Do you want to get more traffic and income? 
SEO by far has proved as the most reliable and preferred way of creating a strong online presence for any business website.
However, with social media making its way slowly and steadily in the bastion of marketing, there is a need to blend various search engine tactics with social media strategy to make it in the big league.
And get the best ROI for your marketing efforts and investment.
There was a time when search engine optimization alone used to rule the roost in online marketing space and everything else used to play second fiddle, which also includes social media.
That was back in the first decade of the twenty first century.
However, a lot has changed since then and now in 2014 thinking of social media marketing as a choice would be a huge mistake, a mistake that no digital marketer worth one’s salt would dare to commit.
Why integrate both?
Social media is how many people follow their favorite brands and companies. Moreover, Google considers social media as one of the factors while deciding the website rankings.
The launch of Google+ was a part of the covert strategy of the company to have its own network that could provide social signals and offer better and customized search results to users.
Therefore, the importance of social networks in deciding search engine rankings can’t be ignored at all.
Some other reasons why it is indispensable to have an integrated social media and SEO marketing strategy can be understood as follows:
- Facebook has more than 1.28 billion monthly active users. The total number of users registered with the world’s largest social network is actually a lot more.
- Google + has 1.6 billion total users and 540 million monthly active users.
- Twitter has more than 1 billion total users and 255 million monthly active users
- LinkedIn, the official professional social network has 187 million active monthly users and 300 million total users.
These statistics give a clear indication that social media offers a huge potential that can be tapped by brands and companies for maximizing their market reach.
Integration of social media in your SEO efforts will definitely increase the ROI as the more exposure your business enjoys, the better known the brand becomes and more revenue you can generate.
Search Marketing Integration
Search Marketing Integration employs traditional SEO in conjunction with social media marketing.
In addition to getting inbound links, SMI integrates social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn amongst others.
Social signals like Facebook likes, Tweets, Google +1s also contribute their bit in deciding the organic search rankings.
Here are the five strategies that should be the part of a great Search Marketing Integration:
Combined Keyword Research & Targeting
Use a common keyword research approach to develop a Keyword strategy.
Start with a short set of theme on the basis of custom concerns by identifying what users are searching and what they are sharing on the web.
For a book seller, significant consumer search behavior includes searches for the different titles, and most sought after genres. Use social media listening tools to compare against topics discussed in social networks and forums.
Integrated content marketing approach to target keywords
Success in SEO is highly dependent on developing engaging content that attracts maximum eyeballs, the right type of visitors and maximum social media shares.
You can take the help of social media listening tools to find specific interests by finding what kind of content is going viral (getting the maximum shares).
Proper utilization of all Social Media Platforms
Another place to start integration of SEO with social media is ensuring your business’s presence on all dominant social platforms that are significant to your business and your target audience.
While building your profiles across these social networks make sure to include information that is consistent all across to avoid any kind of confusion.
A different set of information will not only create a loss of reputation, but will also result in low search engine rankings.
Creating content that is visual & making it easier to share
Humans are visual creatures.
The more visuals, images and graphics are added to the content, the more engaging it becomes and the better are its chances of going viral.
The presence of charts, infographics, and images in the content prompts people to link back to that content piece. Every image should go along with its alt tag, making it easier for search engines to crawl and find them.
Plus, your website should have social sharing buttons to make it easier for the readers to share the content on various social media channels. These Call to Action buttons might be to tweet, share or comment on the content.
Building your own fan following
Focus on building a large local fan following for your website. Geo-targeted content helps you in targeting local keywords to attract more local consumers.
Use location based social media information to gain local credibility and better search engine results.
Tap into potential of social bookmarking sites
There are many social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Reddit, Pinterest, Stumbleupon amongst others that offer an opportunity for content owners to share their work so that a completely new set of users can discover it.
This is a highly effective and quick way of driving hordes of traffic to your site while making your content viral and valuable.
Measure success through analytics tool and social insights
As with every digital marketing tactics, you cannot be sure what is working and what is not until you track the results.
Use analytics tool such as Google Analytics and Facebook Insight to get a sense of your hits and misses.
Gauge the upticks in engagement along with conversions on-site. Plus, make sure to ensure the quality of the traffic doesn’t suffer in lieu of the volume.
Most organizations still have separate teams managing their social media campaigns and search engine strategies, with both working in silos.
However, the future calls for SEO jobs that combine the responsibilities of both.