Integrating Social Media, SEO, and Local into 1 Winning Strategy

SEO and social media are both powerfully effective marketing tactics on their own. When they’re combined into a single strategy? Your local business can gain unstoppable momentum. Recent updates to Google’s search algorithm have placed additional weight on social signals as a ranking factor, meaning it’s now more important than ever to develop a strong social presence to increase your website’s authority. It’s particularly crucial for local brands to blend these two tactics to their best advantage. Consider the following facts about why using social media & SEO to enhance your visibility are crucial components of a local marketing strategy:

• 97% of consumers search for local businesses online.
• 5.6 billion searches each month have local intent.
• Your customers are almost twice as likely to find you through search as through referrals.

Here are some pragmatic ways you can integrate social media & SEO to exceptional results:

1. Geo-Optimize Your Social Profiles

Simply having a presence on major social media channels isn’t always enough. You should optimize your Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+ accounts to be discovered by individuals searching for products and services in your local community.  Complete your profiles in their entirety by including full and detailed contact information, as well as a keyword-rich description of your brand’s products or services.

Profiles on major social media websites that are fully-optimized with contact information and include plenty of local keywords will act as local listings, giving your brand more command of first-page search results.

2. Optimize Your Social Media Content

Social media optimization is too important to be ignored, because major search engines index social posts. Share both content from your blog and company website, and high-quality, curated content that will help you engage your local following. Constant Contact’s Danielle Cormier recommends including both relevant keywords and your business name in the text of your social media posts, in order to help Google, Bing, and Yahoo associate your brand with the right queries.

3. Create Highly Shareable Content

The more +1s, Facebook Likes, Shares, and Retweets your company earns on its content marketing efforts, the better your local SEO presence will be. Create content that’s engineered to boost your social reactions. Not only do more social shares boost your site’s authority, they’ll increase your exposure on social networks among prospects of your brand. In order to maximize your chances of earning social media shares, ensure that each page of your website includes easy buttons for one-click sharing, or links to follow your brand.

4. Claim Your Google Local Listing

Google Local listings are a highly effective way to increase your brand’s visibility in search. Signing up, claiming your business and verifying your contact information is incredibly simple. Once your listing is approved, you can add a keyword-rich description and up to 15 pieces of visual content free of charge. Your images, contact information, customer ratings, and description will appear on the right of local search queries, allowing you to truly stand out and gain the most mileage possible from this powerful blend of social media & SEO.

To learn more about the power of social media & SEO, check out 5 Ways Social Media and Local SEO Build Value for Your Business.