Social SEO & Its Far-Reaching Benefits

Search engine optimisation (SEO) has evolved significantly over the past decade. What used to be focused solely on optimising websites for search engines now encompasses a broader range of strategies and channels. Integrating Social media is one of the most critical developments in SEO.

What Exactly is Social SEO?

In a nutshell, Social Seo refers to optimising content to get visibility on social media platforms and search engines. It involves leveraging social media to boost a website's search rankings and traffic.

Some critical elements of an excellent social SEO strategy include:

• Optimising website content for social sharing
• Encouraging social sharing and user-generated content
• Getting content seen by social media influencers
• Promoting content on social media
• Building high-quality backlinks from social media platforms

When done right, social SEO creates a positive feedback loop. Social signals and backlinks help lift search rankings, which drives more users to content, which leads to more social shares, links, and so on.

The Growing Importance of Social Media

To understand why social SEO delivers results, it helps to consider some key statistics:

• There are nearly 5 billion social media users worldwide as of March 2024
• People spend almost 2.5 hours per day using social media on average
• There were over 65 billion social media posts published in 2023 alone
• 76% of marketers say social media is essential for their business

Social media has become indispensable both for people and for brands. Optimising content to resonate on social platforms is no longer an option; it's necessary.

Tremendous Opportunities, Massive Competition

As social media grows, it presents fantastic opportunities while also becoming intensely competitive:

• 76% of marketers plan to increase social media ad spending in 2024
• The cost per click (CPC) for Google search ads is $1.38 on average
• The average CPC on Facebook ads is $0.98 and $0.53 on Instagram
• Small businesses spend around $9,500 per month on social media marketing

The takeaway is that while social platforms present considerable opportunities to gain visibility, they are fiercely competitive. Having an effective social SEO plan is becoming increasingly vital.

Why Does Social SEO Work So Well?

Social media's importance is evident, so why does social SEO deliver such great returns? There are a few key reasons:

1. Social Signals Influence Rankings

Search engines like Google constantly monitor engagement on social platforms to refine their algorithms. Metrics like shares, links, tags, likes, and comments signal relevant content.

Multiple studies have shown that social signals directly influence search rankings. Content that gets more social engagement tends to outperform similar content that doesn't.

This means optimising content for social sharing helps boost its visibility in search engines. More shares and engagement lead to better rankings.

2. Social Drives Referral Traffic

Studies show that referral traffic from social media has a 97% higher conversion rate than other sources. Traffic originating from social platforms is highly targeted and converts exceptionally well.

Crafting content that gets widely shared on social media will drive streams of steady referral traffic. Populating a website with social-friendly content results in a nice boost in qualified visitors.

3. Social Platforms Have Billions of Users

The massive user bases of platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, Reddit, and others represent gigantic opportunities to showcase content.

Publishing share-worthy content on these platforms allows it to reach billions of eyes. Even a tiny fraction of users reading, watching, or sharing content can drive impressive results.

In other words, social platforms provide access to vast volumes of potential visitors that can be directed back to websites.

Key Social SEO Benefits

Now let's explore some of the top-line benefits that come from integrating social media optimisation into an SEO strategy:

Increased Organic Traffic

Ranking well in search engines translates to streams of free organic traffic. By incorporating social signals into their ranking algorithms, Google and Bing reward websites with viral social engagement.

Crafting content designed to spread on social platforms is a direct path to higher rankings and exponential organic growth.

• Companies see an average 126% increase in organic traffic from social SEO
• Content with Facebook engagement receives 5x more search traffic on average

Lower Cost Per Acquisition

Paid advertising on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X, and LinkedIn can be costly. Cost Per Click (CPC) and Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) on social ads continue to rise.

Using social SEO to amplify organic reach suppresses the need for expensive paid promotion. Greater visibility earned through shares, links, and engagement comes free of charge.

Brand Awareness & Reach

Trending topics and viral content on social platforms often transcend niches and industries. A single widely shared piece of content can introduce a brand or website to tens of millions of new users.

Platforms like Reddit, Instagram Explore, and X Trends surface content for huge general audiences outside one's typical niche or demographic. Capitalising on these opportunities can drive massive brand awareness.

Referral Traffic & Conversions

Social media referral traffic converts tremendously well, with some studies showing it converts 97% better than other sources. Visitors originating from social platforms are already engaged and ready to take action.

