The new darling of digital marketing is a type of human connection. More and more businesses of all sizes recognize the benefits of influencer marketing, where influencers become the target audience rather than end consumers.

Influencers have web sites, video channels, and blogs followed by large numbers of people. Working with influencers can bring significant benefits for any product or service.

Indeed, influencer marketing and search engine optimization, or SEO, are intricately linked in a delicate dance.

Influencers Boost SEO

Influencers produce engaging, specialized content to an audience already interested in what they have to say.

Google likes directing users to popular, appealing material. So influencer content and other sites linked to this popular matter benefit from good search engine rankings.

Furthermore, audiences pay close attention to influencer opinions and experiences and may make purchases based upon the influencers’ viewpoints.

It pays to build relationships with influencers, because they can help your SEO in multiple ways—and perhaps eventually improve your long-term sales. 

Backlinks

Backlinks are valuable. They are one of Google’s primary ranking factors. This is reason enough to seek them in today’s digital landscape.

However, they can also boost your visibility through social media, and they can give your content authority.

When you have a relationship with influencers, you can get backlinks from them when they link back to your site.

Historically, the more backlinks a web page has, the better it does in search engine rankings, and this is still true generally.

Legitimate backlinks from your site to popular content from trusted influencers only helps your brand.

Be sure to avoid filling your web pages with meaningless and even negative links, as they will do just the opposite of quality links.

They will lower your pages in search rankings and possibly make consumers wary of your content and even your brand.

In addition, search engines may punish you by permanently sinking your rankings.

Guest Posts

Whether you forge relationships with celebrities or micro-influencers who may have 1,000 followers, you are tapping into a valuable resource.

They already have an engaged and interested audience. If you work with influencers in your niche, you gain access to that large group of possible consumers.

A great way to do this is to write guest blog posts for influencers in your niche.

Guest posting helps you build both brand awareness and authority. Guest posts are opportunities for you to present yourself as a knowledgeable authority who has essential information valuable to readers.

By including both links to popular authoritative web pages as sources as well as inbound links to your web site, a guest blog post is an excellent way to earn legitimate backlinks as well as potential customers.

Trust and Authority

People notice influencers, and businesses are paying attention to that. Influencer marketing budgets run in the billions of dollars and are predicted to increase.

Not only do influencers produce more leads, help generate traffic to your site, and offer you valuable inbound links, influencer relationships can also help your reputation.

When you start working with influencers, they have already established themselves as experts. Their followers trust them.

When you share links with them, and when they review your services or products, you tap into this well of trust.

Furthermore, if you write a guest blog for their site, you get the opportunity to set yourself up as an authority in your field.

Offer content that gives the followers of influencers real value, and they may come to respect you as well.

The key is to associate with respected and reliable influencers who abide by FTC regulations and value honesty.

While trust and authority may not sound like sound SEO, they are actually what SEO is ultimately all about.

If consumers do not trust you, they will not buy from you. Period. Trust must be earned. Tactics that help you establish yourself as trustworthy and reliable are invaluable to your long-term success. This is where influencers can help.

All businesses, from startups to large corporations, can benefit from working with influencers. From social media platforms to web sites, influencers have the eyes and ears—and pocketbooks—of large groups of followers.

Partnering strategically with reliable influencers can boost leads, drive traffic, create authority, and ultimately strengthen the foundation upon which successful companies sit.