Over the past few years, social media and SEO have evolved gradually. Today, building well optimised sites with a multitude of keywords are the only way of getting good ranking. in the SERPs. The intense growth and influence of platforms like Facebook and Twitter have changed content marketing and it’s not hard to see how so many people become confused as to where they should target their digital marketing strategies. About other emerging means of communications in the digital age, take a look at this article.
It’s important to realize that onsite SEO is as important today as it was ten years ago (perhaps more so with the increased competition). If you want to attract business online, then there’s simply no escaping the importance of getting your website optimized for the search engines.
But, keywords are no longer sufficient. It’s important to pay attention to keyword usage and distribution, but it’s equally important how you choose keywords. Keywords are no longer sufficient in isolation and must always be used in context. It’s no longer good enough to have a pretty looking website.
Social media have been joined to the SEO approach. The architecture of social media networks is geared towards visibility and genuine peer approval and as such is hard to fake convincingly. It may well be possible to help the process with appropriate use of hashtags, but it’s not hard for the search engines to see through this tactic.
With this wisdom of crowds approach, Google and other search engines have long been tapping into social signals to denote value to any given link or web page. Whilst social media has replaced links in terms of importance, as more and more content gets created online and distributed on social media. If your content has a strong social media presence then this will boost not only your website, but it is al likely increase the number of websites that link to you as well. In essence this is like a feedback loop: to do well in SEO nowadays it helps a lot to do well on social media as well. Also, keep track of the metrics.
Digital marketing expert Chloe Mason Gray notes:
Google’s search algorithm ignores social signals should not be seen as an invitation for marketers to dismiss social’s impact on SEO. Instead, marketers should broaden their concept of search and SEO to take into account the myriad ways that people find content on the web. They also need to think about the positive effects that increased traffic from social can potentially have on their search rankings as well as the prominence of social profiles on first-page search results. Ultimately, the web is all about building relationships.
Despite social and SEO clearly still co-existing as distinct marketing strategies, there really is no straight answer as to which is better for your business, as each boosts the efforts you make with the other. You simply can’t be creating content these days (onsite or offsite) without sharing it socially. Maybe it’s time to rethink your digital marketing strategies.
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