The Dynamic Duo of the Internet for Small Businesses and Nonprofits: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Marketing
A small business has fallen victim to dwindling local customers, with traditional advertising unable to pull new clientele into their business. In distress, they put up the signal.
Who comes running? SEO man and Captain Social Media, wearing whatever brand leggings are going viral at the moment with super vision made possible by Meta Ray Bans: aka the Heroes of the Internet. They’re here to combine their almost terrifying power to save the day for businesses, brands, and nonprofit organizations.
Okay, okay, yes, that was dramatic. Let me have my imagination! The point stands: together, SEO and social media marketing create an internet power team that can make all the difference for small businesses and nonprofits.
SEO and social media are both important, and neither one can be done well without the other. Today we’re going to take a look at how small businesses and nonprofits can use SEO and social media marketing together to create a marketing strategy that increases visibility, generates leads, and drives more sales.
SEO: a summary
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of improving a website so it operates at its best—and most findable—online. Search engines like Google or Bing scour the catalog that is the internet to suggest websites to users based on their relevance to given searches. SEO includes making sure search terms, or keywords, are present on your website, but it goes way beyond that. Relevance isn’t just determined by the words on your site, but also your reputation across the internet.
SEO is an organic, or unpaid, digital marketing tactic, though pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns are often a complementary service that SEO professionals offer to help round out a digital marketing strategy.
SEO efforts often take a few different forms. On-page search engine optimization is the process of adding keywords, tags, etc. on your website itself. Off-page search engine optimization refers to actions taken outside of your own website. Technical SEO refers to the backend side of your site and how smoothly it operates—factors like load speed, mobile site optimization, security, and how tidy your site organization is impact how reliable search engines perceive your site to be.
Social media marketing: a summary
Social media marketing is the way brands and nonprofits can connect with their audience and find new ones. Social media is really unlike any other traditional medium businesses have used to market themselves—it’s collaborative, it’s digital, it can be done without spending advertising dollars, and its primary purpose is to foster community, not make sales.
Social media marketing is a crucial way brands can connect with their target audience and foster relationships with their customers. Most often, these efforts take place on social media platforms like X, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and TikTok, but even platforms like Reddit, Nextdoor, and others count as well.
Similar to SEO efforts, social media efforts, to be done well, have to be undertaken with a variety of tools in the toolkit:
A social media presence is nothing without content that is high quality and curated in a way that attracts the right demographic.
Social media accounts actually have built-in SEO opportunities. Keywords in posts and thorough profile optimization is crucial for your accounts’ success.
The page’s reputation is built through engagement with followers and with other accounts.
Finally, also like SEO, organic social media efforts can be complemented with a paid strategy through influencer campaigns or advertising.
Why SEO and SMM are the internet’s “dynamic duo”
How better to explain the partnership between SEO and social media marketing than a team made up of an SEO expert and a social media manager? Blake Akers, founder and CEO of Webology in Birmingham, Alabama joins me as a guest for this blog, ready to share his valuable insights into the world of SEO.
Aelsa: Blake, how do you encourage your clients to use social media to build off-page optimization?
Blake: I'd start with the very basic steps, which are to claim your profile on at least the top 25 social media profiles. Next you need to include at least the top 5 of those in a few places:
Icons of each social media platform in your website's footer as links to your profiles.
Add those profiles in the website's Same as schema Markup code.
Include them in all your important business directories that allow you to link to social media.
Aelsa: You outline those social media profiles and explain the “Same as” schema in this useful article! But in your experience, which social media platforms are the best for SEO? Which ones tend to create the strongest SEO impact?
Blake: Right now LinkedIn and Reddit are really strong. Pinterest is also a good option for certain niches.
Aelsa: I think one thing that SEO and social media management have in common is building brand credibility. What are some ways that small business owners and nonprofit teams can build credibility for their organization through SEO and social media management?
Blake: I think just posting high quality content weekly can be a tie breaker if you're bidding against a few competitors. Even if someone finds you on Google or somewhere else, they tend to do a little research and that might lead them to inspect your social media profiles. If they don't see a lot of activity, that can be a sign that one of your competitors who is active may be a better fit for them.
Aelsa: How would you summarize the importance of a holistic social media marketing strategy and search engine optimization strategy?
Blake: They should work hand in hand to maximize impact and minimize workload. A perfect example of this is our local SEO clients who get weekly postings to their Google Business Profile. It gives them a lift in local search results, and then we are able to reuse the same content on Facebook or LinkedIn for them.
To learn more about Blake Akers and Webology’s SEO services, you can visit the Webology website here and find Blake on LinkedIn here. Blake, thanks for joining me today!
