Yes, more information on SEO and Social Media

We’ve been talking a awful lot about SEO lately, and for good reason. However, with the growing importance of social sharing, we think it’s important to talk about how SEO and social media are related. First we talked about approaching Twitter from an SEO frame of mind, and now we want to focus on Facebook.

Why is SEO important for Social Media?

Your website, your microsites, social media profiles and any other business listings you have online become your web assets. Anything that is yours, with your name on it that represents your brand online is considered a web asset. When you’re attempting to show up on Google’s Page One for a particular search term, the more of your assets that are in some way linked back to your main website that show up on that first page, the better. This is where SEO and social media come together.

SEO and social media overlap: You  should take an SEO approach to all of your web assets, including social media profiles.

 State your name, plain and simple.

Your custom URL, and custom tabs are seen by Google as “H1” or “Heading 1” and are therefore seen as being important. Include your business name in these sections.

This also makes it a lot easier to be found. Just like if you can’t be found in the search engine no one will find your website, if no one can find you in the Facebook search because your name is too obscure or include a tagline instead of your business name, no one will find you.

Optimize your media.

Before uploading photos, give then an appropriate filename. The filename of the image as it is saved on your computer, or whatever computer you are using, is indexed, so name accordingly.

Furthermore, since videos aren’t text and can’t be indexed the same as written content, their titles are weighted heavily. Be sure to write SEO-friendly video titles.

When you’re creating custom tabs and images, the text isn’t seen as text, so it isn’t reached by Google’s web crawlers. Make sure that you put SEO-friendly text in the About and Info sections as plain text.

Get custom.

Create custom tabs! They index, too so why not take advantage of the opporunity? PLUS if it helps you generate Likes, which help with rankings, then you’re doing double duty.

Be out in the open.

Make sure that the information on your Facebook page is public. If you’re going for exclusivity, you’re not helping yourself. Google won’t “Like” you, so if they can’t see you, they can’t index you. Make sure your content is visible to friends and “non-friends” of your Facebook page.

CAUTION: Do not forget that social media is NOT all about SEO. Social media is about sharing and engagement. The focus should be on interacting with your target audience and the sharability of your content by that same audience. Taking the time to make your Facebook page “SEO-friendly” by following the steps above is very important, but it is not the focus. Thinking about SEO and social media will help give you an edge, but it won’t be enough to sustain your online visibility on it’s own.