Consumers make the best marketers. In fact, 88% percent of consumers trust online reviews written by other consumers as much as they trust recommendations from their personal network.

But why does marketing that leverages user-generated content work? Why do consumers have a particular affinity for following the advice of other shoppers?

At its core, user-generated content is valuable, as it obtains a psychological response, called social proof, which makes people understand that others’ actions define the correct behaviour for a situation.

User-generated content can help you get a lot of exposure and engagement. It can also help you create strong relationships with your followers. For brands, user-generated content is a source of unique and new content to improve their search engine rankings. It also enhances the credibility of your brand and boosts sales and revenue.

Providing more context for search crawlers is one of the most significant advantages of user-generated content and allowing guests to comment, post, leave reviews, and everything in between is like crowd-sourcing your on-page SEO. As users are likely to apply diverse terms to discuss your content, you have to think of it as users helping to target long-tail keywords on your behalf.

Here are the 5 golden rules to understand the importance of user-generated content for your SEO:

1. UGC is a Source of Fresh Content:

When you are out of content ideas, user-generated content can be an excellent way to create new and appropriate content. Social media platforms are the primary breeding ground for user-generated content.

You can organize a contest on social media to generate new content ideas. You can even find ways to encourage your followers on social media to create and post content about your brand.

2. Optimization for grammatical search:

As you may know, Google is now going crazy about making the web more mobile-friendly, which involves adjusting it to mobile users who tend to ask questions while searching for something. So, thanks to your customers’ questions or reviews communicated in natural language, your website has more chances to overcome the ranking battle.

3. Word-of-Mouth Marketing Powers SEO

In addition to increasing conversion rates, boosting customer trust and powering word-of-mouth marketing, UGC helps brands get more traffic from search engines.

With the customer buying journey mostly starting on Google, it’s essential for brands to leverage one of their most reliable marketing tools – UGC – to establish social proof and effectively power SEO.

4. New Keyword Possibilities:

When users create some new forms of content, it can naturally utilize some long-tail keywords your site may or may not already be targeting.

5. UGC Shapes Basic SEO Attributes Naturally:

Sites are optimized for search engines through a system of primary attributes, including keywords, titles, backlinks, and internal links.

When it comes to reviews, customers do all the work while shaping SEO with appropriate links and keywords.

Because customer testimonials tend to be product-centred, customers often include phrases and links associated with the product, that help naturally strengthen SEO.

The power of user-generated content is that any business can use it to grow and expand. Using UGC in the ways mentioned above can offer your brand a variety of benefits. It can also enhance your SEO strategy, generate quality leads, and boost your lead generation efforts.