Optimizing your website for SEO is vital if you want your site to rank high, but what next? Does creating a website with content tailored to keywords and search terms/phrases guarantee that you’ll rank high in search results? Unfortunately, no. Luckily, there is one thing you can do–create content on social media. This is exactly why social media needs to be part of your SEO strategy.

Social Media Drives Traffic

No one likes traffic…when they’re driving. However, website traffic is great for any business. Social media is great at increasing visitors to your website for a number of reasons. First, if you blog regularly (16+ times per month), which you should, you can see 3.5 times more web traffic. With that in mind, your social media content can increase exposure to your blog.

Go (Ever)Green

Since blogs are evergreen (they theoretically last forever), they can continue to rank and be read long after they’re first published. Here’s a great strategy to incorporate in your social media content–write multiple posts for your blog (not necessarily in the same day, unless you don’t mind losing followers). One post can be about the blog topic. Another one can take a piece of information from the blog and use it as a fun fact. A third post can be used as a quote. You get the idea.

Meta-Tag Your Images

Meta-tagging is an important part of SEO. Fortunately, the images you meta-tag for social media also increase your search engine ranking. It’s so important to meta-tag every image you post on social media, even if it’s a picture of your grandmother. Someone out there could search for her, and since you meta-tagged your #ThrowbackThursday image of her, your picture will be easily found. Now, your company’s website is introduced to someone who wouldn’t have seen it (though, in all honesty, if they’re searching for your grandmother, they probably know all about you and your wonderful website built with a Divi Dezigns Divi Child theme).

Social Media Advertising

Also, social media is a great place to advertise, especially if you’re on a budget. With even as little as $100, you can increase brand awareness through sponsored content on any platform. One best practice that you should incorporate is use Bitly to create your links. One, you can monitor how many people are clicking on the link, so this tells you which content people find interesting. Also, it’s a great way to reinforce your brand. Bitly allows for customized link names. Instead of a link that’s longer than Moby Dick, condense it to include your company name and the page where it takes the user. If you’re ready to start social media advertising, here is a breakdown of each platform’s advertising costs to see how much you should spend.

At the end of the day, Google rewards websites that appear to be active. This means replying to reviews on Google My Business, updating website content, and, of course, posting on social media. Who knew that a post here and a tweet there would help your SEO so much?