Online Marketing Approach: SEO and Social Media

Small business owners have a wide range of marketing options when selecting the right online marketing strategy to pursue with the goal of finding new leads that actually convert into sales. The most popular are paid advertising, SEO campaigns, and social media marketing. Creating a site optimized to be attractive to search engines through search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most talked about tactics that drive traffic to websites usually through Google. It’s always important to build a website based on proven SEO principles, but in today’s online world, it’s a big mistake not to engage with the community through social networking sites.

Google now gives value to the number of shares, likes, +1’s, etc. that a site receives when producing its search results. Therefore, social media campaigns also have an impact on a company’s search rankings for desired keywords. A great SEO strategy with lots of backlinks is no longer enough to gain great visibility and traction online. The best marketing campaigns for a small business include a combination of sound SEO principles and promotion of social media channels. Paid search advertising and banner ad space can give a new site the exposure it needs to reach customers; but it’s usually too expensive for most small business marketing budgets.

SEO Basics

To get the most out of your social media campaigns, it’s wise to have a site built on best practices related to search engine optimization. The following are some guidelines that are important for your web development team to follow when designing your site. But doing this alone won’t drive the traffic you want until you start sharing your website content on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere, giving readers the opportunity to share, like, or +1 on the page. content you are distributing.

– Create a site map.

– Develop unique page titles, keywords and page descriptions.

– Use keywords in key positions in headings and body copy, but don’t overdo it.

– Build backlinks, but use a family of similar keywords, not just one or two.

– Include blog titles in the company blog URL.

Of course, there are dozens of other aspects to building a website with SEO in mind, so it’s important that you have a web developer who is skilled in SEO techniques when building the website. Many small business owners fall into the trap of trying to implement what they read about SEO strategies that belong to affiliate marketing companies that are only looking for traffic through Google search and are not actively selling a product themselves or creating a brand that customers will return to.

Social networks to generate traffic

Using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube and other sites to promote content about the business, products and services provided should be the major part of your focus. Building a community of people who are interested in the industry your business is in is much more effective than building thousands of links on irrelevant websites. People who actively follow a business on Facebook or engage with the business on Twitter are actually helping promote the brand to their followers and friends simply by participating and having a discussion. This may be the best type of exposure, as the company can reach more people who may have similar interests. By focusing on creating an effective social media marketing strategy, the business has a much better chance of being noticed by others who will take the time to write or comment on social sites, but also on their own blogs and other websites, which can result in very high quality links. Building links is an important part of any effective SEO plan and one of the best ways to get others to link to your content and talk about your brand is through unique and original content that is shared across social sites.

Make sure your site has the basic requirements search engines look for. Make sure you have a well-designed website and take advantage of social media to generate high-quality links and discussions that actually drive traffic to your site. If you have the ability to create original content, then you don’t need to worry about creating an intricate link building scheme, as it’s very likely that Google will detect it anyway. Small business owners are much better off spending their online marketing budgets creating value for their community and actively participating in industry-focused discussions across the web.