SEO Writing Hacks to Boost Your Social Media

BONUS MATERIAL: Free “SMART Goals” Ebook

Think about your SEO writing. It may be good … but you need it to be great. Fortunately, we’ve got tips to help you strengthen your SEO writing for social media starting right away.

You already know that SEO (search engine optimization) is important for your website. It gets you higher on the SERPs (search engine results pages) and therefore gets your business in front of more potential customers. In fact, 92% of all traffic goes to the results on the first page of Google.

But what about social media? Can your social media channels get picked up on search engines?

YES.

In this article, I’m going to show you my tried and tested SEO writing hacks to boost your social media.

How Social Media Helps With SEO

Having a basic brand presence on social media is a start, but there’s so much more you can do.

Here are some of the ways your social media content can impact your SEO.

• Company social media profiles usually appear at the top of SERPs for branded keywords. This is especially true if keywords or phrases are used. Company logos and images from social media also pull through to the SERPs.
• Accelerate content distribution. In simple terms, more people will see your blogs, landing pages, and videos if you feature them on your social media. That means better brand recognition, increased interest in your company, and potentially more sales.
• Improved evergreen presence. Social media posts live forever so something you shared in 2017 may still be picked up in 2025. This reminds us to update old but popular blog posts but not to change the URLs. (Check out these tips for evergreen content.)
• Increased web traffic. Getting more web traffic from social media is a win-win. The more traffic you get, the higher your site is prioritized by the SERPs.
• Boost searchable shopping. Increasingly, we search on social media in the same way we would on Google. It’s essential your products are searchable and shoppable from your social media channels.
• Correct a bad online reputation. Getting your social media SEO on point can help eradicate old content you want to be hidden like bad reviews or negative PR.
• Links to your content from social media speed up your content indexation. This is important to be ranked higher by search engine giants like Google.
• Influencer marketing amplifies reach. A retweet or share from an influencer on social media amplifies your reach to a larger audience and boosts your visibility.

Fun fact: Facebook ranks #3 globally behind Google and YouTube and gets over 20 billion visits per month. Facebook allows Google and other search engines to crawl its pages unlocking content for indexing, including Facebook comments, images, videos, and reviews.

So, now you understand how social media can impact your SEO, let’s talk about how to do it.

At Contentworks Agency I’m working with new brands looking to accelerate their SEO presence as well as older brands that may be looking to reinvigorate or cover up negative reviews.

Here are my top tips for SEO writing.

1. Write Great Captions

There’s a reason why social media managers are often repurposed content writers. It takes skill to write great social media captions.

First, captions need to be engaging and communicate the message effectively. Second, they need to be concise and memorable. Third, they need to be SEO effective.

Example of great social media captions

IKEA UK below is a great one to watch on social media.

Here’s what the brand got right:

• The brand fully utilizes user-generated content and tags the photo owner. This amplifies its reach to a larger audience and boosts its SEO.
• They use hashtags like #IKEAUK and #IKEAcatalogue, so anyone searching for the brand will find it easily. There are over 6,000 Instagram tags for #IKEAcatalogue.
• They use the name of the product, FLISAT shelves, in the description, making it searchable
• The brand boosts its presence by using well-known design and kids’ hashtags like #childrensroom and #livingwithkids.
• It invites users to share more IKEA snaps which will further boost their online presence.

Another brand that nails captions for SEO is ASOS that frequently uses GIFs and short videos like this one. The captions hit the sweet spot by:

• Providing shoppable catalog numbers
• Using keywords like gel eye masks and Florence by Mills
• Utilizing emojis to break up the text and draw the eye

And sometimes, less text is more when the hashtags are all present and correct. Love this one from Nomad Bread & Coffee:

Tip: Add all the necessary information to your posts like a product description that includes long-tail keywords, a link to shop or read more, and the right hashtags.

2. Tag & Feature People With a Higher SEO Ranking Than Your Own

Search engines like Google factor social media influence into page ranks.

By engaging with influencers on social media, your brand can reap the benefits of increased web traffic.

Considerations

Here are some points to consider:

• Reach: Do they have many followers?
• Relevance: Does the content they are sharing match your brand or audience demographic?
• Resonance: Are they ranking on the SERPs?

Tagging high ranking individuals to improve your SEO does not necessarily involve a paid agreement.

Examples of expert tagging in your SEO writing

Here are some brands winning on SEO in this way:

Sephora on Instagram regularly tags stylists, make-up artists, and product companies.

If we look at the post below:

@Olaplex has 1.8 million followers

@ glam.by.heather has 35k followers

So, instantly Sephora has its product in front of almost 2 million additional users.

UGC

User-generated content is another great way to boost your SEO rankings. And the best way to spark interest is with a contest.

Check out this awesome campaign from PetSmart on Facebook. All users need to do is like, tag, and comment. However, this massively boosts engagement and therefore SEO visibility.

As you can see from the Google search engine results, which display its Facebook page on results page 1:

Photo contests are real SEO money-spinners on social media, especially when they center around children, pets, or food (our favorite things to share).

