Search engine optimization (SEO) was as simple as stuffing keywords all over the website, and it would rank simply. Before the dawn of social media, it was one of the only ways to increase traffic and gather audience to any website, and became the sole focus of marketers. Then upcoming of social media marketing (SMM) help marketers build more of a connection to their audiences.
SEO and SMM both work together to create a digital marketing strategy.
SEO
SEO is the process of making it easier for search engines to find and index any website, which in turn makes it easier for people to find your website when they are doing any relevant searches to your business. Over the years it has evolved from just adding keywords around to a much more complex ways involving a collection of on-page and off-page SEO tactics to improve ranking on Google or any web browser.
On-Page SEO
This refers to the SEO tasks on website – the ones you have the most control over. If on-page SEO is perfect, however, there's still no guarantee of a solid ranking. On-page SEO includes elements such as:
URL structure: It’s always better to turn on permalinks and use keywords in URLs. But never go changing all of the website’s URLs to include keywords. This could seriously damage any ranking established earlier.
Title tags: Targeted keywords should be added in the title tag – unique, as needed, for each page of the website.
Headings: Typically, headings are the largest words on the page; these are a good place to use keywords since search engines place a bit more "weight" on them. But, make sure you are only using keywords that accurately reflect the content of your page.
ALT text for images: This won't be visible to any person unless they hover over the image, but is necessary for good SEO.
Page load time: Google always wants its users to be able to find what they' are looking for, as early as possible. Mostly, half of the audience expect a website to load within just two seconds or less, and 40% will not look over a website that takes more than three seconds to load. A one second delay in your response time can lead to a 7% reduction in conversion rates that might cost you $250,000 a year if you earn $1,000 a day. To reduce page load time, it is important to use web-friendly images formats, compress as much as possible, reduce the number of plug-ins, minimize the use of redirects, and optimize for mobile devices as well.
Internal linking: Link different pages of your website as it can help the search engines connect dots and see more about the related content and value you are offering users.
Page content: Gone are the days when you can just write up to 300-400 words about whatever you want and expect it to rank. Google now wants to please its users with quality and their requirements, so it expects you to provide quality and value in your content.
Off-Page SEO
This refers to everything you can do to enhance your ranking that doesn't actually done on your website. Mostly People think, Off-Page SEO is only about building links to your site, but it is more than that:
Backlinks: Backlinks are the plays the prime role of off-page SEO. Every time you get a link to your website from another website, that's a backlink you earned. There are many ways to go about building them – from reaching out to other sites and asking for a link, using social media.
Social media: Maintaining an active presence on social media platforms, sharing your content daily thus engaging with users can help, too. However, social media can not only increase the number of links to your site, but it can also help bringing people to your site in the first place.
Review websites: Creating your website’s presence on various review websites like Yelp and Google+ carries its own weight in terms of SEO. Additionally, you will get more links to your site
SMM
SMM refers to the way you present your business across social media platforms. You might be doing some social media optimization (SMO), or working to enhance your company's presence across social media channels. You need a business page on the social media networks where your customers are most likely to be found. As tempting as it can be to be everywhere, it can be difficult to maintain a quality social media presence and weaken your strategy if you focus on too many networks. Social media helps boost your ranking as the current activity and sharing content on social media platforms helps increase visibility, and also the links to your website. It is the increase in links that boosts your ranking in the search engines as whatever is shared and linked is valuable to your audience.
One without the Other is Pointless
If you do SEO solely without any SMO or SMM, you are definitely missing a huge potential avenue for connecting to your clients and audience off your website. You can use SMM to direct people back to your website, which directly helps to boost rankings through additional traffic and social signals. But if you are doing SMM without doing any kind of SEO – you are making it harder for people to find you organically outside social media.