Any business or organisation that relies on a website for their survival will be all too aware of the importance of high page rankings and high visitor numbers.

In the olden days it was enough to highlight a few keywords, pop in some metadata and let the search engines do their bit. But with social media fast becoming one of the most powerful marketing tools available, it’s crucial now to take it into account when developing a website.

Fusing your SEO and social media activities can give your business or organisation a huge boost, and get your click counter going through the roof, so here are some ideas to get you started. 

What is SEO?

SEO simply stands for Search Engine Optimisation. Most people have a general understanding of SEO, but in the last few years knowing all of the ins and outs has become even more important.

Websites that are search engine optimised will have a good percentage of key words, well-written text and plenty of links to other sites. This helps search engines know that the site is trustworthy and informative for the person making the query.

What are social media activities?

Social media activities encompass everything on the internet that involves interacting with other users. Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Google+ are just a few examples of this internet phenomenon.

Whole communities are built around swapping shared interests, providing a unique marketing tool for anyone looking to increase their brand awareness.

Why is it important?

Fusing your SEO and social media activities is important as it can increase the profile of your business or website and bring more visitors to your site.

It also gives search engines another factor with which to assess the usefulness of your site. For example a pages with lots of ‘likes’ or recommendations will rank more highly than those with none.

It can also help you keep track of your target market. Following who shares your link and why can provide useful information, allowing you to focus on a specific area or even rebrand to target a new audience.

For anyone who is self employed, social media optimisation is even more important as most individuals are employed on their reputation. The increase exposure should help to get more work pouring in. 

Installing social sharing buttons onto your website

An easy way to begin fusing your SEO and social media is to install social sharing buttons in your website.

These can now be found at the bottom of a lot of webpages and allow visitors to share the contents of the page with a single click.

This will then appear on their profile, where other users will see it. If they have similar interests to the original visitor, there’s a good chance that they’ll have a look at your site too.

By using a tracking service, you’ll be able to collect and analyse data from these buttons to see what impact they are really having on visitor numbers.

Creating a social media page for your website

Another way of increasing your social media profile is to create a page for your business or organisation.

You can use this space to advertise upcoming events, promote your current work and connect with users and prospective clients.

However you can’t just create a page and expect it to work its magic. One of the most important aspects of social media is being active and continuously engaging with visitors.

The social media is the human face of your company. So by continually updating your page, sharing associated information from other pages and becoming involved in online communities, you can make your business appear friendly and approachable.

Social media may not give you instant results, and your visitor numbers are unlikely to shoot up over night. But with online communities growing and spending on social media sites set to increase, this is an aspect of business that simply can’t be ignored.

Featured images:

•  License: Creative Commons image source
•  License: Creative Commons image source