Everyone Likes Free Stuff
Everyone, young and old, knows that getting free gifts is the only real fun part about birthdays. It’s the silver lining to getting older. We all like birthday presents. So when it comes to having a chance to win something from your favourite brand or store, who wouldn’t want to capitalize on that opportunity? Brands have been using our love of free stuff by having giveaways and contests to increase their social media following, boost their SEO, increase awareness and improve conversion rates. So, if you’re on the fence about giving away a free product as a promotion, read on to find out how social media giveaways can boost your SEO.
Your Followers Do Your Work For You
The beauty of social media giveaways is that after you announce the giveaway, your followers do the rest. Well, sort of. Rather than chase people around and ask them if they can pretty please #followforfollow, attract your audience instead. It’s as easy as pie to generate buzz for your account or your products when you incentivize social sharing. No matter what platform you’re on, simply make sure that the rules of the contest are to follow and share your post. Sending more followers to your social media account can help you expand your potential customer list, improve your click rates, and expose your brand to more people.
Social Media Giveaways = Higher Google Rankings
In the wise words of Kissmetrics, “social media profiles are often amongst the top results in search listings for brand names.” But that’s not the only reason your rankings are affected by social media. You don’t have to stick with Google, Bing or Yahoo to find something you’re looking for. Typing in a search term on Facebook, for instance, will generate a slew of results, like news updates. The more followers you have, the easier Google can find you and the higher you’ll rank. Holding a contest will generate organic shares and follows without running the risk of Google thinking you’re buying followers…which would be bad.
Social Media Giveaways Encourage Backlinks
If your website is new, it can be very hard to gain momentum without backlinks. Earning backlinks continues to be a vital tool for boosting your SEO. Instead of buying backlinks from spammy websites, which Google will punish you for anyway, you should always earn them organically by generating real interest from real social media accounts or websites that are an authority on a subject. While social shares aren’t exactly backlinks, you might argue that they encourage links to your website because of all the buzz it generates. Plus, you can easily include a backlink as one of your contest rules (sneaky, sneaky!). There are other ways to create links. If you’re interested in learning more about how affiliate marketing can boost your brand.
Improve Your Website & Audience with A/B Testing
Lastly, if you want to test out a product or service, a giveaway is the fastest way to find volunteers. You can either reward your testers with a giveaway or let the giveaway product or service be the thing you need testing. What’s important are the test results, as audience feedback can greatly improve your website. A better website, whether it’s in the form of an improved product or service, will indirectly boost your SEO.
How Is Your SEO Working For You?
SEO is made up of many different elements, both on page and off page. While proper on-page SEO ensures your website is doing everything it can to attract not only a large audience but the right audience, off-page SEO helps you build backlinks and exposes your website through other channels. But, hitting the right note with SEO takes time and experience. Simply holding social media giveaways won’t improve your search engine rankings without an overall SEO strategy.
