Many bloggers emphasize the interdependent relationship between social media and SEO. As Lee Odden, the CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, points out “search has become increasingly social with the incorporation content from social sources (video, blogs, images) into standard search results ala Universal search in 2007 followed by potential toolbar data and information captured while logged in”. Further he emphasizes that all major search engines take data feed from Twitter (the second most popular search engine when you compare the search volume numbers shared in this Search Engine Land article, 18bn queries per month, after Google 88bn queries per month) and Facebook (“according to an analysis of the data generated by TampaSEO, Facebook shares are one of the social signals most closely correlated with high search engine rankings”,writes Neil Patel).  Both, social media and SEO depend one to another. Why? Great social content (blog, videos, images, or audio) that is not discovered by the audience via search engines is lost opportunity and simply leaving money on the table. On the other hand “implementing SEO programs without leveraging the content distribution and linking benefits of social web participation makes link building for SEO an uphill battle”, writes Mashable. Thus, we can conclude that both, social media and SEO are essential for your startup. For that reason we decided to deliver a short piece on 5 tips that might help you get the most value out of social media and SEO interdependence.

 1. Find the audience: The first tip is to identify, segment and target your customers. “Different segments may search differently, even when looking for the same content. Define your segment and optimize with the keywords they use and understand. In other words, utilize keyword intelligence and keyword-driven techniques to inform your optimization decisions so that customers will be more likely to find (and respond) to you”,advises Acronym Media, an independent, global search and Keyword-Driven Marketing agency, consistently rated as a Top Ten Search Engine Agency by Advertising Age. Once you find your customers you need to understand their behaviors, preferences, methods of searching, publishing, and sharing. “Many companies are ahead of the game by tracking their audience via social media monitoring software that identifies keywords, conversations and influencers such as those pictured in the Radian6 screen shot below”, writes Mashable.

 2. Build an active, engaged presence on social networking sites: Finding your audience is not enough. Getting them engaged is of extreme importance. Create company profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yammer, Digg, or Reddit and get into action. Establish company blog and post your articles to as many social media platforms as possible. “Your company will not only appear more often in search engine results, but you’ll set the stage for stronger communication between your company and customers. It might seem overwhelming at first, but soon you’ll find that just by engaging with customers – responding to complaints and praise on Twitter, for example – you’ll begin to create more content and drive more traffic”, claims Crispin Sheridan, the senior director of search marketing at SAP in New York, in his blog post SEO and Integration With Social Media. He further suggests submitting your business to Google’s Local Business Listings as a way to help your company rank higher because according to him “these listings take precedence over others, and they have the added benefit of increasing customer confidence because they see you’re a real company”. To sum up this section, just creating profiles on various social media platforms will help your company improve its search rankings. Why? Sheridan assures that search engines trust social platforms and “often usher them to the front of the line”. Moreover, “this will help both potential and devoted customers find your content either in social networking profiles or your corporate website. It will also leverage universal search results to push either competitors or “negative content” about you down off the first page of results. Check out Andy Beal who spoke about reputation management at SES San Francisco and his other ClickZ columns”, writes Sheridan.

 3. Develop a content strategy: Delivering valuable and relevant content to your customers is very critical for driving qualified traffic and conversions. No matter what SEO programs or social media channels you use, if your content does not bring value to your customers then it wont work out on the long run.  “Once again, in-depth keyword analysis can reveal what customers are looking for and are interested in. Create content around these themes and trends for maximum relevancy”, advises Acronym Media. There is another thing around delivering valuable content and that is sharing others’ valuable content. “To be truly successful in the social media realm, you have to practice reciprocity. In other words, don’t be there to just post about you. Make sure you share relevant content from other people in your networks. Consider the difference between a link farm (low quality) web site and a content rich, authoritative (high quality) site. Sharing other people’s information in your social networks shows the search engines you are there to provide a rich, authoritative experience to your community and not just tossing out links to generate link bait to your site”, suggestsWeBuildPages, a very successful link building and Internet marketing company. So, creating and sharing great content will surely contribute to your social and SEO strategy.

 4. Consistency: “Do bear in mind that Internet surfers and users of social networking sites have generally short attention spans and you have to prepare a strategy that goes beyond catching their initial attention alone. Devise ways to get them constantly tuned to news or updates about your website such as signing them up for updates via emails”,writes geeks4share.com, website focused on tech related topics. Thus, if you want to be noticed and remain in the focus you need to be visible on continuous basis. Don’t forget that users, especially the ones who are very active on social media platforms, are exposed to a lot of info shared on those platforms and many other stuff may catch their attention. For that reason try to deliver your content, as well as any updates, new products, or simply sharing everyday working experience with them on continuous basis. “Users appreciate your attention and there is nothing more attractive than the personal touch when sending out emails”, writes geeks4share.com.

 5. Measure your goals: And last but not the least, in order to get better results you need to know where you stand. Measuring both, social media as well as SEO results is essential so that you can better understand the way you can optimize these two. “Leveraging both social media monitoring services as well as web analytics can provide marketers with the insight to improve results. Radian6 and Webtrends have recently announced a partnership that will bring web analytics and social media analytics together all in one interface. In the meantime, marketers can use specific measurement tools to monitor the effect of their social web participation as well as the search engine performance of SEO efforts”, writes Mashable.

You can bring a lot of value to your startup if you become enough knowledgeable about social media – SEO interdependence. Using the tips presented above you can establish a strong social following which should be supported by quickly and effectively responding to important industry events. This combined with your SEO best practices (follow this link to read about 5 Tips to improve your SEO) can help you a lot in securing multiple listings in the search engine results pages and pushing the negative or competitive content down. What is your view on this? Do you have any other advise that might help other startups gain on social media – SEO intersection? We would greatly appreciate any feedback you might have on this topic.