Having a strong online presence will allow you to rank for keywords and grow your brand if done correctly. Content, searchability, shareability, content layout, links, search signals and trending are all things to keep in mind. Using social media strategically, rather than for self-promotion or sharing random content is important for results. You do not want to waste your time and resources doing things that don’t help your brand meet basic KPIs. In order to make social media work for you, you will need a strategy. A good strategy will help you:

• post relevant, quality content
• manage your online presence (handle prospect, customer or client queries)
• give your audience a good impression about your brand
• help you rank for keywords
• convert your traffic into leads, customers or clients

Editorial Calendar – Use Content to Build a Strong Online Presence

Content is just content if your target audience can not get something out of it. For your content to help you have a strong online presence, it should be useful and relevant to readers. It’s also essential to include the applicable keywords to help search engines find and rank you. An editorial calendar is an excellent way to know what you are going to say and when you are going to say it. It can also help you to overcome the pitfalls of having content that serves no purpose other than to have new content. New content is

meaningless if it is not quality.

An editorial calendar can also help you to handle any important industry events so you don’t miss talking about them. You really don’t want to be stuck in a place where you wonder what you want to say and end up sharing something irrelevant or self-promoting. If your posts don’t add value to your fans or engage them, it is probably best to take the time to create quality content before you make a post.

Post Quality Social Content, Keep Your Fans Engaged and Avoid Fan Loss

Another reason to keep quality up on your social platforms is because if people don’t like what you are sharing, they will simply unfollow you. This can negatively impact your brand in social platform searches and affect keyword rankings for your website. . One ranking requirement is that you need to be within the range of your competitors for different Social Search signals.

Make it Easy for People to Find and Share Your Content

While producing original content that is useful and relevant is still your goal in building credibility and drawing in traffic, making it searchable and shareable is just as important. Improving searchability can be done by making your social media profiles public. You will also want to make it easy for people to share your web content on social platforms by adding a share button.

Define the Purpose of Your Content – Social Sharability and Traction

You can also tailor your content towards “shareability”, meaning, if your primary goal is to achieve more comments, shares, likes and social mentions, then write content that typically does well on social networks. You may also wish to choose a template specifically for social media and provide examples of how you would like others to share your content on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn.

Each social network also has its own best practices for what type of content will do well, how to format it and how to share it with your audience. It is best to avoid using the same social mention across all social networks. You will really want to create quality content on your social profiles and this is an important step.

How Links Within Social Mentions Impact Web Search

Facebook and other social media platforms are great for building high quality links, which is necessary if you want to rank high in web searches and build a strong online presence. You can also get quality traffic from links. Even though links on social networks do not directly count the same as a link from a dofollow article on a high quality website, search engines do notice when people are talking about your brand. This is because social media platforms have high web authority. Links posted on these sites are considered social mentions which can improve your website’s search engine rankings. This will also help you build a strong online presence.

Social Search Signals – Use Social Media to Build Your Brand and Rank for Keywords

Social Search signals play a role in your quest to build stronger online presence. If you provide content that gets likes, shares, and followers, then you’re establishing your brand. In turn, you will get traffic to your site and social media platforms. This will help you to become an authority in your industry.

Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing are all focused on brands and will rank brands better than other types of websites. Note though that there are many search signals and just because you have a good brand, that does not mean that a smaller non-established website can’t out rank you. It also does not mean that if you have a well established brand that you will rank. There are many other search signals that come into play.

Social Search and Web Search – Rank for Keywords in Web Search Through Trending

Did you know that you can also rank for keywords without any on page SEO? You can also rank for keywords without doing any traditional link building. When you trend for a keyword on social networks you can rank for it in Web Search. This may however be short-lived. This depends on changes with your social presence, what competitors are doing and many other factors.

Trending can also take some time as you will need to build up enough traction for a topic to catch on and for your brand to be associated with it. This is also commonly referred to as “going viral”. It is a bit of a long shot though and you have better chances ranking in Web Search. Instead of trying to trend, just focus on building quality content across social networks and building up your website. You will also need to do many other things.  A website audit is a good place to start. That’s where we come in 😀

Further reading: Learn more about the different types of search.

Contact Us for a Free Micro Social Media Audit and See How We Can Help You Grow Your Fanbase

Building a strong online presence requires hard work. The good news is time, patience, and plenty of research will help get you on the right track. We can audit your current social media status and implement it. We can also create a solid social media strategy which will help you grow your fan base and popularize your brand. As a bonus, when you work with us you will also get organic rankings because we understand how search engines (and social platforms) work. We can be reached by phone at 604-779-8438, by email or you can chat with us online. We look forward to helping you reach your online goals!