This week’s Ask an SEO question is from an anonymous reader who asks:
“Should I be optimizing content differently for LinkedIn, Reddit, and traditional search engines? I’m seeing these platforms rank highly in Google results, but I’m not sure how to create a cohesive multi-platform SEO approach.”
Yes, you should absolutely be optimizing your content differently based on where you publish it, where you want to reach the audience, and the way they engage. This includes what you put out, what goes on your website, and what exists in your metadata. Each platform has a different user experience, and the people there go for different reasons, so your job with your content is to meet their needs where they are.
Metadata
For SEO purposes, you’re limited to a certain amount of pixels for meta titles and descriptions in a search result, whereas on social media platforms, you’re limited to a different number of characters. This means your titles and descriptions need to be modified to fit the pixel or character lengths defined by the platforms, including Open Graph, rich pins, etc. The people on the platform may also be at different stages of their journey and be different audience demographics.
If the audience on one platform that has its own metadata elements, and it is younger or skews towards one gender, cater the text and imagery in your metadata towards them. It’s worth seeing if that resonates better, but only if that is the majority from that platform. For search engines, it can be anyone and any demographic, so make it a strong sales pitch that is all-inclusive. Use your customer service and review data to find out what matters to them and use it in your messaging. The same goes for the images you use.
What fits on Pinterest won’t look good on LinkedIn, and an image for Google Discover may not work great on Instagram. Pinterest can display a vertical infographic and make it look great, but it will be illegible on platforms that have squares and landscape-oriented images. Resize, change the wording, and ensure the focal point on the image matches the platform it’ll be used on via your metadata.
Search engines and social algorithms look for different things as well. A search engine may allow some clickbait and salesy types of titles and metadata, but social media algorithms may penalize sites that do this. And each platform will be using and looking for different signals.
This is why you want to speak to the audiences on the platforms and focus on what the platform rewards, not just a search engine. Your customers on TikTok may be younger and use different wording than your customers on Facebook, but both will need a balance of the wording on your webpage. This is where using unique metadata by platform and purpose matters.
Content On Your Own Pages
Not every page on your website has to be for SEO, AIO, or GEO, and neither does the user experience. If the page is for an email blast or remarketing where you have strong calls to action, less text, and more conversion, you can noindex it or use a canonical link to the detailed new customer experience page. The same goes for SEO vs. social media visitors.
Someone from social media may need more of an education when buying a product because they didn’t set out that day to buy it; they were on social media to have fun. Someone looking for a product, product + review, or a comparison has a background on the product and wants a solution, so they went to a search engine to find one. This is where an educational vs. a conversion option can happen, and both can exist without competing, even though they’re optimized for the same keyword phrase.
The schema, the way wording is used, and elements on the page like an “add to cart” button above the fold help search engines to know the page is for conversions, while an H1, H2, and text with internal links to product and content pages mean it’s for educational purposes. Now apply this to the goal of what you want to the person to do on the page to the page, and keep in mind where they are coming from before they reach it.
You may want a more visual approach with video demonstrations or reviews, and options to shop and learn more for some experiences, vs. giving them the product and a buy now button. Both are optimized for the same keywords, but both are there for different visitors. This is where you deduplicate them using your SEO skills.
The keywords and phrases will be similar in your title tag, H1 tag, and compete directly against the product or collection page, but the page is how people from Snapchat and Reddit engage vs. someone from an email blast that knows how your brand behaves. So, set the canonical link to the main product page and/or add a meta robots noindex,nofollow. When you’re pushing your content out, share the version of the page to the platform it is designed for. Your site structure and robots.txt guide the search engines and AI to the pages meant for them, helping to eliminate the cannibalization.
It is the same content, the same purpose, and the same goal, just a unique format for the platform you want traffic from. I wouldn’t recommend this for everything because it is a ton of work, but for important pages, products, and services, it can make a difference to provide a better UX based on what the person and platform prefer.
What You Post To The Platform
Last is the content you post to the platform. Some allow hashtags; others prefer a lot of words, and platforms like X or Bluesky restrict the number of words you can use unless you pay. The audiences on these platforms pay attention to and use different words, and the algorithms may reward or penalize content differently.
On LinkedIn and Reddit, you may want to share a portion of the post and a summary of what the person will learn, then encourage engagement and a click through to your website or app. On Facebook, you may do a snippet of text and a stronger call-to-action, as people aren’t there for networking and learning like they are on LinkedIn.
Reddit may also benefit from examples and trust builders, where YouTube Shorts is about a quick message that entices an interaction and ideally a click through. The written description on a YouTube Short may go ignored as it is hidden, so the video is more important message-wise. Reddit can also be people looking for real human experiences, reviews, and comparisons from real customers. So, if you engage and publish your content, look at the topic of the forum and meet the user on the page at that specific stage of their journey.
The description still matters on most of these platforms because they are algorithm-based, and so are the search engines that feature their content. The content here acts like food for the algorithms along with user signals, so make sure you write something that properly matches the video’s content and follows best practices. If you’re publishing to Medium or Reddit and want to get the comparison queries, focus on unbiased and fair comparisons or reviews so Google surfaces it (disclosing you are one of the brands if you are). Then focus your own pages on conversion copy so as the person is ready to buy a blue t-shirt, they see your conversion page.
You should change the content based on the platform, and even your own website, when the goal is to bring users in from a specific traffic source. Someone from social media may like a video, while someone from a search engine wants text. Just make sure you code and structure your pages correctly, and you cater the experience to the right platform so the users reach their correct experience.
This is not practical for every page, so do your best, and at a minimum, customize what you share publicly and what is in your metadata. Those are easy enough and fast enough to be able to be done at scale, then pay attention to the UX on the page and make adjustments as needed.
More Resources:
Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
