How To Grow Your Website’s SEO With Influencers, Bloggers & Awesome PR

POP QUIZ! Does SEO impact your influencer & PR strategy?

If you answered, yes it does. Two gold stars for you!

Ask any seasoned woman entrepreneur what makes or breaks a business, they’ll tell you it’s the small, seemingly unsexy things that matter most. You know - those things that happen behind the scenes that no one ever sees; meticulous end of month financial statements, streamlined marketing funnels, and the Big Magic: SEO.

If you haven’t hopped on the SEO train yet, you’re missing out. 

A keyword rich and optimized website is essential to build a business and personal brand with a strong digital presence, especially in today’s business landscape where online ads are getting more and more expensive.

So many women founders (including me in a past life) shy away from search engine optimization because we’re intimidated by the technical terms and data. Instead, many of us choose to prioritize the more glam things - like working with influencers, chasing PR opportunities, or maybe even trying out shady SEO shortcuts (spoiler alert: please don’t do it!).

But when it comes to working with influencers, bloggers, and the media, SEO is more important than ever! And having a good grasp of its principles will never lead you astray. 

‘But how does SEO impact my influencer and PR strategy?’ you ask. 

To answer that, first, we need to cover some SEO basics. 

If you’re new to the world of SEO, it’s important that you first understand the essentials. Make sure to hit up our previous blog post about the five major SEO updates to make to your website ASAP. We recommend first going through those five major SEO steps before thinking about an influencer or PR strategy. We promise it will make the rest easier.

Read the post, make your SEO tweaks, then come back here. I’ll wait.

Once you’ve got your bases on your website covered, it’s time to move on to optimizing your website for offsite SEO (that means all the SEO improvements you can make outside your website). Think media features, working with influencers, and even guest blogging opportunities - anything you can do to get people to learn about you and click back to your website.

To understand offsite SEO, it’s important to first understand one thing:  domain authority (also known as DA). Domain authority was created by Moz, a leader in the SEO marketing space. Here’s how they describe it:

“Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). A Domain Authority score ranges from one to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a greater ability to rank.”

Domain authority has nothing to do with having more keywords on your site. It’s a measure of how many quality and relevant off-site links (aka. backlinks) exist to your website. Getting more quality backlinks is the only way to increase your domain authority. Check your website’s domain authority for free here.

A screenshot of my company Cambio & Co.’s domain authority. There’s no magic number for a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ DA score. It’s only relative to other similar websites within that same space.

One more important note: Growing your website’s domain authority shouldn’t be your primary goal. A high DA won’t automatically bring you to the top of Google. Instead, use DA as a guide and keep your sights focused on getting more quality and reputable websites to link back to you.

Now let’s dive into how you can grow your website’s SEO with a quality influencer and PR strategy!

“One more important note: Growing your website’s domain authority shouldn’t be your primary goal. A high DA won’t automatically bring you to the top of Google. Instead, use DA as a guide and keep your sights focused on getting more quality and reputable websites to link back to you.”

How Do You Choose Which Websites To Work With? 

I run two online companies so I know what it’s like to open your email and be bombarded with opportunities; some more legit than others.

You might get contacted by bloggers or influencers offering to feature your brand in exchange for free products. Or you might have a long list of websites and publications that you want to pitch your story to or submit a guest blog for. The perennial question for us women CEOs with abundant responsibilities in and out of the office becomes: where do you invest your energy? 

And when you do choose to invest in influencer or PR opportunities, how do you ensure you’re getting the best bang for your buck?

To grow your online brand, you need to have a solid SEO strategy AND a PR outreach strategy. Here’s me celebrating our Cambio & Co. feature in Cosmopolitan Magazine!

1. Choose Bloggers And Online Publications With A Higher Domain Authority.

Remember, domain authority isn’t just about having more keywords or more backlinks - it’s about quality AND quantity. In general, if a website has a high domain authority, it means there are a good number of reputable websites that link to it and trust it. You want to prioritize trustworthy blogs and websites and have them link back to your brand. 

You can quickly and easily check any website’s domain authority for free here.

As a fellow business owner, I know how tempting it is to say yes to every opportunity that comes our way, especially if you’re just starting your entrepreneurship journey. But I encourage you to be just a bit more skeptical of offers from self-named influencers and to approach PR in a more strategic way.

Rather than saying yes to that guest post opportunity or that request for free product, do a little digging. Are they trustworthy? Are there reputable sites that reference and link back to them? 

It’s important to note that there’s no magic number for what’s considered a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ DA score. It’s all relative. Instead, compare the DA scores of similar websites. If you notice one site has a significantly lower DA score than one in a similar space, ask yourself why that is and whether it’s worth investing your time into that particular opportunity. 

2. Choose Websites Who Have A Similar Audience To You.

If you’re considering working with an influencer or submitting a guest post to a blog, think first about their audience. Who are they targeting? What kind of keywords are they using on their site? How does it relate to yours?

For example, let’s pretend you’re a sustainable clothing brand in New York working and you get featured by a personal finance blog based in Arkansas. That finance blog may have an excellent DA score, but if their readers aren’t your target audience, then it won’t make a difference. You may have more people visit your website, but if nobody’s buying, then you’re right back where you started.

However, this isn’t to say that you shouldn’t experiment. If you have a hunch that a particular audience might be a good fit for your brand, then getting featured or publishing a guest blog post is an amazing way to test that market and gather feedback. In this case, prioritize websites that have a higher DA score to make sure you’re investing your energy in the places that will make your time worth it.

3. Make Sure They Always Link Back To Your Website.

You secured a feature and you’re about to be published. Hurrah! But don’t hang up your coat and hat just yet. 

If you’re given the option, make sure to review the feature in advance before it’s published. Verify that the article actually links directly to your website. I can’t tell you how many times an article was published about our brand and there wasn’t a single link. It could be the most dazzling feature about your company, but if there’s no backlink to your website, it will do nothing for your SEO ranking.

And what do you do if you have past features that don’t link to your site? No problem! Keep track of all the places where you’re published and mentioned (set up a Google alert for your company name). Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask them to add a link to your website. This process itself is called link reclamation and is totally common, so don’t be shy to ask!

We know it can be a daunting process, so if you need help optimizing your website’s SEO, drop us a line. You can also book a free consultation with our team and we can help you build an SEO and PR media strategy that goes hand in hand.