One of the biggest challenges, in all realms of digital marketing, is how to be seen and heard amid your sea of competitors. Engagement and site traffic is the fifth most important ranking factor (also according to the aforementioned Moz study), so a great SEO result depends on engaging your audience and achieving higher traffic. Obviously, exposure is going to up your game in this regard. Influencers will have a massive following and significant reach of their own, which naturally improves the visibility of your content and business — and increases the chances of attracting potential visitors to your website. However, it’s the ‘influence’ part of influencer marketing that really amplifies the results. The specific group that an influencer is talking to are actively following and engaging with them; they’re hanging off their every product review and recommendation. In further good news, people trust people ahead of ads. Recent research by advertising agency Ogilvy and Google found that 74 per cent of consumers identify word of mouth as a key factor in their purchasing decisions. In most cases, people trust influencers almost as much as they trust their friends, which is why they’re so effective at getting you results.

So, we can see that it’s worthwhile to leverage relevant influencers’ communities to enhance your business or brand’s visibility and engagement.

Think about your intended audience or target market: what are the people you are targeting reading, watching or doing online? What bloggers do they follow? Where are they putting their attention? What do they do in their spare time? What other interests might they have in common? Then consider whether there is anyone who is considered an authority or ‘rock star’ in that space.

You can find some of this out by simply asking your customers and prospects — send out a survey - maybe through SEO Leeds. Or, if you’d like to let your fingers do the walking, so to speak, conduct your own research. Run a Twitter search or a hashtag search on a related topic and see which voices show up plentifully, and who seems to be inspiring a reaction and engendering trust. The trick here is that you’re trying to find influencers who hold sway with your intended target market. When you identify an influencer who you think would be good for your business or brand, drill down to their audience demographics. What’s the age, gender and location of those who are following them? Does that align with your target?