SEO strategists can no longer ignore the impact of social media. Social media workers can no longer afford to punt all SEO strategy to the web team. They are increasingly required to work together to achieve cross channel marketing goals.
Gone are the days when meta tag keywords and a smattering of comments on competitive blogs would boost search rankings. Social media is old-style communication newly applied to online spaces. It is conversation. Where SEO seeks visibility for companies, social media amplifies messages. Where SEO seeks increased awareness, social media creates relationships. Where SEO makes content accessible, social media creates engagement around that same content. In short, social media and SEO are match-made for giving traditional cross channel marketing efforts a badly needed boost.
But to be effective they need to learn to communicate together. So here is a basic SEO primer for the social media professional.
What does SEO stand for?
Search Engine Optimization. This is the goal of making your content more easily indexed, found, clicked and consumed. It can be very webby and technical. But the goal is to get people to find and engage with the content. Sounds like something the social media professional wants, no?
What does QDF stand for?
Query Deserves Freshness. When the engines recognize that the “best” results for a certain search may change drastically from day-to-day, or moment-to-moment, they may mark the search QDF, which will help promote new, related content from trusted sources to the top of the SERP, even if that content doesn’t yet have any links. Social media pros know that fresh content is very often the most engaging content.
What does SERP stand for?
Search Engine Results Page
What is a rel=canonical? What does it do? How does it work?
Canonical models are groups of related and highly similar things. SEO pros work hard to keep search engines aware of very similar web pages. This might be pages about cruise ship vacation packages but in different languages. Search engines treat these things in interesting ways that you can learn about by clicking the link here for rel=canonical. Social media pros want users to engage with the appropriate information; whether it is comments or commerce.
How do search engines treat the meta refresh?
SEO pros think about ever changing web content in one way. Social media pros think about it differently. Old web master tricks for changing web content automatically may not be the best bet for your strategy.
What’s an image title versus an alt attribute?
Title provides information about the image but isn’t necessarily indexed by search engines in the way that alt is. The Alt attribute is read by devices and services that cannot display images. Search engine crawlers are things that do not display or even care about the bits in your image. As a result, the Alt attribute is important. Social media pros should take these things to heart since simple strategies like these will raise awareness of images and rich media that can spur engagement.
How do you remove personalization from search results?
SEO types are interested in controlling the way that search results are presented to end uers. Social media types are interested in the way people engage in those results. Knowing when and how to add or remove personalization is important. Remove for wider exposure. Add for higher relevance.
For Google, you can do it this way: google.com/search?Q=[your search term]&pws=0
Want to change the country language code?
It is terribly difficult for people to engage with information in a language they do not understand. Understanding that you have options available from an SEO standpoint will start social media pros thinking outside their normal language bounds.
In Google you can do it this way: Append &gl=[uk or es or us or whatever your locale code is]
How do keywords affect SEO?
All social media pros should be aware of the most common tools used every day by SEO pros. One of the most popular is probably the Google keyword tool. Think of it this way – keywords are classifications. Social media pros know them as tags. If your content is classified in an optimal way, people are more likely to find it, click it, engage with it and start a relationship with you.
These are just some of the concepts that SEO pros deal with on a daily basis. Social media pros should learn the language and understand the concepts so that instead of working separately, you can work together and drive awareness, relationships and engagement!
Where Else Can I Look for Information?
there are a ton of SEO sites out there. Here are some of the best:
