How Influencer Marketing Can Benefit Your SEO Strategy
Quality backlinks still play a central role in reaching higher-ranking positions in search engines, but they’re proving to be increasingly difficult to acquire. With Google’s algorithms continually improving and imposing strict rules on the process of SEO, site owners can no longer rely on numerous techniques (such as paid links or keyword stuffing, for example).
In short, the SEO game is taking a new turn, and aspiring to higher rankings in search engines calls for more organic, straightforward practices. But these “clean” practices, as Google reminds us, require continuous implementation in order for your SEO strategy to be effective.
It takes much more time for sites to earn higher rankings, so SEO strategists are searching for fresh and reliable ways to generate authoritative links. And influencer marketing is singling itself out as one of the best tactics.
Now, influencer marketing is not a new thing and it is being used to raise brand awareness, target desired audiences, and promote products effectively. But it can also have an incredibly positive impact on your SEO efforts in more ways than one, and here’s how.
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Building a quality link profile
Backlinks and internal links constitute your link profile, which significantly impacts your search engine rankings. According to research conducted by Moz, one of the top factors that play into search engine rankings is the quality – and authority – of sites that link to your page.
That means that in order to build a strong link profile, you need to earn links from websites that are relevant to your site and hold high authority. This is obviously not easy, but influencers can be of huge help.
Influencers can be successful bloggers or website owners and most of the time they will have access to other high-authority sites. When they publish relevant content that includes your link, this automatically generates a higher-quality natural backlink for your site, thus boosting your rankings.
But there’s more: working with an influencer means you directly benefit from their popularity and authority. They work hard to build a reputation within their niche, so people are more likely to trust and share the sites that they link to within their content.
This increases the chance of other high-authority domains picking up on your link and adding it to their content as well, especially when the content cites your link as a resource. It’s a very effective and organic way of further building a strong link profile.
Keeping your content unique and highly relevant
As the (worn out) phrase goes – Content is king, and it plays a crucial role in your SEO strategy. Here are some variables that Google looks at, content-wise, when ranking your website:
- Quality of content
- Readability
- Keyword usage
- Quantity and quality of social shares
The last factor defines your content marketing strategy at large. Along with being useful and interesting, the content you post should preferably have a share-worthy quality to it to ensure more traffic is driven to your site.
This is not easy to achieve continuously, and it’s only normal you run out of ideas at some point.
That’s where influencers come in, as people who make it their job to create interesting content with the potential to go viral on social media.
When choosing the right influencer to collaborate with, you’ll be looking for someone who’s well established within a specific niche that’s relevant to your brand.
They not only provide you with fresh ideas but can also offer unique insights when creating content on your behalf. Audiences highly value the influencers they follow because of their authenticity, and you’re sure to benefit from their authenticity and genuine approach as well.
If you partner up with more than one influencer, you’ll find that each one can offer something unique when creating content, giving you more diversity and authenticity in your overall strategy.
Enriching your strategy with UGC
Moreover, influencers often encourage and compel their followers to post their own unique content in relevance to your marketing campaign along with your business’s branded hashtag.
You get user-generated content that humanizes your brand and expands your reach organically. This will not only bring invaluable freshness to your content marketing strategy, but it also brings many more potential site visitors as people trust more readily the brands that their friends mention.
Driving traffic to your site and increasing engagement
With competition swarming and so much going on in the digital world, one of the biggest challenges for large and small brands alike is getting the right audience to pay attention to them. In order to raise brand awareness and boost engagement rates, the most successful social media marketing companies are carefully choosing influencers to pair with their clients.
Influencers are shaping the world of digital marketing today, most notably on social media, as their wide following an impressive audience engagement are helping brands stand out amidst the buzz.
These are equally important goals of a successful SEO strategy; in fact, the Moz study we’ve previously mentioned places engagement and traffic as fifth on the list of the key search engine ranking factors.
Essentially, the more engagement you get from your target audience, the more traffic you’ll drive to your site. And nothing is proving as effective in this field as influencer marketing.
Having an impressive audience reach, influencers automatically increase your brand’s visibility when collaborating with you, so you can attract a lot of site visitors.
Most importantly, they convey your brand’s message to the right audience comprised of people who trust their opinions and recommendations, as they’re seen as experts within their respective niche.
This leads to the targeted audience engaging with your content and sharing it, directly increasing your website traffic. As we’ve mentioned in the previous point, an influencer may also bring valuable user-generated content which expands your reach organically and can be a huge traffic boost.
And boom – instant search engine ranking points.
Expanding your collaboration network
When you think about your long-term SEO strategy, your partnerships with different influencers could potentially be at the heart of it. There are a few reasons for that.
Firstly, your collaboration can be so fruitful that you can find together many new opportunities and fresh ideas for creating content.
Secondly, as your website rankings elevate, you and the influencer will be able to rely on each other’s authority down the road.
That way, the concept of a mutually beneficial collaboration takes on new levels and brings new ways of working together. When working with an influential blogger, for example, you can establish a successful long-term partnership which results in boosting search engine rankings for both sides.
Lastly, an influencer can help expand your network and bring in new collaborators as they engage with different influencers and brands as well. They can bring fresh people to maximize your SEO efforts, widening your visibility even more.
Influencer marketing has largely altered the way many brands approach their marketing campaigns, and it’s becoming a central part of SEO strategies as well.
Working with an influencer can effectively boost your site’s search engine rankings as it helps you build a strong link profile, drives traffic, increases engagement rates, and keeps your content fresh and shareable.
Not only that, but this type of collaboration can open many doors for you further down the road in order to truly bring the best out of your SEO strategy.
There’s a lot of potential here, and it’s a white-hat approach to SEO, so utilizing is definitely a safe bet.
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