Emma-Julie Fox writes for Pitstop Media Inc, a Vancouver company that provides SEO services to businesses across North America. If you would like to invite the author to write on your blog too please contact www.pitstopmedia.com
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Social media optimization is very different than SEO. Rather than implementing strategies that are tailored towards search engine algorithms, developers must focus on engaging with human visitors.
That beings said, an effective social media optimization campaign can help you improve your search engine rankings as well. After all, search engine rankings sole concern is promoting the satisfaction of their users. Google is more likely to rank a site higher if it sees that your visitors already enjoy the content that you are providing. You boost your search engine rankings considerably if you develop an effective social media optimization strategy that makes it easier for your visitors to access, engage with and share your content.
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Here are a few simple strategies any website or blog owner can handle them on his/her own.
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Social media marketing should be part of your basic SEO. Image source
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These techniques can work whether you are doing your SEO in-house or have hired a company or a Virtual Assistant to help you out, including the following strategies in your SEO campaign can help you give a huge boost to your SERPs (Search Engine Results Page):
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Use Twitter?s Hashtags
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Trending topics in Twitter are preceded by hashtags.
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Don?t underestimate the power of the hashtag. ?People use the hashtag to search for tweets about a particular topic. For example, if someone is looking for tweets about seo tips, they will use type it in twitter search as #SEOtips.? As a business you can take use hashtag to improve the chances of your tweets being seen by people searching for information in that niche.
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The following are some top tips to get the most tractions from your hashtags:
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1)???? Identify trending hashtags that you can connect with your business in a manner that appears natural. For example, if you are app developer, and the trending hashtag is #AustralianOpen you may tweet about apps that can help you keep track of the games being played, and use the AustralianOpen hashtag in your tweet.
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A word advice here, never use a hashtag, unless you know what it?s about. The popular fashion brand Kenneth and Cole learnt this lesson the hard way.
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2)???? Create your own hashtag and use it in all your tweets. Remember hashtags are always used without any space between the words. This way your tweet will be displayed whenever someone searches for the hashtag you used. A good tip here is to create hashtags using the your targeted keyword as well as your business name. The latter will help improve your brand?s visibility on Twitter, as your business name will feature in all re-tweets.
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3)???? Don?t use more than two hashtags in a tweet, or it will make it hard too read and people may skip it all together.
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4)???? Participate in hashtags associated with live discussions; these usually happen around sporting events, news, etc. This is a great way to build new connections on Twitter.
5)???? There are several twitter chats across niche areas scheduled at fixed times during the week. You can use hashtags to participate in these chats. Here?s a spreadsheet that has over 500 such chats listed.
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Update Your Business Blog Regularly
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Blogs are considered as part of social media because readers and visitors can really interact with one another through the comments section. In fact, numerous blogs have formed large online communities already, and these people stay in contact even beyond the ?premises? of the blog.
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Your blog will be one of the most important aspects of your SEO strategy, especially if your business website is not the type that needs to be constantly updated with new content. After all, how many versions can you make for your company?s vision and mission without butchering the original essence of the text? A blog will take care of the need to produce fresh, high-quality content regularly.
A good tip to draw more traffic to your blog is to write about subjects that are either in news or are being highly debated, needless to say they should be related to your industry. You can get great ideas for your posts by setting up Google Alerts for industry specific keywords. This will help you stay on top of all industry developments and will also get to keep tack of opinions of thought leaders in your niche.
Install Social Sharing Widgets in Your Blog/Website
In relation to creating a blog, be sure to install social sharing widgets into your blog roll. Each post or article in your blog or website should be accompanied with these widgets. This makes it easier for loyal readers to share your posts (which are additional promotion for your website, blog or business) in their social media circles.
To encourage people to share, make sure you include a Call To Action, in your blog post. Even a simple statement like, ?Found this post useful, share it with your friends? can help.
The more shares you get, the better you social signals will be and that is going to give excellent SEO benefits, in terms of improved SERPs.
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Use Bit.ly and Share Shortened Links To Your Site With A Call To Action
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You want social media to help draw traffic to your site, right? Mentions of your website will help improve your site?s visibility in search results. Therefore try and include your website?s URL in some of your posts with an attention grabbing or engaging call to action.
For instance, you can create teasers of your latest post and paste the URL in your post. Or, let?s say if you are giving away a Free E-book on cake recipes with your newsletter subscription, you could create a tweet like ?Make sinfully delicious cakes with my FREE E-book. Download Now!?
Bit.ly can be a great tool to help you with this. It?s a tool that shortens URLs and tracks the number of clicks you receive. A shortened URL is also easier to fit into your tweet and looks neater when used in Facebook posts.
Be Human
The fact that you?re already in social media territory justifies the need for human interaction. Avoid automated posts. Reply to questions and comments, especially those that are complimentary in nature. This way, you endear yourself to the public, foster their trust, convince them to patronize your business, and earn their loyalty in the long run. These are the accomplishments that will ultimately matter the most.
This goes far beyond the benefits of SEO. It also serves to help you improve your brand value. A good tip is to divide your social media marketing time into ?one-on-one engagement? and ?posting content and forging new connections.?
Kalen Smith is the Founder of Online Rookies and Engineer-a-Business. He holds degrees in mechanical engineering and an MBA. However, his true passion has always been IT and Internet marketing. You can find him on Twitter at Engineerbiz.
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