Best Practices for Digital Marketing: SEO, SMO, SERP Explained

If you’re into content creation but have found your audience figures stagnating lately, it’s likely that your digital marketing game needs improving. That might feel a little overwhelming at first: the internet has grown exponentially since it began and now there’s an entire industry dedicated to increasing views and followers. But don’t sweat it: the basics are simple to grasp!

There are around 8 different practices under Digital Marketing, but today we’ll focus on the essentials: SEO, SMO, and SERP. We’ll also take a closer look at how these techniques can be used, specifically on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and your own website.

First up: SEO

If you have your own site, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is going to be an important one for you. It refers to the practice of optimizing a website to increase its visibility and ranking on search engine result pages (SERPs). It includes optimizing your website’s content, structure, and meta tags to make it more search engine friendly. The better optimized your website is, the higher it will rank on SERPs, making it more visible to potential visitors.

How can I do SEO “right”?

• Conduct keyword research to find the most relevant and popular keywords related to your content.
• Optimize your website’s meta tags, including title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags.
• Ensure that your website’s content is high-quality, relevant, and engaging.
• Improve your website’s loading speed.
• Include internal linking to improve the structure and organization of your website.
• Utilize backlinks from other authoritative websites to improve your website’s authority.

Next up: SERP

SERP – or simply, Search Engine Results Page – refers to the page that is displayed after a user types a search query into a search engine like Google. The page displays a list of search results relevant to the user’s query.

Best practices for SERP:

• Choose relevant keywords to your content to improve your website’s ranking on SERPs.
• Use meta tags to provide a brief description of your content and entice users to click on your website.
• Optimize your website’s structure and organization to improve its search engine friendliness.
• Provide additional information about your content to search engines by using structured data.

And then there’s SMO

SMO (Social Media Optimization) refers to the practice of optimizing your social media profiles and posts to increase engagement and reach. For this, you need to utilize various social media platforms to promote your content and build your brand’s online presence.

Best practices for SMO?

• Optimize your social media profiles by including relevant keywords, a clear profile picture, and a concise bio.
• Consistently post high-quality, engaging content that is relevant to your target audience.
• Include hashtags to increase the visibility of your posts and attract new followers.
• Engage with your followers by responding to comments and messages.
• Make use of social media advertising to target specific audiences and increase your reach.

Twitter SMO

• Pick relevant hashtags to increase the visibility of your tweets.
• Engage with your followers by responding to comments and messages.
• Leverage Twitter’s advertising platform to target specific audiences and increase your reach.

YouTube SMO

• Include relevant keywords in your video titles, descriptions, and tags to improve your video’s ranking on YouTube.
• Optimize your video’s thumbnail to entice users to click on your video.
• Consistently post high-quality, engaging content that is relevant to your target audience.

Instagram SMO

• Use relevant hashtags to increase the visibility of your posts.
• Optimize your Instagram bio to include relevant keywords and a clear profile picture.
• Check out Instagram’s advertising platform to target specific audiences and increase your reach.

TikTok SMO

• Pick relevant hashtags to increase the visibility of your videos.
• Consistently post high-quality, engaging content that is relevant to your target audience.
• Participate in trending challenges and create content that aligns with popular trends.

Websites: SEO, SMO, and SERP best practices

• Conduct keyword research to find the most relevant and popular keywords related to your content.
• Optimize your website’s meta tags, including title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags.
• Ensure that your website’s content is high-quality, relevant, and engaging.
• Improve your website’s loading speed.
• Integrate internal links to improve the structure and organization of your website.
• Utilize backlinks from other authoritative websites to improve your website’s authority.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with Digital Marketing

By utilizing SEO, SMO, and SERP techniques, content creators can increase their visibility and reach a wider audience. But while there are certainly best practices to adopt, there’s no set ‘one-size-fits-all’ formula of Digital Marketing. Experiment with what works for you. Track your audience and views stats over a few months and try to identify the trends that work best. Just as long as you’re consistently producing high-quality, engaging content all the while. Good luck – and look out for more in-depth explainers about the other areas Digital Marketing covers coming soon to the blog.