Search Everywhere Optimization
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The way people use the internet has changed dramatically in the past decade.
Gone are the days when everyone opened a browser and typed their desired topic (or URL) into the Google search box. Traditional search engines still play a major role in how users look for the information and products they need, but they are far from the whole picture.
People are typing the names of recipes into their Instagram search bar. They are looking for the hair product they saw in an ad last week on Facebook, and they are browsing YouTube for explanations of political concepts.
So while Google is still the primary search tool for many, it is far from the whole story.
Users are treating multiple platforms across the internet as search engines, and a complete SEO strategy needs to take this into account.
The concept of search everywhere optimization integrates SEO strategy into all the major platforms. To do this, traditional seo strategy concepts like keyword research and tags are employed across multiple platforms, ensuring that your content will be seen by those who are searching for relevant keywords–no matter where they look.
Increasing organic traffic and search visibility is always a worthy goal, whether on Google or Bing, Facebook or LinkedIn. Having your content viewed by more users increases engagement and can provide the opportunity for increased referral traffic as your audience finds your content relevant.
Search engines are an integral part of every social media platform. As such, search engine optimization must be part of all social media strategies. The more your company utilizes search everywhere optimization, the more traffic you can generate from users who are looking for exactly what you offer.
In this article, we will discuss ways in which traditional SEO strategies can help with search everywhere optimization, and ways that more social media-oriented strategies can be modified to include search engine optimization.
How Traditional SEO Strategies Can Help Your Traffic on Other Platforms
While social media content differs from traditional website content in many ways, the strategies involved in optimizing content of either type share many characteristics.
Thorough and accurate keyword research will always provide the cornerstone, while sneaking tags into meta-data of images, videos and other attachments will help pique the interest of the crawlers. And using high-resolution images will always bring preferential treatment from search engines.
Search everywhere optimization relies on integrating all of these strategies into all aspects of your online presence. Let’s look in more depth at how these traditional SEO strategies can translate to other platforms.
Keyword Research Will Always Be Relevant
The importance of keyword research to search engine optimization is uncontested. Knowing the relevant keywords that people look for when they want to find what you have to offer is indispensible.
Some of the keywords that are getting you organic traffic on your website will also be useful for optimizing content on your socials–but not always.
It’s very important to seek the correct keywords that people on a given platform are using to look for your product. This is going to mean at least some keyword research on each platform that you target, and needs to also include tools like relevant hashtags and voice search optimization.
Relevant Hashtags: Effective for Social Media and, Lately, for Traditional Search Engines
Hashtags are a great way to participate in ongoing conversations on social media. Instagram viewers may follow specific hashtags in order to see new content on a given topic, and users who are enjoying posts on a certain topic may follow hashtags to find similar discussions.
Companies are even beginning to include hashtags in their websites as social media components are integrated into their traditional webpages, and hashtags do get search traffic on the major search engines. Consider incorporating hashtags into all of your content strategy, not just socials.
Don’t Forget Voice Search Optimization
Whether you are focused on optimizing your social media content or your website, keep an eye on voice search optimization.
Users who are utilizing voice search sometimes use significantly different words and phrases than when they are typing into a search box.
Include voice search data as you research keywords and you will broaden the base of users who are likely to find your content.
Relevant Tags Speak the Search Engine’s Language
Keyword stuffing will always be a no-no, whether on social media or on your website. But using meta tags and embedding relevant keywords into the code of attached files and images allows you to sneak more keywords into your content without it disrupting your prose or breaking concentration for your readers.
Learning to get under the hood of the HTML of your social media posts will open up worlds of possibilities for drawing more traffic, just like it does for more conventional SEO.
High-Quality Images Draw Attention
Adding relevant images to your site, just like adding images to your social posts, will draw the eye of viewers–and the attention of the search engine crawlers. A solid image, appropriately tagged and well-selected to illustrate your point and inform the viewer, will prompt additional traffic.
Search everywhere optimization means putting all of these tools to work both in your socials and on your traditional webpage, so improving your ability to rank on the search engines can easily translate to ranking across multiple search platforms.
How Your Social Media Strategy Can Start Adopting Search Engine Optimization
If you think search engine optimization and social media are two separate topics, think again. Search everywhere optimization emphasizes the need for all types of content to be optimized, and ignoring social media in your SEO–or ignoring SEO in your socials–is definitely costing you views.
Improve communication between your SEO team and your social media team to start taking advantage of search everywhere optimization, and harness the true power of SEO for all your pages–on all your platforms.
Viral Trends: Increase Engagement By Making Your Participation More Visible
Social media pages that participate in viral trends and challenges often see a boost in traffic. You can increase this advantage by optimizing your trend-related content, seeking keywords that are relevant to the trend and making sure to include as many as you can in your content and HTML tags.
Sneak in some hashtags and your engagement may be many times what it would have been if you had just made a hasty and un-optimized post about your participation. Search everywhere optimization on these posts can lead to exponential growth of views and engagement, so utilize it early and often.
Make Your Posts Appear in Audience Searches with Keyword-Rich Titles
Search everywhere optimization, like SEO, relies on including keywords in the titles of content. Using keywords in headings in a blog post improves your traditional optimization; similarly, including keywords in titles of posts, videos, and pages can make a big difference in who sees your content.
Drive Views and Engagement For Your Short Form Videos With Video SEO
Short-form videos can be a great way to get viewers interested in your other content. But if your video content is never selected by the algorithm, no one will see it and no interest will be piqued.
Add search everywhere optimization strategy to your short-form video content and you can vastly improve the number of people viewing your content.
Strategies that rank in the short-form video market include traditional SEO tactics like keywords in titles and metadata, and also tactics unique to the genre such as trending audio clips. To have maximum impact, leverage all the available tools to make your video content work for you.
App Stores are No Exception: Tickle that Algorithm to get More Downloads on Google Play
Improving your views and downloads in app stores is a very similar process to optimizing content in your multi-platform strategy. Search everywhere optimization means that your content will be found by users with intent, so bring your content to center stage on the app store as well as across the other platforms and the worldwide web.
Use keywords in titles and in metadata, include high-resolution images, and integrate SEO research into all of your data to improve app store optimization.
SEO Research Strategy Remains Largely the Same No Matter The Platform
While every platform has its idiosyncracies, by and large SEO research doesn’t change much across platforms. Search everywhere optimization relies on keyword research in order to craft keyword-rich titles and metadata.
Authoritative content will always take priority with the search engines, and AI tools, while potentially very effective, may backfire as the search engines still detect AI content and penalize them.
