How Social and SEO are like Superheroes

Avengers. How SEO and social media are ilke superheroes.

Could your small business use a superhero? You can think of SEO and social media like The Avengers, tasked with the noble duty of keeping you relevant and in the eyes of your customers. If they were characters, social media would probably be Tony Stark (because Tony Stark is vain, and let's be honest: he would care deeply about being the most popular one). SEO would be Bruce Banner, because The Hulk would likely hear "backlinks" and assume that meant "smash things".
On their own, they're powerful and capable of saving others, but when their forces combine, they deliver powerful results that could only be accomplished through teamwork.

Here's what the alliance of SEO and social can do for your business:

1. Drive link potential with social sharing

You know how it's always cooler (and more effective) when superheroes team up to do a combined attack on the bad guy? This is kind of like that. Imagine writing a blog post or piece of content and sharing it across your social networks. If people like what they've read, they'll share and retweet your content, which in turn gets seen by their network of followers. With the announcement of Google indexing tweets, it can be very useful to have citations and links to your site in social media mentions online, especially if they're done by users who have strong social followings.

2. Boost local search visibility by making sure your Google+ is optimized correctly

While it's quite common to see a business on Facebook or Twitter, far fewer of them work to actively optimize their Google+ page, or keep it updated with content posting. In the superhero world, this would be the equivalent of hiring a sidekick, but then not giving him or her any training whatsoever! A Google+ page with consistent information will help immensely in boosting local rankings. Be sure to:

Get your business verified. This usually requires getting a postcard from Google and entering a code to prove you are, in fact, a real business.
Edit your location information to mirror what's on your website precisely - it's important to have consistent information across the web! You'll also want to make sure your location on the Google Maps marker is correct too — if not, it may confuse customers.
Encourage customers to write reviews. This drives social traffic, and helps to make you more reputable and trustworthy.

3. Impact rankings by using relevant keywords in social posts

Just about every superhero has a catch phrase or quote that they get remembered by.

When you do the same with SEO efforts in your social media posts, you're actively promoting a targeted word (or series of keywords) that your customers will remember you by. This in turn attracts traffic, and helps to increase your site's rankings. Now, these don't have to be as outlandish as a typical catch phrase. In fact, they should be carefully selected so that they can blend in with your copy naturally, rather than feeling forced. For this reason, we recommend A/B testing to figure out which keywords seem to work best over time.
In addition, if you're using Twitter, be sure to find relevant hashtags to include in your tweets.Selecting the right one can dramatically increase the likelihood that your targeted audience finds the content you're talking about!
Are you ready to save the world yet? Leave us a message on Facebook or tweet @SeafoamMedia with your favorite superhero social/SEO comparisons!