It is hard to start on a Social Media strategy. Especially if you are a new company and you have to start from zero. You go online to research on how to start a Social Media strategy but end up overwhelmed by all this articles, tutorials, case studies, etc.
Social Media strategy a continuous research of current trends and data searches that if you are a newbie, you end up getting lost on how to begin.
I would like to share a simple to-do list on starting your Social Media strategy.
Take note, this is NOT the perfect process. Everything still depends on whatever your goals are what is your company or project’s current online status. This will serve only as a guide or starter-point or even a reminder list on what to do next. Items can interchange depending on its necessity.
I hope it helps everyone. :)
Before starting with the list below, by now you have probably come up with a list of keywords you think your site is worth to compete for. That is good. Still I bet that keyword list will change upon studying ‘competitor’ sites, which I’m sure some had made it to first pages of search engine results.
To start of:
1. For SEO reference: list 3 competitors.
- Look for young competitors, not more than 2-3 years online.
Why? It will be very hard to beat competitors who had been online for many years. There is no way to beat time unless you plan to do black SEO, which is highly NOT recommended. Suggested competitors to study are those 2-3 years or age online and found within first few page of search engine results. The fact they are easily seen via page results at a “young age” means they are doing something right. This is also for educational purposes studying their current SEO and Social Media method. -
Use SEOQuake plugin for FF.
This plugin allows you to quickly evaluate your competitor’s age, traffic, both linkdomain and page backlink numbers, Google index and PR data, even Yahoo and Dmoz directories and social media mentions. This provides exhaustive information necessary to make the decision if this site is worth further analysing. It also saves time immensely by showing you all the information on one page in a readable and sortable way.
2. Find your competition’s keyword rankings.
- See their meta tags.
- Research and use a keyword density analysis tool.
Doing this you will have an idea what keywords competitor has been using to push their urls up search engine results.
3. Analyze Page Keyword Prominence
- Checkout keywords used by competitors.
- Take note of keyword prominence.
* meta description;
* H1 and H2 tags;
* Alt tags;
* Anchor text of both internal and external links;
* Bold and italic text;
* beginning of the body text;
* overall text.
If you’ve been reading SEO articles, you know how text formatting and keyword placement can help to bring your site to search engine results. So collecting information from above will surely help clearly see competitor’s keyword strategy.
4. Track back links used on competitor’s site. Also check out their social community.
It will definitely help to know how they are distributing their online presence. Where are they interacting with their customers? Facebook, Twitter, or Forums? Your potential customers could be there too. You may read their discussions and get an idea on your customer profile, their needs and wants and an idea how to communicate with them to get their following.
Majestic SEO can help you track back links of a site and view where there incoming links are coming from.
After studying all competitor data and once you’ve edited and finalized your list of keywords and site description, you may proceed to the next steps.
5. Website Content optimization and meta tag creation.
Do the necessary editing to have your keywords integrated into page meta details and content.
6. 404 page customization.
404 or ‘Page not Found’ pages should not be dead-ends. Provide links to other pages of the site (like a sitemap) so search engines will continue crawling the website and index its pages to the search engine database.
- Check AWStats on what pages are accessed by users so you can have an idea just how many 404 pages are accessed.
- Make sure to edit robots.txt in line with data seen in AWStats. This is to avoid additional 404 pages in the future.
- Do not forget to add Google Analytics to your website so you can track the activity of your site. Analytics also provides information on user demographics, keywords used to find your page, browsers used, etc. It is a wealth of information you’ll find there to use in the future.
7. List your website to directories and search engines.
Here is a list of FREE directories and search engines to submit your site to.
8. Social Networks
Depending on your findings on where to find your customers, you will need to choose the best social network tool for your strategy. Should it be Facebook? A Blog? A Twitter account? A combination of everything? This will depend on you. It is not the quantity of accounts you will maintain but the quality of information and discussion you will give your potential customers.
Well, that’s all for now. I want to make this post short and sweet and not overwhelming. Reminder, this is continuous work. Communication and constant content updates is highly needed for the success of any website. Being always updated on current trends helps in generating ideas to share with your customers and, if applicable, add some ‘jazz’ to your website’s personality.
Thank you for reading this! If anyone has any comments or thoughts to share, do not hesitate to do so! This post is, after all, for everyone’s reference and education purposes. :D
