How To Pitch Influencers and SEO Tips

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This episode is presented by LoudCrowd, the social CRM where you can organize social tags, build a curated library of content, and segment UGC growth programs. Whether focused on spreading a movement, growing customer loyalty, or growing your fan base, there is a UGC strategy for any organization! Learn more and sign up for a 10-day free trial here. 

Lifestyle blogger, podcaster, and SEO expert Elise Armitage of What The Fab took a big risk when she quit her corporate job at Google to launch her own business.

I now live vicariously through Elise’s Instagram account @wtfab, where she’s amassed over Instagram 142,000 followers, skyrocketed her website traffic to 160,000 page views a month, and gets approached left and right for influencer opportunities. 

This episode is chock full of so many SEO tips and tools to help you increase your brand awareness and build meaningful influencer relationships. Plus, we’ll dive into SEO, UTM links, and how to actually rank on search engines.

The right and wrong ways to pitch an influencer

Elise is a full-on ROCKSTAR at what she does, having been a content creator pretty much before the term “influencer” was even coined many years ago.

The industry can feel a bit like the wild west at times to the point where some influencers have ruined it for others by providing a poor experience for the brand, tourism board, or agency that they’re working with. But Elise strives to create an incredible experience each and every time with beautiful content that drives results.

When Elise is approached by a brand, she leans on her gut feeling before accepting a partnership, but takes the time to do her research if it’s a company she’s not familiar with.

She’ll start by taking a look at the brand’s Instagram feed. Are they representing diverse people on their feed? Is this brand a fit with her lifestyle? Is this something she would actually pay for and enjoy? And most importantly, can she craft a compelling story around this and share it with her audience?

While DMs are super convenient, Elise prefers brands send in their pitches via email. It’s so easy to lose conversations through a sea of direct messages. You can stand out even more by doing your research on the influencer that you’re pitching and being super specific about how you want to create a partnership. Do you want a blog post created about your product? Or do you want to be on their podcast or TikTok? Give the influencer clarity.

And for the most “101” step ever? Make sure you cross-check before hitting send (yes, Elise has been referred to as Jenna before!)

Elise’s perspective on SEO and her favorite tools 

SEO might feel like a pretty heavy 3-letter word, but it can be an absolute game changer for driving traffic and revenue. 

Even for Elise, she remembers feeling so resistant to learning SEO because it felt hard, technical, and even boring. Now? She goes through a 20-step optimization process for each and every keyword she’s targeting.

Google Search Console is a helpful tool that provides insightful data, like what people are searching for when they land on your website and what keywords you’re already ranking for. This data could inspire you to further optimize your keywords so you can rank even higher for a particular post.

Keysearch will give you a full analysis of different keywords. Getting really good at keyword research is what unlocked so much for Elise.

There’s also plug-ins you can use, like Yoast (which works on WordPress sites) that do some of the heavy lifting for you.

It’s crazy how much money some businesses will spend on paid traffic, when they could be pouring their efforts into SEO for very little and reap some massive rewards.

How Elise plans content with an SEO lens in mind 

I hope by this point, you can see just how crucial it is to implement a search engine optimization strategy. Elise dug into how she approaches content creation with SEO in mind.

Recently, she went on a beautiful trip to Morocco. Before even embarking on her adventure, Elise did thorough keyword research to figure out what types of blog posts she needed to create around food, restaurants, hotels, and attractions.

Sometimes through this process, Elise stumbles across a goldmine of ideas, potentially for related posts that would have strong potential to rank well. 

When you use keyword software like Keysearch, the goal is to find keywords that rank higher in search volume, but with a lower competition score. Look for keywords that have at least a few hundred searches a month, or into the thousands.

And for the power of SEO? Look up “best pasta in Rome.” Elise’s post ranks #1!

Elise’s Ask

Elise would love for us to check out her free webinar, 3 Steps to Creating Passive Revenue from Your Blog (and How SEO is the Secret to a 6-Figure Recurring Revenue Stream), which is completely jam-packed with some of her favorite SEO tips.

She adds, “we pack a lot in the webinar and we go through literally everything that I do for optimizing and SEO. We also bust some SEO myths and we go through different case studies of previous students of mine that have just taken these strategies and killed it. I would love for listeners to check that out if SEO is something they are interested in learning more about.”

Notable Quotes from Elise

“Instead of me trying to blast things out on Instagram, I can write a post once. And if it ranks on Google because I’ve done my SEO right, it will continue to create traffic for me and revenue. It will continue to make me money for years to come.”

“Learning how to do really solid keyword research was probably the key that unlocked everything for me, because you can optimize til the cows come home, but if you’re not targeting keywords that you can actually have a shot of ranking for, you’re never gonna land on that first page. And that’s what it’s all about – getting your posts on that first page and driving a ton of traffic that way.”

Resources & Links

Head to LoudCrowd to benchmark your UGC performance and sign up for a 10-day free trial!

Connect with Elise on her website What The Fab, follow her on Instagram at @wtfab, tune in to her podcast, and check out her free webinar which will teach you how to create passive revenue from your blog. 

Check out my NEW $27 mini course, Visible Reach In A Week. In 30 minutes, you’ll learn how to create a $3 a day ad campaign that will drive brand awareness with your supporters.

Check out Elise’s favorite tools: Google Analytics’ URL Campaign Builder, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and Keysearch for conducting keyword research.

Elise also shared some of her favorite podcasts, including theSkimm, The Skinny Confidential Him & Her, Cubicle to CEO, and The Influencer Podcast. 

Want to make Missions to Movements even better? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram. Be sure to tag @positivequation so I can connect with you.