Populating websites with social-optimised content results in steady streams of highly targeted, high-converting visitors. This traffic converts into customers exceptionally well.

Improved Customer Loyalty & Retention

Social integration helps strengthen relationships between brands and audiences. Engaging with audiences across multiple platforms makes people feel more personally connected and invested with brands.

Things like directly addressing comments, questions and feedback foster greater loyalty. Social users spend, engage, share, and retain customers longer.

Appearance of Trust & Authority

Widely shared content gives the appearance of trust and authority due to social proof. Audiences assume it must be trustworthy if many others have engaged with something.

Social SEO helps websites accumulate trust indicators like Facebook likes, X retweets, Pinterest pins, and social backlinks. These make websites appear credible.

Wealth of Audience Insights

Social analytics provide incredibly detailed audience data. Brands can unlock a treasure trove of intel about who engages with their content and how they engage with it.

Things like users' interests, behaviours, demographics, peak posting times, highest-converting platforms and more can all be revealed through analytics. These insights inform better product and content decisions.

Improved Indexation & Rankings

Widespread social sharing signals search crawlers to index pages faster and more thoroughly pages. Content that accumulates social engagement gets crawled more frequently.

Faster and more complete indexing ensures content gets evaluated and ranked sooner. Social signals indicate relevance and quality to search algorithms as well.

More Social SEO Benefits Worth Highlighting

Beyond the significant benefits covered above, here are some additional advantageous byproducts of implementing social SEO:

• Saves money otherwise spent on paid ads & promotions
• It helps smaller websites compete with larger competitors
• Levels playing field against competitors buying ads
• Extends reach beyond owned & earned channels
• Mitigates volatility from significant search algorithm updates
• Magnifies outcomes from other marketing activities
• Boosts rankings for brand name, product names, and important keywords
• Improves conversion optimisation through social engagement
• Enhances customer relationships & interactions
• Provides richer analytics into user interests & behaviour patterns
• Creates PR opportunities like media coverage when content trends
• Builds influencer and brand ambassador relationships
• Strengthens domain authority and elevates expert reputation

As the list above highlights, incorporating social integration creates positive ripple effects that compound over time. While the significant direct impacts provide plenty of incentive, the many secondary benefits take things to another level.

Key Takeaways About Social SEO Value

Let's recap the most significant insights into why properly incorporating social media delivers tremendous SEO value:

• Billions of potential visitors – Huge existing user bases ready to discover content
• Social signals influence rankings – Likes, shares, and links elevate search placements
• Higher conversion rates – Referral traffic from social converts extremely well
• Saves paid marketing costs – Earned exposure reduces spend on ads
• Brand awareness at scale – Opportunities for organic reach beyond owned channels
• Rich audience insights – Analytics provide deep user psychographic/demographic data
• Trust and authority – Widespread engagement signals credibility to all visitors
• Customer engagement opportunities – Social strengthens post-purchase relationships

Brands investing in social SEO see substantial long-term growth, expansion into new demographics, and future-proofing against algorithm changes.

Executed correctly, social media optimisation checks every box to elevate organic search performance.

Addressing Some Common Social SEO Concerns

Focusing on social media platforms for some companies feels less comfortable than traditional SEO tactics. It moves outside the usual site-focused efforts and into broader ecosystems.

Let's tackle some apprehensions that occasionally get cited:

Does social engagement improve rankings?

This was unclear in the early days of social SEO, but many studies have proven social signals directly influence search rankings.

While social shares alone won't necessarily catapult a webpage from #200 to #1 instantly, engagement metrics factor into placement. And the cumulative effects of successive social signals sway rankings over time.

If improving search visibility is the goal (and for most brands, it is), then social SEO demonstrably works. Ignoring it means passing up all the compounding benefits it brings.

We've never used social media marketing before

A lack of experience with social platforms is expected, mainly for companies focusing on on-site optimisation. Moving into social promotion can feel intimidating.

The solution is starting small. Dabble with promoting just a single piece of evergreen, educational content across 2-3 platforms. Avoid spreading efforts thin or getting overly ambitious too quickly.

Monitor critical metrics like clicks, shares, conversions, etc. and optimise the approach over time. Progress often just takes some patience while accumulating data.

Our competitors aren't using social SEO

Industry peers sticking to more traditional SEO while not leveraging social media themselves seems comforting. However, their lack of action represents opportunity.

