Did you know that Google accounts for 91.54% of global searches? And less than 1% of users get to the second page of search results. You may be wondering, what is SEO? And how can influencer marketing and SEO work together to achieve maximum results?
At Solve, we help you to increase visibility and boost performance. Our latest SEO strategy for a leading global influencer marketing agency boosted their return on investment by 2976% (in the last six months alone!)
In this post, we break down the jargon. Plus, reveal seven top tips about how to combine influencer marketing and SEO to boost your business.
What Is SEO?
SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimisation.’ It is the process of optimising a website to rank higher on Google search results for organic traffic. When you rank organically, you are not paying to be in that position. Simply put, when someone searches “Web Design services near me” on Google, they are likely looking for someone to help them create a new website. If you offered this service, you would want to be on the first page of Google, above your competitors, so that you can attract leads.
What Is An Influencer?
An influencer is a person who has a large following on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and more. They usually have a particular niche and the power to affect the buying choices of their followers. Influencers will share content through sponsored posts, videos, reels, and more to share products or services with their audience.
Influencers usually have a personal; brand and have built a following by building loyalty, trust, and relatability with their followers. They understand how social media works and create content specifically for their audience, supporting you to receive increased brand awareness.
What Is Influencer Marketing?
Influencer marketing is when a brand collaborates with an online influencer to market a product or service. It is all about authority and credibility. Influencer marketing goes hand in hand with social media and content marketing and can also benefit your SEO strategy. You can turn to celebrities, Instagram influencers, TikTok stars, and YouTubers to promote products and services and potentially reach their thousands or sometimes millions of followers.
Influencer Marketing Facts
- The influencer marketing industry is currently worth 24 billion US dollars
- TikTok is the most popular influencer marketing platform (used by 66% of brands)
- 69% of consumers trust an influencer’s recommendation
- It has been found that 77% of influencers are female
- Businesses make $5.78 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing
How To Use Influencer Marketing and SEO To Achieve Maximum Results
1. Use influencers to build a diverse and strong link profile
Influencer marketing can help your website gain natural, authoritative links which will hugely benefit your SEO strategy. It will also increase your user engagement, traffic, and visibility across a range of platforms, including Google Search.
If you work with bloggers or influencers who have their own websites, when these influencers create content and link to you, this will automatically generate a high-quality link to your website. Even an influencer sharing a link will increase the chances of a wider audience engaging with your content, with the potential for further ripple effects.
2. Use engaging, sharable content
It is no secret that influencers create engaging content that is shareable across a range of social platforms, including your website. User experience is critical for SEO, and you can use this engaging content to create an entertaining, meaningful and relevant experience for your audience. Influencers produce high-quality content that can be produced quickly and will usually be scheduled while also allowing you to sign off content and have some level of control. Influencers can even encourage their audience to get involved, which will further increase engagement and trust.
3. Add credibility to your content and brand
Influencer marketing is a fantastic strategy for adding credibility to your content and your brand. Credibility is determined by whether your customers trust you and your product or service. It’s also about your expertise in the industry, which will organically build trust and credibility. Trustworthiness is the fourth factor in Google’s E-E-A-T quality guidelines, which are used within Google’s algorithms and determine whether content should rank well or not. By providing credible, trustworthy content, you can increase your chances of ranking higher on search engine result pages.
4. Embrace SEO-Optimised Content Sharing
Optimise influencer-generated content and generate brand awareness by using the following practices:
- Using relevant keywords in hashtags
- Ensure content loads quickly (compress images/video files)
- Create content that is easy to share on social media platforms
- Feature social share buttons on your website and the influencer’s website
- Encourage other reputable sites to link to the influencer’s content
5. Repurpose Influencer-Generated Content
Identify high-performing, evergreen content and repurpose it to gain maximum exposure. Ways to repurpose content include: For example, you may want to repurpose a ‘how to’ style Instagram reel into a ‘how to’ style blog that gives the user more in-depth content. You can then drive traffic from the reel to your website. Alternatively, you may want to take a long-form blog post and turn it into a short video summary on YouTube or TikTok.
Other ways you can repurpose content include:
- Using social media posts in email marketing content
- Host Live Q&A sessions about a particular influencer-generated topic
- Using quotes from a podcast interview to create impactful posts
6. Create Co-Authored Content:
Create in-depth guides, eBooks, or reports with influencers, leveraging their authority and your SEO strategy. You can then cross-promote this content on both your social media platforms and websites, build links across platforms and drive referral traffic.
7. Use Guest Blogging:
Collaborate with influencers to create guest posts on their blogs, incorporating your target keywords. Ensure the content is high-quality and provides value to their audience. You can then benefit from high-authority links from their website to yours.
Types of Influencers
Nano-Influencer
Nano-influencers have around 1,000 to 10,000 followers, they have a connection with a specific audience and create posts that target that specific audience. A nano influencers audience is a lot more likely to engage with their content. Nano influencers have trust and loyalty with their followers and they have a very strong influence over their followers, making them great for influencer marketing.
Micro-influencers
Micro-influencers have around 10,000 to 100,000 followers and are usually experts in a particular niche. These influencers are all about creating content that will inform, engage and entertain their followers. The simple definition is their following is more than a normal person’s but smaller than a celebrity’s.
Micro-influencers
A macro influencer has from 100,000 followers up to a million. They have extremely high engagement rates, have a broad audience with a range of interests, and have a developed personal brand.
