TikTok SEO Guide 2024

You may know that social media sites such as Pinterest and YouTube have already been announced as search engines. However, SEO is moving into more social media sites, including TikTok. 

With an engaging, direct, and more personable platform, more and more people are utilizing TikTok over Google to search for information. Therefore, for marketers and social media managers, taking advantage of TikTok SEO can result in major growth for your brand or business. 

What is TikTok SEO and Why Is It Important?

SEO, short for Search Engine Optimization, refers to optimizing one’s website and social media accounts to rank higher in searches and become more visible to potential customers or clients. 

Although this may seem like a small piece to the puzzle, it’s very useful because by using keywords and hashtags related to your niche audience, you can appeal to customers’ needs and provide a solution. 

These keywords can be placed in the title, meta descriptions, and H1 and H2, URLs. If you embed these keywords in your content, you are more likely to be ranked higher in searches. This raises brand awareness and drives more traffic to your business. 

SEO Ranking Factors for the TikTok Algorithm

There are a few key factors that come into play when it comes to triggering the TikTok Algorithm, let’s explore them!

Video Information

Every piece of information that you include in your post has the ability to affect the algorithm. This means whatever you include in your caption, hashtags, sounds, cover text, etc. So be sure you are using keywords that have search volume and that are search-friendly.

Your Interactions

All the posts that you interact with like, watch many times, save, comment on, or save have a lot to do with your TikTok algorithm. This information is saved and applied to the videos you see on your FYP.

Your Account Settings

As a brand new TikTok account, you were asked about topics that interested you and you were able to check some off, this can also affect your TikTok Algorithm, your location, language, and the type of device you have has ability to trigger or effect your algorithm.

SEO on TikTok: 6 Ways to Optimize Your Content 

Now that you’re familiar with SEO in general, I’m going to focus on TikTok SEO and how you can improve your content to be curated more towards your target audience. As marketers and entrepreneurs, this is an exciting opportunity to reach new users and expand your business. 

Since TikTok SEO is a newer search engine, it’s less saturated than Google Search, meaning it can be easier for your content to be found. I’m going to share 5 TikTok SEO tips that you can keep in mind the next time you create content. 

Understand your audience’s needs 

When users go to search for information, tips, ideas, etc. they are most likely going to search for solutions to the problems or troubles they are facing. Therefore, it’s up to you, as a brand or business, to provide resources and answers. 

Create profiles of your ideal clientele and what problems or needs each of them faces. This will help you understand your demographics. How can you find this? Tracking your metrics, reading comments and replies, tracking keyword trends and volume. Don’t worry, I’ll explain how to track keywords and some tools to help you. 

Use the right TikTok SEO keywords 

Keywords and hashtags are an essential part of an SEO strategy and how users find brands and businesses. After you understand what your audience is searching for, you can use keyword tools. My favorites are SemRush, Keyword Tool, and Google Search Console. 

Inside these tools, you can search by country, language, and type of content. From here, it will show you the number of searches using that keyword, in the last month. It will also show you the trend with percentage, and the competition of the keyword. 

To best optimize your content, you want to aim for keywords that have a low competition, but higher search volume. This indicates that many people are searching for the same thing, but that other brands haven’t jumped on the trend yet. 

Use the right hashtags

Along with keywords, hashtags are important in being found by users. Rather than searching for specific keywords, hashtags help you categorize your content and connect to new users who have similar interests or questions related to your services or products. 

Without a strategy or knowing the right hashtags to use, you can’t fully utilize this important aspect of social media. Therefore, a few great tools to find and track hashtags that best fit your content are the following: Hashtagify, TikTok Hashtags, and RiteTag.

Metricool’s Hashtag Search Engine

If you feel overwhelmed with hashtags every time you post a TikTok video, the Metricool hashtag search engine will come in handy. Instead of not having a rhyme or reason, this feature will find hashtags related to your keywords.

You will be able to schedule your TikToks and see which hashtags will work best for your content with Metricool. To learn all about how to use it, click the button below:

Direct audience to your website or a landing page 

While your content doesn’t always need to be about your products or services, make sure to direct your audience to your website often. You can add a link in your bio, include a link in your videos, and add product links, making it even easier for users to find your business and become customers. 

Since TikTok is a very personable site, use that opportunity to tell your brand story. Customers want to see authenticity, rather than having products shoved in their faces. Including a mix of educational, promotional, and brand culture will leave your customers feeling like they know you and trust you more. 

Evolve your content and strategy based on previous content

One of the most important ways to improve your TikTok SEO is to use previous content and the learnings from what went well and what can be improved. Continue to evolve your content and strategy, best reflecting your audience’s wants and needs. 

Tapping into analytics is the best way to do this. Look at your TikTok analytics. This will allow you to look at specific numbers such as views, engagement, source, and interactions. See which content was successful so you can repeat this.  

Analyze the metrics of your account

This may seem silly, or something that doesn’t seem related to SEO, but the truth it is actually does because, without them, you are still focusing your efforts on a strategy that doesn’t bring any benefit back.

Therefore, analyzing the metrics of your videos and your TikTok profile is important to know if your TikTok strategy is working or not.

You have two ways to see the analytics of your TikTok account:

• With TikTok’s social network: You have data about your profile, content, followers, views, and number of likes.
• With Metricool: Here you will find the facts about your community, demographics, account, views, impression sources, and average views per video.

As a bonus, Metricool offers a metric that you can only find on the platform: hashtags, sounds, and searches.

With this information, you will know what percentage of your videos come from hashtags you include, the sounds you use, and the TikTok search.

Make your life a whole lot easier and create your FREE Metricool account. Click the button below to register:

Anniston Ward , 01 February 2024