By actively expanding efforts to social channels while competitors remain inactive, brands can build exposure and loyalty with new demographics.

Then, when competitors finally incorporate social SEO, they'll struggle to unseat the established brand familiarity and trust. First-mover advantage applies here.

We don't create much share-worthy content.

Having lots of social-friendly content would make diving into social SEO more manageable, but it's not a prerequisite. The solution is to start adjusting editorial strategies to account for it.

Audit existing content and identify areas for adding or amplifying elements designed to spark engagement – calls to action, emotional hooks, entertainment value, controversy/debate, relatability, etc.

These characteristics induce sharing, as does experimenting with different formats like polls, quizzes, challenges, listicles, videos, and other mould-breaking approaches beyond plain blog posts.

Repurposing content from other formats into new, social-friendly versions also works incredibly well.

Our niche could be more active on social media.

This assumption gets proven wrong frequently—nearly every niche and demographic carves out communities across social platforms. But even in genuinely non-social niches, opportunity awaits.

Low involvement from competitors means standing out quickly amongst scarce competition. Congregating and engaging even small niche communities pays dividends down the road.

Posting consistently around niche topics, hashtags, groups, or mentions related to the industry puts brands on the radar for when activity in the space eventually increases. It establishes them as thought leaders early.

Best Practices for Executing Social SEO

Here are some essential guidelines to keep in mind when incorporating social media optimisation:

Audit Competitors

Research how influential competitors are leveraging social platforms- which ones they are active on, what content seems to resonate best, who their influencer partners are, etc. This intelligence should guide strategy.

Set Concrete Goals

Establish quantifiable objectives for social efforts aligned with business goals. Defining specific metrics and benchmarks for success keeps things focused.

Find Loyal Social Fans

Identify and engage micro-influencers, brand evangelists and loyal niche communities. Getting content shared amongst genuinely passionate fans sparks viral effects.

Promote the Right Content

What gets shared by target audiences without incentive will also spread organically. Pay attention to existing viral posts.

Use Multi-Media Content

Photos, videos, live streams and other rich media drive exponentially higher engagement across social channels. Prioritise visual and interactive content.

Post When Followers Are Active

Stagger posting schedules when key user demographics visit platforms rather than adhering to a rigid, broad-stroke calendar.

Incentivize Sharing

Encouraging subscriptions, utilising share buttons and explicitly asking audiences to spread meaningful content all help seed organic growth.

Be Genuine

Embrace brand personality and authentic interactions. Simple human-level exchanges spur more connections than automated messaging.

Still Not Convinced? Just Look at the Results

Here are some real-world use cases proving how profoundly impactful comprehensive social SEO implementation can be:

Table: Fashion retailer site traffic, rankings and visibility metrics before and six months after launching a concentrated social SEO campaign.

Another example:

Table: Law firm website metrics over eight months between establishing social presence and channels compared to the previous year.

These two real businesses embraced social SEO and saw staggering growth. Their organic visibility expanded greatly in under a year because of the social media optimisation lift.

What could that exponential growth do for my website and broader digital presence?

Social SEO demonstrably provides results across industries. Once configured and momentum initiated, the benefits compound over time.

Final Takeaways on Social Media's SEO Potential

Optimising content for social media platforms once seemed like an optional diversion from core search engine optimisation. But in 2024, incorporating social into an SEO strategy is indispensable for lasting success.

Engagement signals from billions of social media users directly influence search rankings now. Capturing visibility through social shares accelerates growth and drives conversions far beyond what websites can achieve alone.

Treating social SEO as just an experimental side project restricts reach. To maximise ongoing organic performance, brands must commit to social integration like any other channel showing such outsized potential.

With competitor activity and advertising costs rising across social platforms, establishing genuine communities and evangelists earns brands visibility no amount of paid promotion can rival. Comprehensive social SEO fosters loyal, organic audience growth over time.

The brands realise this, and planting their flags across social media will reap the rewards for many years. Their early adopter advantage effectively future-proofs their visibility even as platforms and algorithms change.

Social media has become the engine driving SEO. Optimising integration with those platforms is now mandatory for dominance. Taming social's viral power is the most significant opportunity for soaring organic growth in 2024.

Frequently Asked Questions About Social SEO

The post Social SEO & Its Far-Reaching Benefits is by Stuart Crawford and appeared first on Inkbot Design.