It’s also important to listen and react fast to tags on social media. Chipotle nails it with this Facebook post.

Tip: Listen and monitor brand mentions, keywords, and key phrases in your Agorapulse dashboard. Doing this can help you find the right influencers to interact with and respond fast to funny posts, comments, or tags.

3. Make Everything Shoppable

In the somewhat bleak lockdown landscape of 2020, online shopping has emerged as a savior for high street businesses forced to close their physical doors. It is also an SEO winner as potential customers search for their favorite products online.

Instagrammers, for example, are ready to buy on the platform. A total of 60% of users discover new products there, and 130 million Instagrammers are tapping to reveal product tags in shopping posts each month.

All that boosts your SEO by driving traffic to your site. And not just traffic. But hot leads that want to buy from you.

Tips for making social media posts shoppable

• Remember that most people are viewing your feed on a smartphone, which means limited space to communicate. Don’t tag every single item in your image because it will look cluttered and unappealing.
• Social media is all about visuals, especially if you want to sell products. Take the time to create appealing photos or videos that drive sales.
• If you don’t want to make posts shoppable, at least provide a link to the product. Not a link to your home page, though. Link to the specific product.
• Don’t forget about Pinterest. Pinterest for SEO is ideal, and many marketers depend solely on Pinterest search traffic to grow their business. Additionally, its business insights are so helpful for retailers.

• Utilize carousels or use multiple images to show off different shoppable products in your range or to emphasize different product features.

Tip: Take the time to label each product properly on social media so it shows up in search engines. My search for “pink silk blouse” yields two Pinterest results in the top seven results.

4. Make Sure Your YouTube Videos Rank for SEO

YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world with around 30 million visitors per day and 1.5 billion active users per month.

Cisco predicts that video will account for 82% of all Internet traffic by 2022 and I agree. Add to this, 92% of Internet users watch videos online each month and traditional TV is declining. YouTube is Google-owned, and so its videos are favored by the search engine.

BONUS MATERIAL: Free “SMART Goals for Social Media Strategy” Ebook”

So, how can you make your YouTube videos rank you for SEO on Google?

• Use keywords. If you want your videos to show up on the search engines then you need to label them correctly. And label them the way a user would search for them. For example, “Easy pancake recipe” or “Best pancake recipe.” Remember, too, that many users now use voice search, especially when cooking or driving so don’t use overly complicated search terms.

• Create transcripts. Translating your video content into multiple languages will open your brand to a larger, global market. It also makes your content accessible to the hearing impaired.

• Keep it short. YouTube videos should be short and sweet. A total of 33% of viewers will stop watching a video after 30 seconds with 45% leaving after one minute and 60% by two minutes. If consumers leave before your video has ended, YouTube’s algorithm will not rank it highly.If you have more to say, create a playlist explaining different parts of the topic. Walmart divides its playlists making it easy to find exactly what you want.

Homebase nails the SERPS with its helpful DIY series like the one below.

The great thing here is that these videos are unlikely to become dated. You can always update the text captions to include your latest product range.

Tip: Don’t forget how many people search using hashtags. Your Twitter efforts will yield results even outside the platform. Take the time to research the most powerful hashtags in your sector.

Other Social Networks That Rank for SEO

Sometimes, we forget that the big six (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube) are not the only social media sites that matter for SEO.

Here are three others you should consider if you’re serious about boosting your rankings through social media.

BONUS MATERIAL: Free “SMART Goals for Social Media Strategy” Ebook”

Quora

Quora is great for SEO as it relies on real questions and answers. Quora users are answering questions that users are asking on Google.

Provide Q&As and educational articles, or ask the audience what they need from you.

Adding links on Quora will drive solid traffic to your site. The site is a gold mine for SEO keyword research because users are speaking about a topic in everyday language that isn’t filtered by search engines or algorithmic suggestions.

Reddit

Reddit is the sixth most popular website in the US (20th globally) and has more than 430 million active users.

Reddit is most popular among users aged 25 to 29 and pulls some punches in regards to SEO. Channel users don’t appreciate marketers trying to sell products though. Be a member first, give more than you take, post original content, and don’t even think about using fake accounts!

Pinterest

I mentioned Pinterest before, but it really is an important one.

Pins that are properly labeled have the potential to catapult your brand into search engines’ hot picks. And you don’t need to have physical products to utilize the channel.

Using beautiful imagery that links to your blog post or landing page works well, too. Once a user enters a search query Pinterest’s Smart Feed ranks and prioritizes pins based on their quality. This includes properly optimized images, correct captions, sizes, and original content that answers the search query.

In Conclusion

SEO always starts with great content marketing and that pulls through to social media SEO too. Throw in good community engagement, optimized images and videos, and good use of keywords and you have a winning strategy.

Get started on saving time and energy on your own social media management! Check out our free trial of Agorapulse to help you schedule, track, and measure all your social media efforts.