A few months ago, the CEO of a pet-supply company came to me with a problem. When people typed in the brand, Google auto-corrected the query to the name of a popular TV show. The brand was lost in the vastness of the Internet, and the CEO—let’s call him Mike—was worried that no one would be able to find his company via search.
Since I had experience optimizing websites for search, Mike asked me to help him build stronger SEO. Within weeks, I was able to get Mike’s website to appear as the first result on a Google search for the company name.
To start, I focused on the usual tried-and-true SEO tactics like shortening URLs, fixing meta tags, and checking on the speed of the website. But the key factor for Mike’s company—which some marketers miss—was social media. It turns out that social and SEO have a hazy yet important relationship.