As an expecting mom, I’ve been researching baby carriers lately, which means I’m looking for honest reviews about well-known brands. And the top results come from Reddit, followed by posts from influential bloggers. Results from YouTube creators also show up further down (but still on the first page).

Judging from this alone, it’s clear that influencer content that’s optimized for search engines can give you plenty of visibility. It means you stand a chance of getting discovered even outside of the influencer’s existing audience base. 

So search engine optimization content writing isn’t something you can ignore for your influencer campaigns. While you may have previously relied on the influencer’s existing reach to get your message across, optimizing their content for search engine visibility helps you further maximize this reach and amplify your results. 

In this post, I guide you through the process of optimizing your influencer campaigns for search. I break down tips and best practices to optimize everything from articles and blog posts to video and social content. 

The Importance of SEO for Influencer Campaigns

First, why should you care about SEO when you’re already investing in an influencer campaign to get your message across? I briefly touched on this point above, but let’s break down some of the key reasons why search engine optimization content writing can benefit your influencer marketing efforts.

Better Search Visibility

The most obvious benefit is that optimizing influencer content for search will help you improve visibility in relevant search results. This means you can get the content in front of people who are actively searching for information related to your products or services. So it significantly improves your chances of getting discovered by people who might be interested in your product offering. 

For example, the following post from an influential cooking blogger comes up in the results when I search for “key lime pie recipe.”

Going into the post, I noticed a brand mention for Ateco when she discusses what piping tip she uses. It comes complete with an affiliate link for the product. This means someone reading the post who might be in the market for a piping tip will discover the brand and possibly even end up buying the product.

Maximized Reach

With the improved search visibility from search engine optimization content writing, influencer content can effectively reach people who aren’t already actively following them. This means you can exponentially maximize reach beyond the influencer’s existing audience. 

Even in the above example, I ended up discovering the brand even though I’m not subscribed to the blog or even following the blogger. I simply searched for something I was interested in and came across the influencer’s content through search. This alone is enough to show just how impactful search engine optimization can be in amplifying reach for your influencer campaigns.

Traditionally, influencer marketing campaigns would mainly focus on reaching an influencer’s existing audience. Additionally, they may use paid advertising to amplify reach through social platforms. But search engine optimization content writing allows you to organically extend your reach far beyond the influencer’s current audience base and social platforms.

Long-Term Results

Another key benefit of optimizing influencer content for search is that it drives long-term results. Search engines typically consider relevance and engagement signals when determining the value that a piece of content can deliver, which will then influence how they rank the content. While freshness is a factor, it doesn’t outrank the other factors. 

So even a dated blog post can continue to deliver results many years later. Notice how the top video results for the following search are from years ago.

In other words, well-optimized influencer content can keep delivering value long after the campaign has ended. This ensures that you get the most out of your influencer marketing spend, which means you get to maximize your influencer marketing ROI.

Search Engine Optimization Content Writing for Influencer Blog Posts and Articles

Search engine optimization content writing is somewhat more straightforward if your campaign involves partnering with influential bloggers and publications. It typically involves applying some of the SEO best practices that you’re probably already familiar with. You’ll need to work closely with the influencer or editor to ensure that the blog post or article meets the SEO standards that will improve its visibility in relevant searches.

While it’s important to provide influencers with creative freedom, you still need to ensure that the content they create aligns with your SEO goals. This is why you need to involve them at various stages of the campaign development process, such as keyword research, brainstorming, and creative briefing. Ensure to balance structured guidelines with authenticity and creative freedom, so you get the best of both worlds.

Let’s break down a few tips and best practices to create influencer blog posts and articles that are optimized for search.

Step 1: Start with a Keyword Research

Do a thorough keyword research to figure out which search terms people are using to find information related to your products or services. Use this opportunity to identify their pain points and needs, so you can figure out what the content should focus on. Besides regular keyword research tools, you can also enrich your results with social listening insights.

Step 2: Get Influencers Involved

Consult with the influencer to brainstorm topics and content angles based on your keyword research. Figure out topics that they’d enjoy creating content about and whether their audience would be interested in it. This will also give you the opportunity to rule out topics or angles they’ve already worked on, so you can focus on fresher ideas.

Step 3: Develop your SEO-Focused Brief

Create a detailed brief highlighting SEO best practices to craft content that ranks. Include details about which keywords you want them to use, along with the ideal keyword placement and distribution. Make sure to highlight which links you want them to include, along with your preferred anchor text. You can even share some tips on how to structure the content so it’s easier for readers (and search engines) to scan it.

