A new survey that just came out predicted that the number of small businesses using social media will double in the next year.
It’s one more sign of businesses looking for more affordable and more targeted ways to market themselves.
One thing many businesses forget is that social networks and online social avenues are good ways to benefit your SEO presence as well. Many, understandably, believe that:
1. Social marketing doesn’t do much for their website directly, at least for search engine purposes. That’s precisely the point, though.
SEO is about search presence and positioning and these social outlets, whether they are a Facebook page, a YouTube video or Flickr photos, are cataloged by Google.
Google, in this age of Universal Search, often delivers these results with the formerly dominant web site listings. At the top of the search results, in some cases. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of that?
2. Another mistake businesses make is thinking that it isn’t appropriate for them. One prospective client, a law firm, didn’t see the use of YouTube since their concentration was representing businesses.
They couldn’t get past thinking that the only use for YouTube would be putting up copies of TV commercials. Since they didn’t do that kind of advertising, they threw out the idea.
A well-informed SEO strategy would have had them doing informational videos or some kind of introduction to their firm for prospective clients to view. But they wouldn’t hear it.
It could have not only been good search marketing, it would have been good SEO. It might have been another listing in the results for them, reinforcing their search presence. It was not to be.
The survey that kicked off this post was centered more on small businesses advertising on online social outlets. But that ties in to the point of this post.
They’re missing the other side of the coin completely – being in and on the social outlets themselves. Not just as advertisers, but as participants.
Their SEO would benefit, but what they don’t do can only make more room for you in Google. So maybe their slowness isn’t such a bad thing.