Sherry Bonelli

Sherry Bonelli is a nationally recognized SEO expert and digital marketing professional. She entered the digital marketing world in 1998 when she launched her first ecommerce business selling pregnancy and baby products. Her site was selected as one of the top 10 pregnancy websites by Pregnancy Magazine. She has appeared on the TODAY Show, CNN, ABC News and other media outlets.

Her digital marketing agency, Early Bird digital marketing, is in Cedar Rapids, IA, but she serves clients all over the world. Sherry is passionate about helping her clients grow their businesses through integrated digital marketing strategies. She has more than 3,000+ email subscribers and more than 1,000 Twitter followers.

Sherry is also a recognized national presenter, speaking at industry events, webinars and podcasts, such as Traffic & Conversion Summit, SMX, SCORE, MozPod, SEMrush Podcast, Edge of the Web and The Local Business Leaders Podcast among others. Sherry also holds a Master of Internet Marketing.

Expert session

Tactic that has had the biggest impact on Sherry’s success

Guest blogging and being a guest on podcasts

Result if you follow the steps in Sherry’s session

You will start guest blogging on other authoritative websites in your industry and get to be a podcast guest and learn how to use those guesting opportunities to enhance your SEO and authority

Full session with video, notes, audio and discussion inside EHQ Club. Learn more

Expert session snapshot

Transcript

First of all, Google looks for authority. And when Google is looking at how they rank a website, they look at your website, and your business and brand in a holistic standpoint.

And so they look at all things, they look at your social media, they look at your online reputation, they look at the content on your website, they look at other mentions people are making about you, personally, and your brand. So all of those factors are taken into consideration.

And so that’s why these types of strategies are really important because it helps build and boost your authority. So your authority is a ranking factor. So Google determines how to rank a website. And they factor in hundreds of different factors.

And of course, none of us as SEOs really know what all those factors are, but we can kind of figure in some of them. And some of them are based on three main factors that are considered your expertise, which is your industry knowledge, and that’s the value you bring to a subject or topic, your authority.

And that’s how established your brand is, and your trust. And that’s how much your customers or potential customers trust your brand, or how your industry trusts you.

And so that’s why all of these factors, play into authority, writing on credible websites like blogging, and then also being a guest on podcasts that either relate to your industry, or contributions you can make to podcasts that can help your clients rank on podcasts that relate to their industry.

So if you’re a digital marketing agency, you can also use these strategies to help your clients with their SEO as well. So authority can really positively impact your SEO rankings. And brands with high authority are trusted, and they’re more likely to be selected.

So if you have a brand that has literally no authority, no reviews, is not mentioned by any highly authoritative sites and you have a brand that is, you know, being prominently displayed is showing up in search results, and is being mentioned on highly authoritative, authoritative sites and podcasts and websites, you know, when a consumer has to choose, which one are they going to pick?

And same with Google, which one, are they going to choose to show higher on their rankings? Chances are, they’re going to pick the one that is getting the most exposure. And as mentioned on Twitter, and mentioned on Facebook, those are all ranking factors.

So Google’s algorithm is, you know, looks at a brand semantically, and they look at the sentiment of a brand. And that’s why these two strategies really can help with your rankings.

So writing plus podcast guesting equals authority and trust.