Influencers marketing is building backlinks as a way to do SEO

In the previous article, NoxInfluencer marketing academy has dived deep into the branding logic behind influencer marketing. What we have concluded is that influencer marketing is essentially utilizing influencer outreach to build backlinks, one of the major approaches of SEO, for businesses on social media platforms. That is to say, carrying out influencer marketing plays a role in boosting our SEO. Many of our users are eager to learn more details about the connection between SEO and influencer marketing. In this article, NoxInfluencer is going to further into how influencer marketing benefits SEO.

What is SEO and why SEO?

Before I show you how influencer marketing boosts SEO, I will explain what is SEO. Search Engine Optimization, which we call SEO, means lifting a website’s Google search ranking by various approaches based on the search engine’s ranking rules and ethics. SEO enables you to better your business’s domain authority in the industry and thus benefits your brands.

To be brief, SEO impacts search ranking factors and increase sites’ search ranking. To bring sites to a high position in the ranking, as well as deploying backlinks in other sites, brands will create Blog or PBN(Private Blog Network) to contribute industry-related content. Also, conducting branding practices with particular renowned media outlets is a usual way of SEO for businesses.

Why high search ranking matter?

A high position in Google search ranking means a lot to businesses. People search on the Internet very purposely. If your site or brand-word takes up a higher position in search pages, more and vertical traffic will flow into your site, thus your domain authority grows. Besides, search engines will expose your site or brand again and again to those who have ever viewed your site on their search results page, forming a search memory of your site. At last, the searches of your brand will increase due to people’s searching behaviors and communication by them.

Today, with ever-optimized search engine algorithms, if you want to do SEO, a way to increase your site search ranking, through building backlinks, the backlinks should be full of expertise, authority, and worth be trusted.

What is KOL and why they count in building backlinks?

Knowing the SEO principles, let’s discuss what features influencers have to possess when you need them to help you do SEO.

Some particular influencers with a strong influence on their followers’ decisions are called KOLs, the Key Opinion Leaders. With enough expert product knowledge, KOLs are recognized and trusted by relevant interest groups and have significant effects on consumer behavior.

KOLs possess expertise, authority, and trust, which are exactly the essential elements of high-quality backlinks. KOLs gather a bunch of followers with similar interests by their authority in a respective field. To brands, obtaining customers’ trust through the KOLs has become a preferred way to build backlinks than other paid channels. Simply put, KOL is one of the best subjects for brands to build backlinks.

The Specific Benefits of Influencer Marketing to SEO

1. Influencer marketing helps brands to be recognized by social media search algorithm

Partnering with the right influencers will definitely increase your brand’s SOV(Share of Voice). A strong voice is generated by user behaviors, including organic search and spontaneous content spread. This is how voice share grows. When the voice share grows to a certain level on social media, platforms will notice your brand-word by making it a tag that connects with your brand content.

Make a simple test: search your brand-word on social media and observe the results.

The results page usually goes like:

• Brand-words and associated words.
• Social media accounts of your brand.
• Promotion content created by influencers for you.
• Posts by users under your brand tags.

Richer content about your brand on the search results page makes it easier for users to trust you. Then growth in users, sales, and natural-spread will be a certain outcome. Note the second type of result above. Brand’s official social media account is the most effective tool to carry the voice brought by influencers. Official account subscribing is partly converted from searches.

2.Influencer marketing can indirectly increase searches of brand-words

Under usual marketing methodology, we evaluate our influencer marketing performance through regular measurements attached to promotion content, such as clicks of jump-links, content exposure, CPM, and CPC. Regular performance monitor measurements are as follows:

But, the big but, an extra influencer marketing effect is usually overlooked by marketers. That is organic searches.

This figure is sourced from Google Search Console and is approved to be displayed by the brand.

It is their brand-word searches profile on Google across 2019. At the end of August and September, this brand entrusted NoxInfluencer to do 2 market promotions. Literally, we can see two peaks of search in the chart occurred at the end of August and September, both promotion periods. During that time, both brand-word and logo were mentioned frequently in the influencer’s promotion video. Except for clicks of video or jump link, some audiences did spontaneous search about brand on search engines and visit the sites, forming organic search traffic for brand. If it was an E-commerce seller, the audience would conduct searching on e-commerce platforms, such as Amazon and eBay. These behaviors are exactly triggered by influencer marketing in a hidden way.

And we can make a more micro comparison there, the two red boxes. The drop point after the promotion is obviously higher than that before the promotion. It is just like we use Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve to memorize something. So, 3 or more influencer marketing campaigns can bring the normal searches to a new stage. Because frequent but periodical influencer marketing will make brand-words collected by search engines or shopping websites. And new derivative words of the brand, consisting of brand-words and industry-words, will be created based on users’ search behaviors.

Nike shoe is a typical derivative keyword, a combination of brand-words and industry-words. Nike is in sport equipment industry and has a fairly high position in the research ranking of the respective field.

3. Influencer marketing stimulates cross-driving of traffic between influencers and brands

If you are an expert in traffic operation, cross-driving of traffic is a familiar definition to you. If you are not, the GIF below will tell you what it is.

Before influencer marketing, the audiences of brands and influencers won’t have overlap. With influencer marketing, part of the audience of influencers will be turned into brands’. Some audiences who are captured by brands’ products and services will spread brands again. Meanwhile, traffic and user accumulation from influencer marketing will scale brands. Interaction between influencers and brands is mutually-beneficial to both.

Conclusion

Hope the argument about the connection between influencer marketing and SEO will offer you some help in understanding influencer marketing. New ideas and advice are welcome.

Thanks for reading. Until next time.