How to Use Barnacle SEO to Boost Rankings and Traffic

What is barnacle SEO, and how can you use it to boost your rankings and traffic?

If you’re a small website trying to compete with big competitors, you may feel beating them in search rankings is impossible.

However, with the right search engine optimization (SEO) strategies, you can upset the status quo and outrank established sites with higher domain authority (DA). One such strategy is called barnacle SEO.

In this article, we’ll show you what barnacle SEO is and how you can use it to outperform your larger competitors.

What is Barnacle SEO?

Barnacle SEO is a digital marketing strategy that involves latching onto existing, high-authority websites to boost your own site's search engine rankings and online visibility. It's akin to a barnacle attaching itself to a larger object in the ocean (like a whale) to get exposure, hence the name. 

In barnacle SEO, your goal is to harness the traffic, credibility, and authority of established platforms, such as review sites, social media, or industry-specific directories. 

All this is done by building backlinks and getting brand mentions from reputable sites to your own website. This helps increase your domain authority, boost your online visibility, and drive organic traffic.

It also helps you appear on search engine results pages (SERPs) for highly competitive keywords.

5 Reasons to Leverage Barnacle SEO as a Small Business

Why should you consider using barnacle SEO as part of your digital marketing strategy?

Here are some reasons why you should consider including barnacle SEO in your strategy:

• Cost-effective: Small businesses often have limited budgets for SEO. Barnacle SEO allows you to benefit from high-authority websites without the hefty cost of building your own authority.
• Quick results: Traditional SEO can take time to see results, but barnacle SEO can yield quicker wins by tapping into existing traffic sources.
• Greater brand awareness: Latching onto bigger websites exposes you to their large audiences, thereby boosting your brand awareness.
• Credibility boost: Associating your brand with respected platforms enhances your credibility and trustworthiness. It’s a fantastic way to build your Google E-E-A-T authority.
• Local SEO advantage: For brick-and-mortar businesses, barnacle SEO is particularly valuable for dominating local search results.
• Effective lead generation: Exposure to an audience similar to your target audience makes getting qualified leads easier.

With reasons like these, incorporating barnacle SEO into your online marketing strategy is a no-brainer. 

How to Do Barnacle SEO and Get Results

Now that you know what barnacle SEO is and its benefits, let's dive into how to implement it to boost your site’s search rankings and traffic.

First Things First: Nail Your Site’s SEO

As said, barnacle SEO is a strategy where you take advantage of a larger, more established site’s SEO wins to boost your own. However, this is not an excuse to neglect your site’s SEO.

To reap the most benefits from barnacle SEO, you must ensure that your site’s SEO is on point. 

And this is why you need a powerful WordPress plugin like All In One SEO (AIOSEO).

AIOSEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market and is trusted by over 3 million savvy website owners and marketers to help them dominate the SERPs and drive relevant traffic to their sites. The plugin has many powerful SEO features and modules to help you optimize your website for search engines and users, even without coding or technical knowledge.

Many of the plugin's most popular features are designed to help you rank your content easily and get the lion’s share of search traffic. These are features such as:

• Search Statistics: This powerful Google Search Console integration lets you track your keyword rankings and see important SEO metrics with 1-click, and more.
• Next-gen Schema generator: This no-code schema generator enables users to generate and output any schema markup on your site.
• Advanced Robots.txt Editor: Control how search bots and crawlers interact with your site, thereby improving your crawling and indexing.

• Redirection Manager: Helps you manage redirects and eliminate 404 errors, making it easier for search engines to crawl and index your site.
• And more.

For step-by-step instructions on how to install AIOSEO, check out our installation guide.

If you don’t work on your site’s SEO and only rely on barnacle SEO, it will be difficult for you to rank organically for important search terms. However, if you nail your site’s SEO, barnacle SEO will help push you further up in organic search.

Check out this article for more WordPress SEO tips. 

Identify Your Whales and Latch On

Whales, in barnacle SEO, are the high-authority websites whose search rankings and domain authority you want to leverage. Examples include platforms like Yelp, TripAdvisor, or industry-specific directories. 

One of the first steps to barnacle SEO is identifying the platforms that rank well for your target keywords. These must not be direct competitors but must be:

• Third-party sites your target audience is likely to visit
• Sites that rank for your keywords or their synonyms

For example, if you run a restaurant, Yelp might be a fantastic whale for you. It ranks for most “restaurant near me” searches and many other keywords you’re targeting.

How do you find your whales in barnacle SEO?

This is where opportunity research comes in. You can use keyword research tools like LowFruits, Semrush, Ahrefs, and others. Simply type in your primary keyword and go to the SERP analysis section.

