What many small businesses tend to overlook is the power that their customers have with regard to generating SEO and igniting brand awareness for their company. It has been noted in all of the recent, and past, research, as well as from years of observation, that consumers trust reviews made by others who have used a particular product or service they are interested in purchasing. This is why you must integrate consumer generated content into your online presence both at your site and out at your social media platforms.
- Customer content improves both your SEO as well as your brand awareness in a myriad of ways. Perhaps the most important of which is that the search engines recognize the content as something new and fresh. Another major way is that this content triggers what is known as social proof. This happens when other consumers read or see reviews and recommendations and come to trust them for whatever reason. This, in the long run will have a huge affect on your brand awareness and name recognition.
- The search engines, especially Google, take “customer experience” quite seriously. This means that their spiders and bots are looking for reputation factors such as reviews and customer generated content to evaluate with regard to any SERP. It also helps your SEO and brand awareness through your social media platforms. Sharing all of those reviews and video promotions featuring your satisfied customers and clients raises your status as well as your brand recognition. A rise in status and name recognition are just the two baby steps before readers get to trust.
- Your customers can do all of the heavy lifting when it comes to your SEO because they are using all of your keywords and long tail phrases while speaking your praises. It is new and fresh content that is engaging and, better still, free for the asking. Put those happy customers to work for you to build your trust and brand awareness as well as give a serious boost to your SEO efforts.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer