SEO and SMO are those process of applying your Content Writing skills to the website to make sure that you drive traffic which eventually leads to gettings new Leads to your business. SMO sounds like a fancy term but it has shown results along with the social skills necessary to build your blog traffic and social media network. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, writer, or small business owner, SMO can help you bring traffic to your blog and bring awareness to what you’re doing and get more clients, sell books, or build your email list.
Social Media Optimization: The principle of using social media to build your blog, not SEO. If you love SEO and it’s working great for you, SMO can add more fuel to your content. It’s possible to use SMO and SEO together, focus on SMO and use a tiny sprinkle of SEO. Useage of the Yoast SEO plugin on the website and here are the few benefits of it:
- Post title and meta description meta box to change these on a per post basis.
- Taxonomy (tag, category & custom taxonomy) title and meta description support.
- Google search result snippet previews.
- Focus keyword testing.
Focus on “Quality and not Quantity”: It’s very necessary that your main focus is on Quality cuz people will be attracted to your writing only when there is something that pulls them to read it and not just leave the page/website in a few mins. The major focus should be in retaining the User and make sure that they revisit the site to be a regular User and not just a One time visit User, to be successful in doing so Quality maintenance and consistency is a Must.
- “Better content will outperform more content.” from Rand Fishkin on one of his famous White Board Friday videos. He gives lots of tips for read engagement, interaction, and sharing which are all a part of SMO to boost your blog.
- One great post a week or every other week is better than poor quality every day.
- Provide value with each post you create: educate, entertain, or inform.
Make Your Content Shareable: Whenever you write a blog or an article it’s advisable that you club it with Interactive and appropriate Images so that it’s interesting for your users to read. Data is revealing that images are helping content to spread! For your blog content to spread, it needs an image that people can pin on Pinterest and will auto populate when embedded on Facebook and Google+. Twitter cards allow images to be shown with tweets as well. All you have to do is add a pinnable image on the blog and also add a Pinterest graphic in 735 pixels by 1102 pixels to Pinterest and embed the Pinterest pin on your blog. Why? Cuz this a an easy to share procedure. This will help your images pinned and repinned as much as possible.
From a recent case study by Pinterest on Buzzfeed‘s use of Pinterest: “Pinterest is BuzzFeed’s second largest social network referrer. It also has a much longer life cycle than other social networks, often driving traffic to posts months after publication. In fact, more than half of BuzzFeed’s traffic from Pinterest goes to posts published more than 2 months ago,” said Dao Nguyen, VP of Growth and Data at Buzzfeed.
Suggestions from BuzzFeed’s success
- Experiment with new categories, like humor, and posts to see what resonates with followers
- Create custom images on your posts for easy Pinning
- Add the Pin It button to your site pages and images
Write, repurpose, repeat
Repurpose your content on Slideshare and link back to your blog, then embed the Slideshare on a post. There’s so many ways to work your blog content into your social media content. Use your creativity and think of new ways that you can use your blog content to create other content.
- Create quote graphics and share to Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter
- Make an infographic
- Create a video and share your most discussion section of a popular post
Socialize:
Share your content more than once. Many a times what we do is we fire a tweet and then forget about it this not how it should work, you have to post content that will bounce back with comments, likes, and a few feedback or any things cuz when this engaging happens is only when you can create your Social Networking Circle for an effective result. Sharing your blog content on social media with an image and a great intro makes a huge difference in traffic.
Add variety to your tweets with these ideas from KISSmetrics, they never share the same text on a tweet for a post. Implement this strategy as well. “This simple trick takes time to execute but adds a lot of variety to the final stream. It is a great way to engage your audience with your content without looking like someone who just wants to promote their own stuff. There are a number of message types you can use as needed. Here are a few of our favorites:
- Straight and Easy: Post Title + Link
- The Question: Ask an engaging question to stir conversation
- Cite a Fact: Share a fact or figure that is included in your post
- Share a Quote: Grab a pull-quote from your article and turn it into a social message
- Add Intrigue: Write a teaser message that grabs the attention of your readers
This tactic provides an excellent way to try out new ideas on your followers.”
Strong Network by Connecting to Other People:
It’s very necessary to build a strong network in order to maintain your Social Presences and to do this it’s not necessary that you’ve to connect with a large number of people so pick your ten to fifteen people who matter the most and do a great job with them. Just build a small group of engaging and interested people as It’s not possible to maintain a solid connection with a large number of people.
- Comment on their blogs and posts.
- Tweet them to say hello.
- Share other people’s content (OPC).
- Participate in Twitter chats and Google Hangouts.
- Connect with people in a meaningful and thoughtful way.
Golden rule for your social media: Treat others as you wish to be treated. Share other people’s content, they might share yours. Respond to a comment and start a conversation. No one is an island on social media, you need to build a network of reciprocity to succeed. Let it start by good deeds and actions from you.
Stay Real: SMO shares this to explain his acronym. Joshua explains in great deal how the elements of being social help you build your reputation and authority while creating thought leadership on your area of expertise.
- Reputation – build your reputation as a reliable qualified source
- Engagement – encourage more engagement, sharing & reciprocate
- Authority – become a notable authority in your field of expertise
- Leadership – harness originality & creativity, be a thought leader
- Social – be social, find and engage sociable experts in your field
- Media – know your social media platforms to maximize influence
- Optimization – improve technical aspects to increase optimization
Hope this article helps you increase traffic to your blog and content.