easy to share. Make sure blog posts and other content on your website have social share buttons and even quick-copy links.