How Social Media Can Support SEO

Practice owners face numerous struggles when it comes to attracting new patients, and one of them is mastering Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Although many practice owners believe their social media postings will improve their SEO, this actually isn’t the case. Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo aren’t concerned about what is posted through Facebook or Twitter, but that doesn’t mean your social media has no effect on your SEO ratings. It just means the relationship is more complicated.

While your content on social media profiles doesn’t create better SEO ratings on its own, your social media profiles and post updates can engage and amplify your preexisting audience. The result is the creation of a strong base that starts to repost and link your social media content on other websites, which will appear in search engines and draw more feedback to your work. To give an example, let’s say a practice that makes specialty dog treats is struggling with SEO and attracting new patients. To meet an untouched demographic, the owner creates a Facebook page and posts pictures and descriptions of their treats. At the same time, they also start to repost and link to exciting and engaging content, or they create little blogs or snippets about the different pups that come to the shop. These Facebook posts link back to the practice’s original website.

People like animals, and puppies and dogs being cute are popular on the internet. This content improves the profile’s ranking and starts to draw a fan base. Fans want to read about the dogs and see the treats, so they click on the links and are brought to the original website. This engages a new audience and amplifies the traffic on the original site, which boosts its SEO rankings. Consistent interactions between the social media page and the original website start to build a strong reputation. As a result, search engines like Google and Bing start to index the practice’s website higher. More users can then find it through regular search engines because it has been optimized.

Essential to this process is being able to create content and post updates that still adhere to traditional SEO rules. So, practice owners still should be generating material that utilizes keywords and phrasing while avoiding stuffing. Although it seems like SEO content can be challenging to create, it actually becomes easy the longer someone practices.

It’s easy to tell when someone is writing naturally, and when they start keyword stuffing. There’s a difference between someone saying, “Penny loves these delicious organic dog treats” and “These delicious organic dog treats are so delicious and organic, filled with organic dog treat goodness.” The key is not to place too many keywords in the actual content and to focus more on elements that will attract an audience on your chosen social media platform.

If you have concerns about writing, remember that creating content and working with social media becomes easier the more you practice. If you are struggling, it is possible to hire a freelancer or part-time employee to generate the following for you. Once a practice owner has managed to cover their fundamentals, all that is needed is to create some form of social media content that will attract the desired demographic.

With pets, finding a demographic is easy. If a practice sells HVAC equipment, it can be a little more difficult to support SEO with social media. To properly do so, it’s important to do a little research into who currently buys products and what type of content they enjoy. Silly contests or posts that ask questions and link back to the website tend to be good options, so don’t be afraid to experiment.

When it comes to using social media profiles to boost your SEO, it is possible but will take a little bit of work. Once you have an idea that garners attention, it’s important to post content regularly. Don’t be afraid to engage patients and fans of the page to amplify how often they check your social media. If you’re struggling to get feedback, consider using a system like Pozative, which encourages patient reviews.