How to Combine SEO & Social Media to Form a Super Brand

2012 has been a big year for Google’s search platform. Search relevancy drastically improved for users, but rich search result pages containing videos, news and social activity are more prevalent than ever.   More importantly, the quality search team at Google realizes the importance of incorporating social media into search and crawling major social platforms in an effort to better rank out authority for websites. These tips will help you marry your social media strategy with your SEO initiatives to gain more reach for your brand.

Put Your Video Content on Steroids

You should already be creating engaging videos to showcase your products and brand experience via social media. In addition, use this content gain exposure and traffic in blended search results. Optimizing videos is very similar to optimizing Web pages.

Video Optimization Checklist

• Host your video on a major video site – Use Youtube, Vimeo or Metacafe
• Use keywords strategically in the title of your video
• Name the video file identical to the optimized video title
• Add tags with targeted keywords
• Write a well-crafted description with keyword use one time
• Create a post on your blog and optimize the pages title and H1
• Share the video on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest

Influence the Influencers on Twitter

Google now looks at social signals when evaluating the authority of your website. Having a link from your site Tweeted by an influential user can boost your search rankings, increase referral traffic and increase you social community.

Use tools like WeFollow and Twitter search to find users who influence your potential customers. These individuals may be bloggers, popular speakers or even celebrities. Research the content they like to share and create a piece of similar content. Reach out to them in a Tweet or direct e-mail with a compliment by inquiring for some expert feedback on your content. When approached in this way, people feel flattered and are more likely to share your content via Twitter or on their blog.

Use Google Plus to Control Search Results

Google’s new personalized search features create unique results for users when logged into their Google account.  You can inch your brand in to every desired query by building community and being active as a brand on Google Plus.

Google Plus Marketing Checklist

• Create a branded Google Plus page with all company information including relevant photos
• Spend 2 weeks adding blog content, branded videos and giving your major site pages a +1
• Adding a Google Plus Link to the other social icons on your website
• Invite your existing social community members from Facebook and Twitter to join you on Google Plus
• Invite your e-mail list to join you on Google Plus
• Continue posting blog content and adding +1s to major pages of your site
• Monitor Google Analytics to see referrals from Google Plus

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