Search Engine Optimization In Social Media

"Behind every powerful man, there is a strong woman."

Usually the website is the main focus in a search engine optimization (SEO) campaign, but there are many built in features in social media platforms that can help a SEO campaign. As another way to catch potential visitor attention, social media can drive traffic back to your site. Here are some ways where social media extends over to SEO.


Vanity URLs - They're creatively linked to something, making them easier to remember than a random link. Search engines index this information first, making it easier for the end user and/or search engine. Facebook, MySpace and Twitter offer vanity URLs to their users where their username are in the URL. i.e. www.facebook.com/yourname. Changing this information will allow you to create a keyword
rich URL on a very popular website.

YouTube - Along with content, many SEO experts love YouTube. The reason why is because Google also loves video content and popular videos, they both rank very well within Google. While written articles can take days to get indexed on Google, videos are indexed by Google in less than half an hour!

Twitter - Besides being a tool to help build relationships, Twitter can bring traffic back to your website. When optimized correctly, your Twitter profile is one more URL that you can get ranked for your name/business. Starting last November, Google started to index Twitter posts (tweets). This gives us an advantage by using a different type of platform to get our message out. In some cases, tweets appear higher than static content on web pages!

Blogs - They are another way to benefit your website and improve site traffic as they are also key word rich and frequently updated. Blog platforms now come with all sorts of features, widgets and sizes. Many blogging platforms like Wordpress have a SEO widget that can also be added. Compare a couple of bogging platforms to see which one works for you. Remember that much of SEO benefits of blogs are the subject matter themselves.

Social bookmarking - Social bookmarking websites allow a user to add bookmarks along with a title an small description about the linked resource and share it. Explored in THIS article.

Linking within Facebook - Facebook has its own sharing system built-in with options to be indexed in search engines. It's another opportunity where you can easily share your link to your friends where they can in turn discuss and comment. Lots of quality reviews can also really aid in your SEO.


Inbound linking - Inbound linking or Backlink is when a site links to your website, they are counted to determine link popularity and an important part of SEO. Social media is an excellent way to create lots of inbound links. Twitter and Youtube are both great ways to create or show off links and drive traffic to a website.

Message boards - Message boards were the original base of how social networking sites first got started. As many message boards are operated by major media outlets, they are often indexed by search engines making them another perfect SEO tool. Content about your product or service can often show up on search engines from message boards.

Picture sharing - Picture sharing sites like Flickr have enabled some
geotracking capabilities for uploaded pictures. Flickr also allows pictures to be tagged
with key word rich tags. It's another way to place inbound links and SEO keywords for your website.

Incorporating social media into your SEO tactics can extend the value of your web marriage (investment). To set up your social media roadmap, contact us at project@findmaster.com and we will help you reach your wedded bliss!



Nermin Hadzikadunic
Findmaster Marketing Inc
www.findmaster.com

Findmaster is a boutique search engine marketing company located in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia - home of the 2010 Winter Olympics.