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Q & A: Using Social Media for SEO

This week we sat down with our SEO specialist Ian Cappelletti to discuss why Social Media and SEO are the marketer’s dream team. We’ve vouched for this combo before, but today we’re going to dig into the specifics of how you can get the most bang for your buck on social media. Ian has worked as part of our team for almost two years and brings a detailed knowledge of the power of SEO to the table. If you’re a social media team member and need an SEO 101 refresher, read this post first. Here are the seven questions our social media marketing team had for Ian:

Q: Let’s cut to the chase. How can you use social media for SEO?
A: There’s three parts to this answer:

  • Publish persuasive content on social channels that encourages other sites to share/link to your content and engages consumers to convert
  • Include target keywords in social posts to further establish the relevance of target keywords to the client’s content site
  • Social media can help with local SEO strategy, like Google My Business.

Q: What specific strategies and tactics do you recommend?
A: Making sure you use keywords in copy in a way that doesn’t sound robotic. Remember to occasionally include previously used CTA’s to “drive message home”. And don’t forget to use UTMs or link shorteners for links in your social posts to track consumer paths.

Q: How does Google index activity on social media?
A: Google indexes tweets off of Twitter and Google+ posts from public profiles. Note that Google only indexes Facebook pages, not the content on them. So Facebook Likes probably do not influence Google rankings, but they certainly influence OpenGraph, Facebook’s own mapping of the world wide web.

Digital PB + J

SEO: The jelly to your Social Media Peanut Butter

Q: How does your activity on social media impact your Google Knowledge Panel?
A: Unknown, but having portals on all the popular social channels with up to date contact info on all of them helps.

Q: How much of a role should SEO play in the formation of content for social media?
A: SEO and Social media content go hand in hand – sharing makes an SEO program stronger (essentially due to the increased number of backlinks).

Q: Which social media channel has the biggest influence on SEO?
A: Hard to say, probably Twitter since tweets can rank in Google search results.

Q: Can you provide an example of a brand that does a great job of infusing its social media content with SEO?
A: I’d recommend checking out JackThreads.

 

Overdrive Interactive is an SEO company in Boston that drives measurable ROI. Our search engine optimization programs not only drive natural search traffic – they connect prospects to high quality user experiences that encourage desired behavior. Our SEO services and the resulting search engine presence connects visitors to content that satisfies their needs. As an award-winning Boston SEO company, we are passionate about your success!

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