*Originally published on my personal website Hunting The White Whale and updated here on Sept. 9, 2017.
We’re all competing for attention and it’s never been greater.
That’s why you need to pay attention to HOW you are going to cut through the noise.
Getting better SEO by through links back to your website is a great way to do it.
The more links you get, the better your SEO which means people find you more easily.
SEO sounds complicated (some of it is) … but I’ll show you it doesn’t have to be.
When you work with influencers you can get valuable link juice back to your site.
Your SEO goes up making your site rank better in search engines like Google.
That’s not all:
People who didn’t know about you now find you and your audience grows.
Sounds good, doesn’t it?
In this post, you’ll learn how influencer marketing can do all that.
Let’s get going…
Why You Should Improve Your SEO
Around 89% of internet users rely upon online searches to help them make purchasing decisions.
Raising your SEO is a big part of the success of your blog or website.
It also helps your ROI if you’re selling a product or course.
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The book, “Marketing Through Trust” talks about why this is.
For example:
• 93% of potential customers use searches in determining which company they should purchase from (regardless of price)
• Over 90% of the click-through statistics taken from search results come from organic results
• Only a meager 8% of the CTR (click-through rate) from search engines comes as a result of paid advertising efforts.
In other words, you can impact those all-important organic search results in Google.
But here’s the real kicker:
Influencer marketing can improve your chances of converting audience members into loyal customers (sales).
What’s This Influencer Stuff All About?
In every walk of life, there are people who can be considered influential.
They are authors, speakers, business owners, CEOs, athletes, TV stars, and regular people like you and me who just happen to be authoritative.
It doesn’t matter what business you are in.
It could be fashion, food, entertainment … somebody has already built a relationship with your ideal customers.
Influencer marketing means reaching out and forging relationships with those individuals and exchanging value so you both benefit.
Some people call it “word-of-mouth” marketing.
The value you provide can be money, providing a product to review or something else.
Your consumers get to learn more about you, your company, your products from a trusted source.
Research backs this up:
92% of consumers will believe the recommendation of someone that they trust over any other form of advertising.
It is that simple.
Influencers, therefore, are important because they are trusted and they direct people to take an action (buy stuff).
Boost SEO by Link Building with Influencers
Its all about getting hyperlinks from trusted websites that lead back to yours.
A hyperlink or backlink is used by search engines to crawl the web to find content that people value.
Backlinks are seen as a vote of confidence by search engines. That’s why you want them.
Profesional SEOs use a lot of different strategies, but most agree that link building is one of the most important for these reasons.
So, building relationships with authority sites are one of the best and most natural ways to do it.
But it gets better:
When you form those relationships and get the backlinks it also means you get ten times bigger conversions.
More conversions = more sales.
Not Just Any Backlinks Will Do
Getting links used to be easy but some people abused the privilege.
They started purchasing spammy, low-quality links as a way of boosting their search rankings.
As a result, Google and other search engines put more effort into assessing the value of the backlinks.
And those updates in the current algorithms never stop, so you don’t want links from just anywhere.
Work to get backlinks from respected, authority influencers who have content on their website that relates to yours.
This is known as congruence and adds more value to the links you get.
By reaching out to influencers within your specific industry or market, you can get those relevant links.
Now:
Influencers can produce backlinks for you in different ways, including:
- Sharing your content on social media (Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn) although these will be “nofollow” links
- Allowing you to write guest posts for their blogs that link back to your landing page or website
- Writing “unsponsored” posts that link back to your website (because they value your content)
- Include your content in a round-up post or list post
What about sponsored posts?
Keep in mind that sponsored links that come from an influencer’s site may be regarded as a “paid link” by Google, and as such will not be counted towards your SEO ranking.
That’s not to say there’s no value in reaching out to influencers and asking them to write about your product, however – even if you do need to pay them.
Simply asking an influencer to talk about you may be enough to direct traffic back to your site.
The key to making this happen is building a relationship with them.
Influencers Are The Gift That Keeps on Giving
When influencers mention you, your company or product, they direct interested people your way.
They’re like traffic cops directing traffic.
If you have a decent marketing funnel, these people who get directed to you may even buy something.
Like I said earlier, consumers are more likely to trust peer content over brand advertising.
So what’s the bottom line:
Relationships with influencers help to build trust, gets you more traffic and help you sell.
Ask them to review your product, read your book, promote your service.
Look at it this way, if you open a restaurant and don’t have any reviews people don’t know about all the great meals you have to offer.
On the other hand, if your restaurant has a review from one of the most famous culinary bloggers around, you’ll likely have people coming to try you out.
Relationships = opportunities and that means business for you.
How to Put This Strategy Into Action Fast
Its important to know how to reach out to the right people in your industry.
Simply contacting people that you consider to be authoritative and begging them to write about you or share links on social media isn’t going to get you anywhere. Instead, you’ll likely get ignored.
So, what do you do?
Instead, you need to research the influencers and reach out to them in a way that will help them to feel connected with you.
For starters, it’s usually a good idea to start by searching for mid-level influencers who have a smaller target audience, but still a significant social following.
“Micro influencers” is the term used these days. Whatever.
A micro influencer is usually someone with between 2k and 25k in followers, who can make waves for your business but may not be able to break you out of anonymity on a global scale.
Once you’ve found someone like this, be sure to get noticed by commenting on their blog posts and following them on social media.
A large percentage of the influencers with higher profile followings are likely to be approached by businesses continually.
So it’s a lot harder to get noticed.
Micro influencers are a route to get some results faster.
Get your free copy of my free Blueprint about working with influencers so you have the proven template.
It was this formula that helped me sell millions of dollars of products for my Fortune 500 clients.
If it works for them, it certainly can work for you.
Make the Most It
I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll say it again…
It all comes down to relationships!
Don’t forget that.
Develop relationships with the influencers who you want to work with.
Once you get some relationships started, you’ll be able to do a lot.
For example:
- Ask influencers to do an “unboxing” video of your product (tech influencers do this all the time)
- Ask some influencers to review your product or service
- Suggest a guest post on your blog (or theirs) or a series of guest posts
- Suggest a side by side comparison of your product versus a competitor’s
Fortunately, the power in the marketing world has shifted to the consumer.
Now:
Remember that no matter which influencers you have access to, your main goal is to provide serious value to them and your consumers.
Be sure that you connect with influencers on a regular basis using as many different platforms as possible.
Stay active. Stay visible.
The more you do this, the less upfront effort you’ll have to put into working with other influencers.
They’ll see who you’re working with and how.
With Influencer marketing bound to get even more popular in the coming year, you’ll want to get ahead of your competitors and start making a splash in your industry.
So get started now and leave comments if you have questions. I’m always around to help.
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