With ever-evolving algorithms and new social media channels disrupting the market, social media can be unstable at the best of times. While the dust is settling, Richard Michie, Founder and CEO of The Marketing Optimist agency in Leeds, dives into why now is a great time to focus on SEO and increase the visibility of your website.
Social media is in flux
For the past few years, social media has been in flux, it’s been growing up and importantly trying to work out how to make money from an audience who have been fed on a free service. As it grows up, or in X’s case goes through those tricky teenage years, it becomes harder for marketers to make it work. Which is what makes your website so important.
In the good old days of throwing sheep on Facebook (you’re old if you remember that), Follow Friday on Twitter, now X, or spamming connections on Linkedin, you could get some pretty decent reach and engagement without spending a bean.
Those days are clearly gone. As Elon Musk has noted, there’s very little money in a free system that is terrible at driving revenue via ads.
And so, to try and squeeze you to pay for coverage, the social networks have squeezed the algorithms until they squeak. So where do you go now?
Take another look at your website
Sure, SEO goes through its tough times, with Google constantly changing their own algorithms and moving the goalposts. But the fundamentals of SEO haven’t changed for a long time. The key to getting Google to show your website in results is ensuring it has the best content available for the query people are asking about.
Yes, there are lots of technical angles, but that single point is still true. Google wants to show people the best page for their query, if that’s your website then you win.
And once you get people to your website you get to have a longer conversation with them. They get to know your brand, what you stand for, who your team is, the quality of your service and what your skills are. They get to do all that on your terms, instead of squished into the sizes and formats dictated by Instagram, TikTok etc.
If you need a 10-minute video on your site you can have it, and it won’t be competing with some teenager dancing to the latest trending sound.
If you need 1000 words, or more, to explain your solution and answer all your customers’ queries, you have no need to edit that down to 240 characters or screenshot it into a graphic so you can get more detail across.
No. On your website you can deliver your content in the way that you see fit, however, that is. And that’s the beauty of your own website, you own it.
All this lovely content is perfect for SEO
All the effort you put into your social campaigns could just as easily be used for content for your website too. That way that carefully crafted marketing message will stick around a lot longer than being part of an ever-moving feed somewhere.
SEO takes time, which is why it’s easily forgotten, you won’t get instant results from SEO. What you do get are long-term results that will last a lot longer than a post on X, or a reel on Instagram.
Business is a long game, so, while you shouldn’t ditch social, investing in SEO and your website gives you far more control than placing your bets on the wim of billionaires who could turn off the taps tomorrow.
