Effective Digital Marketing Strategy: Why Social Media and SEM are important for SEO.

December 18, 2014

Not that long ago, many digital marketers were lucky enough to succeed at growing their brand online by simply using one system of marketing, such as SEO, SEM, or Social Media, without putting any effort into other areas. While SEM (and other networks of PPC advertising) is a method which can run independently of other form of online marketing, and to some extent Social Media platforms are still effective (although rapidly increasing in competition and price), SEO has evolved and become a trickier industry, which can see huge benefits from the strategic use of SEM and Social, and here’s how.

SEO Benefits from SEM

Keyword performance

Virtually instant results from SEM mean you can work out your best performing keywords much faster. As opposed to SEO which can take weeks or months to kick in, not to mention limitations in organic reporting thanks to changes in Analytics over the past few years, AdWords offers results fast, and also allows better reporting.

Using SEM you can determine:
– Which keywords receive the best quality traffic?
– Which keywords have decent search volume?

By analyzing which search terms produce the best results, you can have a better idea for determining which keywords to focus your organic (SEO) strategies on.

Landing page performance

By using SEM to test multiple landing pages, you can determine which layouts work best and incorporate elements of these into your other landing pages for visitors from organic search.

As with most landing pages, things to analyze are metrics like:
– conversion rate
– bounce rate
– time on page

Once you have determined which landing page layouts work best, this can be implemented into your SEO landing pages also to improve the metrics of your organic traffic also.

 

SEO Benefits from Social Media

Link profile

Links from social media platforms to your website have SEO value and are counted much like links on websites are. The same rules apply here as they do elsewhere on the web, in the sense that links need to be natural, and not spammy. Where appropriate, always link to your website from both your social media profiles as well as relevant posts.

Brand mentions & topical association

Search engines are quite smart when it comes to associating brands with the services they provide. Of course this comes down to an effective digital marketing strategy, which includes the use of themed content wherever possible. The more often your brand name appears in content that relates to your services the better, as search engines will notice these repeated correlations.

Search results

You may have noticed when searching for a business, brand, or even a celebrity or band etc, that social media profiles are often displayed in search results. Whether it’s a profile on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Pinterest, or Google +, these platforms all appear in search results and can help you dominate the front page when someone searches for your brand.

 

Summing up

As the above examples demonstrate, it’s important to consider multiple approaches to marketing your brand online, without putting all your eggs in one basket.

We hope you found this information useful. We simply love digital marketing and firmly believe in a holistic approach, combining many elements in order to develop a successful digital marketing strategy.

Looking for an agency that can help? Digital marketing is a passion of ours and our specialties include SEO, SEM, social media, and conversion optimisation.

Read more about our digital marketing services.

Categories: Digital Marketing
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