You probably already know that influencer marketing is a popular marketing strategy among many marketers today. According to a report by Linqia, 86% of marketers launched an influencer marketing campaign in 2017, and 92% of them found it to be effective. Influencer marketing is a powerful strategy to reach a bigger audience, drive more traffic, grow followers, and build greater customer loyalty and trust.
And that’s not all.
Influencer marketing can boost your SEO efforts and provide you with relevant backlinks. However, the question is how exactly can you leverage the power of influencers to obtain good links?
Let’s look at some of the best strategies to collaborate with influencers to further your link-building goals.
Get Product or Website Reviews
Do you know that around 49% of consumers follow the recommendations of influencers when making a purchase? Product or website reviews from influencers can effectively impact your link-building campaign. If you get many positive reviews, it will help drive traffic to your website.
You can even consider getting paid reviews from influencers to build brand awareness and drive more links to your site. But make sure you only connect with influencers who talk about topics relevant to your products and services. This will ensure that you reach a relevant audience. You can use tools like Buzzsumo or Grin to conduct a search for influencers based on different factors such as category and location.
If you have a tight budget, you can offer free products and samples to your influencers in exchange of their recommendations and reviews. Many micro-influencers do not mind getting gifts and samples for their link-building efforts.
For example, take a look at how The Fit Fork Feed linked back to Pete’s Living Greens. The blogger has given a raving review about products from the store, and added a link to their homepage.
Conduct Influencer Interviews
You can also conduct interviews of influencers in your niche and post their videos on your site and other social media channels. Publishing such expert interviews leverages the huge fan following of thought leaders in your industry. And it provides readers with valuable information and unique ideas.
This further amounts to increased backlinks and social media shares, as the influencers will either link back to the interview or share it with their followers. You can also do expert roundup posts instead of full-fledged interviews.
Backlinko’s Brian Dean, for instance, retweeted a post from Mobile Monkey in which they shared an expert roundup post. The post included his input, which made him eager to share the news with his followers.
Guest Post on Influencer Websites
Guest posting is not a new way to get links while partnering with other websites. This is a cost-effective method to generate quality links to your site. If you want your brand’s message to reach a wider audience, begin contributing content to influencers’ blogs related to your industry or niche.
To discover influencer sites that are accepting guest posts, just search Google for a keyword relevant to your niche and add “submit guest post,” “write for us,” “contribute to our blog,” or similar phrases.
Also, check with the influencers when you pitch your post idea to find out whether they will provide a dofollow link to your website. Many popular influencers do not allow a dofollow link to avoid the traffic juice flowing to other sites. This policy differs from influencer to influencer, and also depends on whether you are paying to get a dofollow link.
Mention the Influencer
Influencers love sharing and linking to content in which they are featured. Roundup posts are a great example.
There are many benefits of a roundup post. It is easy to digest, drives great traffic to your site, and builds meaningful relationships for your brand.
Suppose you feature 10 influencers in your post, and each one shares your post with their followers. Imagine how many viewers you get for your post. Also, when influencers share your roundup post, they drive traffic to your website. So write good blogs and posts mentioning them and their opinions.
See an example of a roundup post below.
Image via sidehustlenation
Sponsor Ads on an Influencer’s Websites
Paid advertising is a great way to get links to your content on different channels. You can advertise on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and all other places where your influencers are active. These ads should target audiences of your influencers and competitors.
You can develop customized ads to target various categories of audiences in your influencers’ network. The most effective platforms for such ads are Facebook and Instagram thanks to their powerful targeting abilities.
Build Good Relationships with Influencers
When it comes to link building, influencers have no competition. When your content is exceptionally great, influencers share it on their blogs and social media pages, which can significantly help your link building efforts.
And you get the link juice that you’ve been looking for. But only great content will take you there.
Influencers are also humans. They also like a personal connection and due respect for what they are doing. It is thus very important to keep them happy and build long-lasting relationships.
Do not hesitate to connect with them personally by inviting them to your brand’s events and product launches. This way, they feel respected and will develop loyalty and trust in your brand. They may even be motivated to support your link building efforts without being asked and give you the brand mentions that you deserve.
Provide Each Influencer with a Unique URL
You can also assign a custom URL to each influencer, which they can then share with their audience. This will help you keep track of the traffic coming from each influencer. And based on the number of clicks they drive to your site, you can provide them with fair compensation and/or bonuses.
Since the influencer will be getting something in return, they will put in more effort to try to promote the link. This means a better link profile for you. See for instance how Squarespace has provided the YouTuber Jack Douglass with a unique URL to their website, which he shares with his viewers.
Final Thoughts
Influencer marketing will continue to reign. Smart businesses and marketers will cash in on every opportunity to connect and collaborate with influencers to obtain good links. So why lag behind?
Leave no stone unturned in reaching out to them and asking for help. Their support will always come in handy when you are struggling with link building and traffic generation for your business. Implement the above proven ways to earn more links to your website and let us know your experiences.
For some further reading, check out these Marketing.com.au articles: