The Importance of Social Media in Local SEO
The thing about online marketing is that all channels impact your website’s ranking, this post focuses on the importance of social media in local SEO.
Before you immediately disregard the entire article for the sake of the title, yes, all marketing experts know that there’s no direct link between your social strategy and ranking. Simply put, we don’t know to what extent social signals impact your website rankings. We do know that social platforms have a profound impact on your SEO strategy and its impact, especially when it comes to boosting brand awareness, website traffic, content reach, and above all, localized relevance. When you run a local company, or the vast majority of your customers are local, your social presence is indeed vital for your SEO.
This albeit indirect connection can make or break your brand in the eyes of your local audience, and ultimately, in how your business is ranked online. Understanding this intricate connection can help you grow not just your local social media presence, but also your overall ranking and brand perception for the long haul. Here are a few key connections that bring local SEO and social media together into a unified approach to boost your business.
Social is where your content comes to life
Website visits never happen out of thin air. To earn those eager blog readers and shoppers, you need to gain their trust and their attention elsewhere, too. Starting with your social media profiles, you have the opportunity to share your content pieces in all of their glory, tag the necessary links, and send your followers straight to your website, allowing them to boost your traffic and make you more valuable to the community.
When search engines notice more activity on your site, they’ll find that you’re more relevant to your audience, paired with correct keyword usage to connect your content with the right topics of value. It’s a complex loop, but one much simpler when you integrate your local social circles, allowing them to benefit from your content, and to slowly improve your ranking.
Increasing brand credibility
When you run a local business, it’s easy enough to get lost in the perception that your competitors aren’t numerous or that your audience is already easy to target. Alas, that couldn’t be further from the truth. In Australia alone, there are around 16,000,000 monthly Facebook users, and reaching the wrong crowd means you’re wasting your resources to market yourself to someone who’s not truly local. In smaller regions, getting local means that you need to genuinely get to know your customers and your community.
For that very reason, tactics for reliable SEO on the Gold Coast will differ from the ones used in other regions, and they need to be as specific and customized as possible to the brand and its audience. When you want to impress your Gold Coast audience, you should use keywords, hashtags, images, social media influencers, and draw on news that is relevant in that area. Make sure that you refine how you use your social profiles in accordance with the trends and preferences prevalent in your target region.
Picking the right social channels
Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter aren’t the only social platforms where your brand can and should make a presence. While you’re at it, what about Quora, similar social forums, and review platforms where your brand resides? Sending the right social signals also means you should make sure that your information is consistent across all of these channels.
Check your NAP details and update your information regularly. Claim your business on any platforms where others could have created a profile in your name. Take control of your social reputation one carefully-created social page at a time, and provide consistent details in a consistent voice to boost brand recognition. Add to that, you’ll earn points with search engines, too, since consistency allows search engines to deem you trustworthy and your data verifiable online.
User-made content
Aiming for local customers means that their voice matters most in the decision-making process of your target demographic you have yet to impress. Getting more traction and boosting your image in the eyes of that target audience means that you should leverage your existing customers and inspire them to create their own content related to your brand – and what better place to do just that than on social media. You can create contests and other engaging campaigns to invite your followers to post images of them using your product or services and to tag you every time.
Then again, sharing your reviews on social media means that you’ll put more organic keywords out there, ones naturally crafted by your customers. This kind of content is extremely valued by search engines, and they’ll recognize the impact you have in your community through your customers’ stories.
Search engine optimization will never depend on a single factor, but a number of complex, complementing elements of your overall strategy. One factor can support and fuel the rest, or it can drive your entire presence to the ground, and the same is with your social media presence. Use it to transform your local ranking and to bring more valuable leads to your site.
