Alexis Kestler
As a leading social media marketing strategist, I‘ve seen firsthand how brands can catapult growth by coordinating influencer and SEO campaigns.
Done right, integrated efforts achieve a multiplier effect – where outcomes far surpass individual results.
In this comprehensive guide, you’ll discover why marrying influencer marketing and SEO is so powerful and gain actionable tips to drive massive awareness, traffic, conversions and sales.
The Rising Importance of Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has exploded in popularity with good reason – it delivers phenomenal returns.
Per Nielsen, 92% of consumers trust recommendations from influencers over brand claims. And according to Influencer Marketing Hub, influencer content generates 11X more engagement than brand posts.
With Micro-influencers specifically, brands see $5.20-$21 ROI per dollar spent – outperforming nearly all other channels.
As you’ll see ahead, collaborating with relevant influencers provides the awareness lift that when combined with SEO, can truly elevate a brand.
Core Benefits of Influencer Marketing
Campaigns with properly vetted influencers produce proven outcomes like:
- Increased brand discovery and reach to new audiences. TapMicro reveals Instagram influencer marketing expands brand discovery by 2.4x.
- Higher conversions and sales thanks to influencer trust and calls-to-action. Rakuten Marketing found that influencer recommendations can boost purchase rates by as much as 86%.
- Improved engagement and site metrics. Influencer content sparks comments and shares at much greater volumes. Track engagement rates to benchmark performance.
I‘ve used influencer campaigns to help clients increase site traffic over 200%, boost email list sign ups over 500% and improve conversion rates from 0.8% to over 5%.
Now let‘s explore the SEO side…
The Core Value of Search Engine Optimization
SEO remains one of the highest ROI digital marketing channels thanks to its ability to drive targeted organic traffic.
Consider that over 90% of website traffic comes through search engines like Google. So optimizing for keywords that match user intent around your brand is critical for growth.
McKinsey found that brands who sustainably improve organic search rankings experience a 107% increase in overall site traffic on average.
The Main SEO Benefits
Optimizing for SEO delivers core perks like:
- More qualified site visitors from Google and other search engines. Top search result rankings can send thousands of monthly visitors.
- Increased brand visibility and awareness as you appear prominently for industry keywords. Brands see 2-10x more awareness from page 1 rankings.
- Higher conversions and lower customer acquisition costs thanks to highly targeted traffic.
- Greater authority and trust signals which also improve conversion rates. 72% of users click organic over paid listings due to higher perceived trust.
Proper technical SEO, content optimization and backlink building led to a client of mine increasing monthly site traffic by 34,000+ visitors and sales by $278,000 in just 7 months.
Now that we‘ve covered their individual effects, let‘s discuss the real power move…
Why Combining Influencer Marketing and SEO is a Game-Changer
While influencer marketing and SEO positively impact brands independently, truly smart marketers realize the duo combined unlocks even greater potential.
But why does coordinating SEO and influencer efforts accelerate results?
It comes down to how they uniquely support yet complement each other:
- Influencers actively broadcast your brand to drive discovery while SEO makes you more findable where people organically search.
- Influencer endorsements build credibility and trust while quality content and backlinks signal the same to search engines for higher rankings.
- Influencers entice immediate action while SEO provides a perpetual lead stream from organic traffic.
Together, aligned efforts open up expanded reach, higher-converting traffic sources and compounding returns over time.
Let‘s explore the stacked benefits of combining influencer marketing and SEO…
Unites Reach and Discovery
Influencer marketing spreads brand awareness to new audiences while SEO captures searchers interested in your brand and primes them to convert.
Viola Marketing saw a health brand gain a 32x increase in site traffic from influencer partnerships centered around driving visits. Without SEO, much of this new audience would bounce or not return. But with higher rankings, the brand meets visitors‘ needs better each visit, earning links, social shares and conversions over time.
Boosts Rankings While Lowering CPL
Quality backlinks and brand mentions from influencers signal authority to search engines which can lift rankings. This compounds with more influencer traffic turning into links and social shares.
Higher rankings then increase organic traffic volume and lower cost per lead or acquisition vs paid ads. Growing traffic from influencers and SEO together substantially moves the needle.
One case study from tiqets saw them rank #1 for "Amsterdam tours and attractions tickets", decreasing CPL by 50% which fueled their growth.
Spark Trust and Engagement
92% of consumers will trust an influencer over an advertisement or corporate claim. Similarly, only 0.78% will click paid search ads over an organic listing due to again – lack of trust.
So earned influencer endorsements build credibility just like rankings signal authority and trust. This drives higher post-click engagement across site and social.
BigCommerce sellers using influencers averaged 11.2% engagement rates on sponsored posts vs 1.7% benchmark for the platform.
Cascading Returns Over Time
The combination of more awareness from influencers and perpetual organic traffic from SEO compounds dramatically over months and years.
With integrated campaigns, brands see an upward spiral effect where influencer partnerships boost rankings which captures more searchers to then convert and promote the brand, fueling link building and social shares, eventually coming full circle back to more influencer interest for the now authority brand.
Actionable Tips to Combine Influencer & SEO Marketing
Now that you see the immense upside of aligning SEO and influencer efforts, let‘s get tactical.
Here are my top tips for integration based on successes across dozens of campaigns:
1. Build Authoritative Backlinks
Start by identifying influencers who actively link out to quality sites like yours. Prioritize those with high domain authority and relevant page content.
Outreach for opportunities to organically earn backlinks from their articles and reviews related to your brand and industry. These will immensely help lift search rankings when done at scale.
Track links with SEO tools and optimize placement for maximum impact.
2. Promote Target Keywords
Research the core terms that match your buyers‘ searches around your offerings. Provide these to influencers and encourage natural inclusion in any sponsored posts.
Optimized integration of your keywords bolsters authority in search results for ranking gains. And remember keywords in images boost SEO too with alt text.
Tooltip creative helps influencers gracefully work keywords into captions without seeming overly promotional to followers.
3. Produce Shareworthy Content
Influencers know what type of content best engages their niche audiences. Partner to produce co-branded asset designs, videos, giveaways and other creative content optimized for engagement, links and shares.
Distribute across both your and their social plus paid amplification channels for max impact. Outbrain found co-created influencer content performs 120% better for brands on average.
4. Expand Your Reach Through Networks
Research influencers‘ extended networks through their partners and collaborations outside main following base. Identify additional connection points for expanded distribution.
Ensure syndication of co-created content throughout their network, relevant hashtags and user handles.
Contacts with just 5,000 followers have averaged over 90,000 impressions for brand partners thanks simply to broader network sharing.
5. Track Performance Over Time
Monitor key metrics across initiatives to benchmark and optimize efforts. Core KPIs include backlinks and mentions, site and post traffic, rankings and conversions driven for each partner.
Evaluate which collaborations deliver greatest ROI and where to improve. Continually test new activation strategies as you scale campaigns.
Pulling It All Together
Smart online brands are catching on to the immense potential of aligning influencer marketing and SEO for maximum impact.
Used together strategically over time, these high return strategies will dramatically amplify your brand‘s reach, trust and sales growth.
Hopefully you now have clarity for unlocking their stacked potential. For any other questions, feel free to reach out via my site below.
To your influencer and SEO success!
John Smith
Social Media & Marketing Expert
Sources
Influencer Marketing Hub, Mediakix, Nielsen, TapMicro, McKinsey, Influence.co