Optimizing Video and Social Content for Search Engines

Traditionally, search engine optimization content writing mostly focused on written content, such as website copy and blog posts. Now, however, Google has started indexing content from social media, which means your YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, TikTok videos, and even LinkedIn posts might show up in relevant search results.

Notice how the top results for the following search come from Instagram.

In other words, a sponsored influencer content that performs well and is optimized for search could show up prominently in relevant search engine results pages. Additionally, when the content is optimized for search, it also improves discoverability within the social media platforms they use.

So the easier it is to discover their content, the better their reach will be. This will ultimately contribute to better campaign performance. Moreover, it also benefits the influencer by helping them maximize reach and bring in new audiences. That’s why you need to work with influencers to ensure that their social media content and videos are more discoverable in search. 

Let’s break down a few tips and best practices on search engine optimization content writing for social media content and videos.

Use Descriptive Captions/Descriptions Enriched with Relevant Keywords

When it comes to social media posts, your captions are the best place to add relevant keywords for search visibility. As search engines crawl your content, they will use the information in your caption to determine what the content is about. This will then help them understand how to rank your content in relevant search results.

That’s why enriching your captions with relevant keywords is the first step to optimizing your social media content for search. On platforms like YouTube, you’ll need to optimize your titles and descriptions with relevant keywords to improve video search visibility.

However, remember that you’re still ultimately writing for a human audience. So make sure to incorporate the keywords naturally into the caption instead of fitting them in for the sake of it.

Check out the first few video results when I search for “how to use cleansing oil.” The top search result from YouTube shows the use of relevant keywords like “how to use cleansing oil” in the title and “use cleansing oil” in the description.

Meanwhile, the Instagram result is slightly different. If I go into the caption, I notice the use of keywords like “tips for proper cleansing oil usage,” “double cleansing,” and “single oil cleanse” in the caption. These keywords are seamlessly incorporated so the language flows naturally without sounding awkward. I’ll discuss this topic more thoroughly in a separate section later on in the article.

Don’t Ignore the Value of Alt Text and Closed Captions

The bad news is that your captions and descriptions alone aren’t enough to rank social media content higher in relevant search results. The good news? Most brands and creators alike don’t always go through the trouble of taking the extra steps needed to improve the search visibility of their videos and social media content.

This involves using alt text to describe your image posts and closed captions to improve the crawlability of your video content. While these steps are typically used for improving content accessibility, they also have an SEO benefit by making your content easier to crawl for search engines. That means the search engine has an even better understanding of what your content is all about, so it can rank it appropriately for relevant searches.

Make sure your alt text is highly descriptive, preferably incorporating keywords that people might use when searching for information related to the content. For example, it can read something like – “person holding up a bottle of Matcha Biome Perfect Cleansing Oil by Heimish next to their face while demonstrating how to use cleansing oil.”

Adding closed captions to your videos allows search engines to better understand the entire content. They can then use this information to determine how your content should rank for relevant searches. In some cases, search engines may also use the info from your closed caption to auto-generate a title and description for your video when displaying it in search results. This is especially true for posts that don’t have a descriptive caption.

For example, the following search result shows a video title and description that Google generated based on the content of the video.

Focus on Boosting Engagement

Besides your captions, alt text, and closed captions, search engines will also consider the engagement your content receives to determine its quality. So a post that gets plenty of likes and comments is more likely to show up prominently in relevant searches compared to a post that gets only a few engagements.

That’s why you should look into strategies for boosting engagement for your influencer-generated content. Advise influencers to ask questions or give prompts to encourage their audience to engage. 

Balancing SEO with Authentic Storytelling

I briefly mentioned earlier how it’s important to let your captions flow naturally since you’re still ultimately speaking to a human audience. This natural and conversational language helps to maintain authenticity, which makes the content more engaging and trustworthy.

So how do you balance all this with your SEO efforts? Here are some suggestions:

• Make the most of long-tail keywords that people would naturally use in their conversations. 
• Try to describe the video or add context as naturally as possible. Then look for opportunities to sprinkle in your keywords where relevant.
• Provide influencers with target keywords but give them the freedom to use their own voice, so the message is as authentic and natural as possible. 
• Keywords are important, but you should also avoid over-focusing on them as you could end up with something that feels forced or robotic. Even using it just once could make a world of difference, especially if you optimize your alt text or closed captions for search.

Optimize Your Influencer Campaigns for Search Visibility

Avoid limiting your campaign reach to an influencer’s existing audience base. Make use of search engine optimization content writing to improve search visibility. This will help you exponentially grow your reach and get more value from your campaign content for years down the line.