Getting strong user engagement signals is a very good signal for ranking your content on different platforms.
For example… if you want to rank a Youtube video… the trick is to drive real comments from real users.
This will pass certain “engagement” signals to Youtube algorithm and it will help in ranking your video within Youtube and this may eventually spill over to ranking it high in Google Search.
If you’re posting content on any other popular social media platform, then you can drive engagement (comments or responses to tweets etc) for the content you publish on the social media platform.
However, getting users to interact and take a few seconds to drop a comment is not easy even if you make a request within the video or content post.
Here are a couple of tactics that you can use to help make this happen…
- If you have a user base that is subscribed to your email list you can email them asking to see the video and drop a comment (perhaps in exchange for some bonus for doing so)
- You can have users text you on a cell phone number if they want free advice that you will provide… such as you will answer one question related to the niche for free.
- A simpler way to get people to message you (although not as personal as an sms text method above) – would be to insert your Facebook Messenger link in the description of the video to get them to message you directly for free advice.
Once people send you the message… you could thank them and request them for a favor to leave a comment on the video link – after you help them out.
This process of building user engagement can be applied to blog posts on your website, tweets, web2.0 posts or any other place where you get real users to interact with your content.
These signals from real users builds real engagement – which is rewarded by the various algorithms (including those associated with Google Search) – as Google can tell real users from fake ones!
Having real users interact and engage is just like getting more powerful backlinks as compared to cheap low quality backlinks that don’t do much!
The Video That Taught Me This Method…
In the video below Chase Reiner (who is an SEO expert mostly in the local SEO space) talks about this method (this is where I learnt about it).
However, his method differs from what I have said above.
Chase says that when users message you, you should ask for the engagement favor prior to helping them out.
No offence to Chase… but I just thought that was a bit unfair, as you did ask to them to message already – and getting them to now do another step before your help out was kind of unfair to do.
Do watch the video if you’re interested in a detailed run down on how this method works and can be implemented…