In recent years, the ByteDance-owned social media platform TikTok has been used more and more as a search engine, as opposed to the short-form video website that it was initially positioned as.
While content on TikTok, like most social media platforms, has always been algorithmically ranked and organised, this push towards more search-engine-like behaviour has meant an increased desire to make it as optimised and visible as possible.
As a beauty marketing agency that’s helped hundreds of beauty brands rank higher on Google, we’re here to divulge our SEO best practice tips for TikTok to help you make more optimised content on the platform.
What is SEO on TikTok?
SEO is often seen as applicable purely to search engines, such as Google and Bing. But, in fact, a lot of the SEO tropes and best practices applied on such platforms are also useful on sites that feature algorithmically sorted, searchable content – like TikTok.
SEO on TikTok is the process of optimising your profile and content so that it appears higher than others in search results. There’s strong reasoning why a brand may wish to do this, with Google execs claiming that 40% of younger generations will use a site like TikTok over Google Maps for things like restaurant recommendations.
Search on TikTok
Functionality-wise, TikTok’s search tools are quite similar to those of search engines. There’s a search box, recommended searches based on past behaviour, the ability to set titles and descriptions on your content, and results that are determined based on a set of different characteristics.
TikTok ranking factors
TikTok’s algorithm operates on an engagement basis. This means that the way users interact with content on the site has a major influence on what subsequent content is recommended/shown to them on their travels through the app.
As TikTok describes it:
“On TikTok, the For You feed reflects preferences unique to each user. The system recommends content by ranking videos based on a combination of factors – starting from interests you express as a new user and adjusting for things you indicate you’re not interested in, too – to form your personalized For You feed.”
TikTok Newsroom ‘How TikTok recommends videos #ForYou’.
Optimising for engagement-based algorithms requires a mixture of traditional SEO best practices and some interaction-specific requirements to fulfil.
How to rank on TikTok
So, we know how TikTok’s For You algorithm works, and we also know that TikTok is likely to become a much more important part of the way people search, especially in younger generations. Based on this, we’ve highlighted some TikTok SEO tips, here:
Research your content
To those that create TikTok content based on impulse, the idea of strategically planning and researching content for the platform may feel a touch out of place. Though, when done correctly, content research can not only help with planning and creating content, but also with ensuring that it reaches your desired audience.
Once you arrive at an idea, spend some time searching for it on the platform. Note down links to some of the pieces that appear higher up in search results, while also writing down any similarities and differences you see between the higher/lower performing posts. This will allow you to build a profile of what does and doesn’t work, helping you optimise your content for success.
Check out the competition
This point goes hand-in-hand with our previous note about research, but perhaps applies more to cases where you’re searching for ideas.
Select some fellow brands in a similar industry/position to yourself, and start building a list of keywords/hashtags that appear more frequently
Conduct keyword research
Once you’ve settled on an idea and researched how others have tackled it in the past, you should be left with a long list of phrases and words that are commonly associated with said posts.
Rather than just blindly working with these keywords, spend some time evaluating and assessing them for their overall value. By this, we mean using tools like TikTok’s keyword insights.
This easy-to-use tool extracts data directly from TikTok itself, allowing users to determine just how popular their keywords and hashtags are. Granted, this tool operates based on the keywords used in voice-overs, text overlay, and ad copy, not post captions or titles, but it can give a quick glimpse into what keywords should be prioritised in your content.
Inject relevant keywords (or hashtags)
On TikTok, your hashtags are especially important. They are what tags your post onto others, and they appear frequently as suggested search results. After you’ve prioritised a mixture of both low and high search volume hashtags, it’s simply a case of injecting them into your content in a tasteful manner.
Hashtags and keywords can be placed within video titles, captions, and even inside the video itself with TikTok’s built-in video editor.
Incentivise engagement
TikTok is a heavily engagement-focused social platform. Reviewing some of the most popular keywords on the platform via the aforementioned keyword insights tool, we can see that most of the popular keywords are focused on incentivising engagement. Phrases such as “free shipping”, “for free”, “download now”, and “try it” all make frequent appearances in the top 10 keywords used on the platform.
Adding text such as this to your script and video overlay can encourage your readers to participate in an element of your post, be that clicking through to a webpage or sharing the post with others.
Utilise trending audio
In addition to its search function, TikTok also groups posts based on the music/audio that’s used in the background. This too can be leveraged in order to bring visitors to your post.
Anticipate trends
Anticipating trends can feel a bit like crystal ball gazing. But, if done correctly, it can lead to some pretty substantial gains.
Utilising tools like Google Trends, for example, is a great way to get a visual interpretation of what the world is searching for and to highlight some emerging trends which may migrate to TikTok in the future. Remember, TikTok is all about the trends.
Stay ahead of the curve, not behind it.
Refine your TikTok strategy with Foundation
Whether you’re starting from scratch or adding to a pre-existing social media strategy, the social media team at Foundation can help you develop a plan that gets your brand heard by the masses.
Contact us to speak about your social media goals, and we’ll be happy to help.