Mega-influencers
A mega-influencer is said to be more famous than influential and is the highest category of influencer. These influencers usually exceed one million followers, often with a diverse audience with a range of interests. Mega influencers have a huge reach and are able to increase traffic to a website and sales.
How to find the right influencer for your brand
You cannot simply choose any influencer to market your product or service, you want an influencer who is an expert in your industry or has an audience who is interested in what you have to offer. Simply put, your target audience should be similar to reach the correct people.
You can find social media influencers using hashtags. Searching hashtags relevant to your brand will allow you to find influencers creating similar content to your business. You probably already have a few influencers in mind but you will need to evaluate them properly against some key stats and data. We would recommend checking the level of engagement from their audience, the amount of reach they have, the type of person they are reaching, and other brands they have worked with.
Authentic storytelling
We have all been there – you just watch one more episode or read one more page, and then hours later, you are still watching your favourite TV show or you have nearly finished your book. There is a reason why this happens, and this is authentic storytelling.
Storytelling is a very valuable marketing tool, and influencers do it extremely well. It can build an emotional connection with customers, influencing loyalty and trust. Storytelling is a part of our everyday lives, and as mentioned above, it allows you to connect with a person or brand on a deeper level.
Did you know that 92% of consumers prefer ads that tell a story, instead of simply promoting their product or service? This fact proves that influencer marketing has a positive impact on marketing, is essential to your business and can help your SEO.
Real-Life Impact of Influencer Marketing
The Goat Agency, Uber Eats and Starbucks
The Goat Agency is an award-winning social media specialist, delivering only the best social media campaigns. The Goat Agency was tasked to raise awareness of Starbucks delivery through the Uber Eats app. As well as to drive conversations surrounding their #RedCupReason for gifting and sending coffee to someone special at Christmas.
The campaign used influencers on Instagram, including Binky Felstead (1.4 million followers), Pixie Lott (748k followers), Laura Whitmore (1.5 million followers) and Roman Kemp (1.4 million followers) to encourage users to share their own reasons for sending a coffee.
- The campaign received 5.4 million impressions over the entire campaign period
- Received 2K code redemptions using our influencer codes in two weeks
- Received over 2.7 million Instagram story views, raising awareness of the #RedCupReason activation
We also support them in achieving incredible SEO success in just three months!
Dunkin’ Donuts and TikTok Star Charli D’Ameilo
Dunkin’ Donuts launched a social media and influencer marketing campaign to promote a limited-edition drink inspired by the favourite drink of Tik Tok star Charli D’Amelio. Charli D’Ameilo has over 84 million followers on TikTok and 48.8 million followers on Instagram. The company created a drink called “The Charli”, which D’Amelio announced on her social media channels and was also announced via paid media campaigns on Instagram and Snapchat. Dunkin’ Donuts asked TikTok users to share a dance video that used an original song inspired by “The Charli” as a soundtrack. Dunkin Donuts also released merchandise surrounding the limited-edition drink.
- “The Charli” drink sold hundreds of thousands of cups within the first five days of launch.
- There was a 57% increase in downloads of the Dunkin’ Donut app.
- Dunkin’ Donuts broke its record of daily users of the app the day the drink was released.
- There was a 20% overall sales boost for cold drinks that day the drink was released, and a 45% increase the following day.
Tinder Australia and Love Island Australia
Tinder Australia asked The Goat Agency to create a campaign centred around Tinder’s Swipe Night to drive sign-ups. The campaign used influencers and paid media to run for three weeks in Australia. Love Island contestants such as Jessie Wynter (306k followers) and others created Instagram stories utilising the Swipe Night Gifs and directing their audience to try it out for themselves.
- The campaign achieved 8.7k clicks.
- The campaign had over 1.6M+ engagement/story views.
- The campaign had 12k+ sticker taps on Tinder’s profile.
How To Measure Your Success & ROI
Before starting a marketing strategy, it is important to establish a few key metrics to measure the success of the campaign. Measuring your ROI (return on investment) is one of the best ways to determine the success of your marketing strategy. It helps you understand how much you earn in relation to how much you spend on your marketing efforts. We also recommend taking note of total impressions, engagement rate, and revenue.
You can work out your ROI with the following calculation:
ROI = net return on investment/cost of investment x 100%
If your business appears on the first page of Google, you can expect to receive an average click-through rate of 27.6%. So, if 5000 people saw your page on the first page of Google, you could expect around 1380 to click through to your website.
However, the number of people who purchase your service/products or engage in other conversions can vary depending on the type of page they land on. It has been suggested that you should aim for a 5% conversion rate on a product page and a 20% conversion rate on a landing page (e.g. a page that asks users to sign up for a webinar).
So, out of the 1380 people who clicked through to your website, you may receive anywhere between 69 (5%) and 276 (20%) conversions.
When you invest in a comprehensive SEO package, you can then divide your net return on investment by the cost of the SEO package to work out your ROI. Recently, a client at Solve received a whopping £400,000 in sales at a cost of £13,000.
Solve-ing Your SEO Needs
Combining influencer marketing and SEO is a powerful strategy that can achieve incredible results. There are many types of influencers that can support your business, and by embracing our seven top tips, you can achieve maximum results. Authentic storytelling plays a huge part in the success of influencer campaigns and contributes towards Google’s ‘trustworthiness’ rating – determining whether content should appear high on search engine rankings.
At Solve, we work alongside Goat, the world’s leading social-first marketing agency powered by influencers. Goat has used over 100k+ influencers, and when combined with our award-winning SEO strategies, we skyrocket your marketing campaigns.
Contact us to find out how we can improve your SEO can maximise ROI.
