One of the best parts of influencer marketing is how it can positively impact every part of your marketing strategy. Creators do way more than just help you increase sales. They can provide content for you to use on your social profiles, help you run experiential marketing, and even boost your SEO. In fact, influencer marketing SEO can boost your traffic and conversion numbers, boost your sales, and even increase your brand awareness.
Understanding the basics of SEO
SEO is a complex field full of many components, and you could spend months studying it and still be only scratching the surface. But unless you’re training to be an SEO expert, you probably don’t have time to learn the ins and outs, and more importantly, you don’t really need to.
All you need is a basic understanding, so here’s a very brief description of some key SEO concepts.
Site crawling
Google and other search engines have bots known as crawlers that look through the code on your site to determine what each page is about. Once they crawl a page, they index it in the search engine under specific keywords so people can find it.
Page and site authority
Search engines want to deliver the most trustworthy and relevant content to their users, so they assign a score to each webpage and website. To do this, they look at several quality signals for each.
The search engines then use these scores to determine how content ranks on a search engine results page (SERP). The higher the authority of a site, the more likely it is to get a spot on the first page of the search results.
Quality signals
Search engines look for specific quality signals to see if a site will provide a good customer experience. There are a lot of ranking factors—200, if you were wondering—and some carry more weight than others. Some of the most important include:
- How many links a site has from other reputable websites
- The quality of your content
- How quickly your site loads
- Whether or not your site is mobile-friendly
- How much time people spend on your site (the more, the better)
Keyword usage
If you’re hoping to end up on the front page of a Google search for CBD-infused bath bombs, you should definitely use that phrase on the page promoting the product.
But don’t use it too frequently! While search engines used to reward sites for using keywords as often as possible, now they see it as spammy, and it could hurt your rankings. Plus, keyword stuffing doesn’t lend itself to a good customer experience.
Does web traffic from social media platforms impact SEO?
As mentioned before, search engines look at links from other sites as a sign of quality. However, this general rule does not apply to the links people share on social media sites, including Pinterest and YouTube.
But just because these don’t impact SEO directly does not mean that a lot of shares or engagement on social media won’t have an indirect impact on your SEO.
How can influencer marketing improve SEO?
Generating backlinks with the help of creators
If you’re looking to boost your site’s SEO, look no further than bloggers. Do your research to find ones who have a high-quality site and a large following that matches your target audience.
Once you’ve found a few bloggers you like, reach out and discuss partnership opportunities with them. Different bloggers will be interested in writing different types of content, so be open to trying new things. After all, these content creators are experts in what their audiences like.
And as you’re developing your campaign brief to share with bloggers, add any URLs you want them to link to in their posts.
Repurposing creator content on your site
One of the best ways to leverage your creators is by repurposing their content across your entire marketing strategy. Adding UGC, especially videos, to your site is a great way to make it more interesting for viewers and keep them on your site longer, which can positively impact your search engine rankings.
Just be sure to gain the content usage rights before repurposing anything.
Increased awareness of your brand
Going viral on a social media platform can boost your SEO, too. In fact, GRIN saw this first-hand when influencer and Bachelor contestant Kit Keenan mentioned us in a video, causing our website metrics to skyrocket.
@grin.co @kitkeenan with the Friday shoutout helping influencers reduce waste by using GRIN. #e-commerce #SaaS #bachelor #fypシ #brand ♬ Lofi – Domknowz
So how did it happen?
The video helped showcase GRIN to a whole new audience who probably hadn’t heard about us before. Kit talked about how GRIN is super useful for influencers and marketers, and while this certainly did not resonate with her entire audience, it was definitely relevant for some. And when you want to learn more about something, you Google it.
This traffic from people trying to learn more about GRIN showed Google that the content on our site is valuable, which positively impacted our site’s authority.
Keyword research opportunities
The standard way to discover content keywords is to use research tools like Moz, Semrush, or Ahrefs, where you plug in a keyword and see metrics on it. You can also use these tools to discover similar keywords. But to get started, you do have to provide the initial phrases.
So if you’re not searching for the right keywords from the start, you could miss out on traffic in the future.
Reviewing creators’ posts and the comments their followers leave on them can give you an idea of the words people use when talking about your products. And by using the right phrases, it will be much easier to capture their searches on Google.
Which type of user-generated content affects influencer marketing SEO the most?
Blogs
If we haven’t mentioned it already, links are valuable when it comes to SEO, so partnering with creators who can provide high-quality ones is essential for boosting your rankings.
Consider negotiating with them to produce a full product review on your behalf. Beyond generating links, this can also be a great way to build brand awareness and teach people about your product.
Videos
YouTube has become a thriving hub from which prospects can discover your brand with the help of influencers. Additionally, YouTube allows you to optimize your SEO by using keywords in the video title and description.
Some influencers are prolific vloggers (the video version of blogging). When vloggers mention your brand and share that video content across several social media channels, it inevitably drives traffic to your website.
PR
When an influencer campaign goes viral, just about everyone on the internet wants to write about it. And when they do, they’ll inevitably link to your website, which can significantly boost your SEO efforts.
How to set up a creator campaign brief to get the SEO content you want
Creator briefs help you and your partners get on the same page when it comes to your SEO objectives. These briefs should include:
- A campaign summary
- A full description of the type of content you want them to create and share
- For blogs, try to build a network of bloggers within your industry that can establish links from high-authority websites.
- For videos/Youtube content, provide your creator with a set of target keywords along with links to any pages you want them to direct their followers to.
- For social media content, establish the message, voice, and goal you want to convey. Provide a link to the appropriate campaign landing page and any additional hashtags that might be appropriate.
- An understanding of the substance of any content your creator agreed to produce
- A timeline for content publication
How to measure the impact of influencer marketing on SEO
There are paid and free options for tracking your SEO rankings. We recommend starting with Google Analytics and Google Search console, both of which are free to use.
These tools can tell you how many people are visiting your site, how that number changes over time, and other useful information, like what phrases people are searching to find your website.
Another helpful tool within Google Analytics is its ability to tell you where your website traffic is coming from. In general, if you see a boost in organic web traffic due to an influencer marketing campaign, you’ll also see a boost in visits directly from social media platforms.
If you have the budget, you can also get SEO software to monitor your ranking for different keywords, create easy-to-understand reports, and more.
Key takeaway: Partnering with creators can be a great way to boost your site’s SEO.
Ready to reap the rewards of ranking highly on search engines? Then it’s time to find creators to help you build brand awareness, generate links, and add high-quality content to your site.
Learn more about influencer marketing: Influencer Marketing 101
