Influencer Marketing and SEO
Apr 17, 2018
Written by Casey Bjorkdahl
Casey Bjorkdahl is one of the pioneering thought leaders in the SEO community. In 2010, Casey co-founded Vazoola after working for a Digital Marketing Agency for five years in New York City. Vazoola is now one of the fastest growing and most widely recognized SEO marketing firms in the country.
Influencer Marketing and SEO
There are influencers in every industry. These are people that have the power or knowledge to influence purchase decisions. The outdoor industry has extreme athletes, fashion has models, and Hollywood has celebrities.
Businesses are slowly learning the benefits of leveraging the trust consumers have in these individuals. Social media is full of a variety of influencers. These social rock stars have acquired a large and loyal following. Their humanness makes them more trustworthy, along with their insights, transparency, entertainment, and engagement. The connection these influencers have with their followers and fans gives them a unique authority.
By choosing to partner with influencers that reflect your brand’s mission, potential customers are introduced to your products in services by someone who uses the products and has already gained their trust. It is a win for everyone.
Benefits of Coupling Influencer Marketing With Content Campaigns
Influencers can help take your content marketing campaign to the next level.
- Provide extra insight: Influencers are usually experts in their industry, and they are in direct content with their audience. They understand the market and what consumers want and need. This can provide you with powerful insight.
- Trust: Customers trust these individuals not just because they follow them but because influencers have actually used the products. Many times, an influencers connection with their audience is built on transparency. A recommendation is like receiving the okay from a friend. This leads to massive conversions.
- Contact: They have more direct contact with their audience. An email or blog post will be better received from an influencer than a business. The relationship between these individuals and their followers is more personal.
Influencers and SEO
Influencers can help bring about brand awareness, traffic, and sales. They help increase your reach and have a positive impact on your SEO. The main benefit of influencers is their leads and sales, but they are also contributing to visibility, backlinks, and social shares. Influencers help you get authoritative links and increase user engagement. These are important factors when it comes to SEO.
- Inbound links: Think of influencers as ambassadors. Create content-driven influencer campaigns that allow these ambassadors to embrace topics and products their own way. This has a much better impact on followers than a backlink that is disclosed as sponsored. The more organic the content these individuals are able to create, the better the response will be. Inbound links have the ability to your domain authority, and, in turn, your rankings and traffic.
- Brand awareness and engagement: Key ranking factors are traffic and engagement. Influencers help you to be heard over the crowd. Recommendations from influencers are trusted by users of social media. You can take advantage of their audience to increase your brand awareness.
- Fresh content: Influencers are a great source of fresh content. Creating fresh and new content can be challenging and time-consuming at times. These individuals are often open to writing for external blogs providing an opportunity for content development.
Other Benefits of Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is more than just about getting more eyeballs on your business. It has the ability to deliver incredible value and growth.
One of the most attractive benefits is the return on investment. With the right influencers that represent your brand well, you can drive sales and brand awareness. If you structure your campaign well, you can achieve short and long-term value. Influencers can help you better understand your target market. It is a more audience-focused marketing strategy. A well-matched product and influencer can deliver an unmatched ROI.
Influencers and brand ambassadors bring an authenticity to your brand. They already have a highly engaged audience that is interested in what they have to say. Dictating how these individuals represent your products and services can come across as unnatural. Giving these individuals full control will produce a much better response. It will come across as less contrived and more authentic. They already know how to create content audiences love. That is how they got such a following in the first place.
One of your goals as a brand should be to establish a positive connection with your customers. More and more brands are spending large amounts of money on influencer campaigns in order to elevate their brand’s image. Brands that leverage influencer marketing are seen is a much more favorable light than those that don’t. The key is to partner with individuals that believe in your product or service. A true interest in your brand will result in a much larger impact of their portrayal of you within their content.
Influencer marketing is a powerful tool that can be used to increase your image and brand awareness. SEO is a confusing and sometimes difficult but important area of marketing. Influencers can naturally drive traffic to your site, increasing its ranking. They already have an influential audience that readily listens to what they say. If they believe in your brand, it can have a strong impact on their followers.