Social media content is an enormous part of digital marketing – social signals like shares, likes and follows have an important impact on search engine results page (SERP) rankings. Engagements like these are beneficial for your SEO, because they indicate to search engines that consumers trust your business. In fact, they’re considered by Moz to be one of the top 10 factors that affect search ranking.
Facebook has a huge, varied and engaged user base – in December 2018, they reported 1.52 billion daily active users. It’s a place for potential customers to gain an impression of your brand and be redirected to your website to learn more about your services.
This article outlines how to optimise the social media platform for great SEO results.
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Include your keywords
Just like your website, your business’s Facebook page can also be optimised for keywords. While it doesn’t affect your SERP rankings directly, optimising your social media content with keywords has the potential to improve your page’s visibility on the platform and help users find it.
To optimise your page, make sure to include keywords in your profile and your page name if possible. After you’ve chosen one or two of the most high-traffic keywords that are relevant for your business, you should include them throughout your ‘About us’ section. Make sure to show restraint and work them in naturally – repetition won’t gain you extra visitors, most likely the opposite. Once your page has 25 likes, Facebook will let you choose a custom URL. This means that your page will have its own URL containing the name of your business, which can improve your brand recognition and make you easier to find.
Don’t forget backlinks
Backlinks behave differently on Facebook than they do on your website. Google marks all user-generated links with ‘no follow’ tags, which means they aren’t considered a ranking SEO factor. However, they can still be useful; Facebook links can help you increase your site traffic. By sharing links to original content on your website, and embedding them on your profile, you create a logical journey for potential customers. They see your content posted on Facebook, find out more about the company on your business page, and finally click through to your main website or blog.
This increases your referral traffic, but also gives you a new base of potential customers that already know a bit about your company by the time they get to your website. With increased visitors coming to your website from Facebook and other social platforms, you can increase your website’s visibility. Websites with a variety of inbound and outbound links are more likely to rank higher in search engines. Using this free tool, you can see your active backlinks and identify which ones are performing best.
Tell people where to find you
A complete business profile on Facebook functions similarly to a full Google My Business profile: it lets users know who you are, what you offer and where they can find you. However, Facebook gives you a platform to express your brand’s personality and have more personal interactions with users. Your Facebook Business Page should include key information like your contact number, address, services or products, working hours and background – this will help you attract new potential followers and customers.
Regardless of platform, your business information should always be a part of your wider local SEO strategy. Placing keywords within your description will give you an ideal place to link users who are visiting your page to your website or your blog. Your contact details are important – we might not fully understand how Google and other search engines take social media pages into account for SEO, but many businesses haven’t even filled out their social media profiles. Completing a business profile on Facebook will give you an authority boost over competitors that haven’t bothered.
Make conversation
Customer reviews and interactions with your page are very valuable. They create trust by giving third-party recommendations, something that is very important to online consumers.
When users share your content or leave comments and reviews, this offers a chance for you to position your brand as helpful and engaged. You can highlight positive experiences, and any potential negative experiences can be managed before they affect your presence online. Google have gone back and forth about whether social signals affect SERP rankings, but there does seem to be a correlation between ‘social signals and ranking positions’. Facebook gives you an excellent opportunity to build your following and create engagement for free, so make sure you encourage reviews. Running competitions or giveaways can also encourage engagement.
Social media and your SEO strategy
You should treat social media as a vital part of your overall SEO strategy – it might not directly affect your ranking on SERP results, but it will certainly contribute to it. Different social media sites have different purposes, and Facebook is an effective tool for engaging with users and customers. In pursuit of a high SERP ranking, make sure you’re using Facebook regularly. It’s a source of organic impressions that you shouldn’t underestimate.
Kate Menzies, Content Writer at Fifty Five and Five
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