Sift through the top listings on the SERP analysis and pick sites you can get listed on. For example, you can create a business profile on platforms like Yelp. Or, if that site doesn’t have profiles, you can still implement barnacle SEO by leveraging guest posting. But more on that in a moment.

Other examples of whales you can leverage include:

• Business directories
• Partner pages
• Online marketplaces and communities
• Publishing platforms like Medium, Quora, etc.
• And more

The key is finding reputable sites that offer backlinks and exposure opportunities. 

Conduct Thorough Keyword Research

Once you’ve identified your whales, the next step is to conduct keyword research. This time, it’s with a twist: You need to identify keywords that overlap with your target sites or platforms.

The easiest way to do this is to click on the URL keywords link (Semrush) in the SERP Analysis section of your keyword research. This will show you a lot of organic research data for your whale’s URL.

This section gives you lots of information such as the top keywords the page ranks for, including important metrics like search volume and keyword difficulty. Use these keywords to build out the barnacle SEO content strategy you’ll use for the content you’ll publish on your target sites. 

Leverage Review Sites

Review sites are fantastic platforms to leverage in your barnacle SEO strategy. These are usually reputable platforms, and most have high domain authority (DA). Latching on to these is a great way to build up your own DA. This is mainly because it results in you getting backlinks. Some popular  review sites include:

• Google Business Profile
• TripAdvisor
• Angi (Formerly Angie’s List)
• Facebook
• Yelp
• Amazon

Optimize your profile to maximize the impact of your SEO efforts. Your focus keyword should be included in your meta description and any other sections to which you can add content.

For greater impact, ask your customers to visit the review sites you’re listed on and leave reviews. You can also display the same reviews on your site and implement review schema. Doing this can help you rank higher in search engines.

Doing this is super easy using AIOSEO’s next-gen Schema Generator. 

For detailed instructions, check out our article on adding schema markup in WordPress.

Throw Guest Blogging Into the Mix

Guest blogging, or guest posting, is a content marketing and SEO strategy where you publish articles or blog posts on websites or blogs owned by others. The primary purpose is to reach a wider audience, establish authority in your niche or industry, and build backlinks to your site.

This powerful barnacle SEO strategy enables you to get links from authoritative sites in your niche. It also has several benefits that include:

• Audience exposure: Guest blogging exposes your content and brand to a wider audience of relevant readers. When readers of the hosting website find your guest post valuable, they may click on the links to visit your site. This can result in an influx of traffic to your site.
• Authority and trust: Associating your brand with respected and authoritative websites through guest posting can enhance your brand's reputation, authority, and trustworthiness in the eyes of both search engines and users. This can positively influence your website's search rankings, particularly as it helps you meet Google’s E-E-A-T content guidelines.
• Diverse link profile: Building backlinks from a variety of high-quality websites diversifies your website's link profile. Search engines like Google value diverse and natural link profiles, which can lead to improved rankings and less vulnerability to algorithmic changes.

Guest blogging also helps you establish relationships with other brands or web owners, which can be instrumental in other SEO strategies.

Participate in Roundup Posts

Roundup posts are a type of content marketing strategy where a blogger or content creator compiles insights, quotes, or contributions from multiple experts on a particular topic. These posts are typically presented as a list or compilation, with each contribution attributed to its respective expert or source.

This works well with barnacle SEO, as you get a backlink from the site publishing the roundup post. 

For this strategy to be effective:

• Choose reputable opportunities: Select opportunities from reputable bloggers and websites and ensure the host has a strong online presence and a history of producing quality content.
• Provide valuable insights: Offer unique and valuable insights (including personal anecdotes, if possible) related to the roundup topic. Aim to contribute information that can genuinely help the audience and set you apart as an expert in your field.
• Use data and examples: Whenever possible, support your insights with data, statistics, or real-world examples. Doing so adds credibility to your contribution and makes it more compelling.

Participating in roundup posts is a great way to establish topical authority and credibility quickly, factors that can contribute to better search rankings.

Monitor Your Results

After you’ve implemented your barnacle SEO strategy, it’s important to monitor your results. This will help you see what is working and what needs improvement.

One of the best ways to do this is to use AIOSEO’s Search Statistics module. This Google Search Console (GSC) integration shows you GSC data in your WordPress dashboard.

Search Statistics shows you vital metrics such as your keyword rankings, content performance, and even the impact of Google algorithm changes on your content.

Regarding barnacle SEO, you can use metrics like Search Impressions, Total Clicks, and Average Postion to see its impact on your traffic and rankings.

You should monitor your progress and adjust your barnacle SEO strategy accordingly.

Barnacle SEO: Your FAQs Answered

Barnacle SEO: The SEO Growth Hack to Skyrocket Your Traffic

Barnacle SEO, when executed effectively, can lead to significant traffic growth and better search rankings. By strategically attaching your brand to high-authority websites and platforms, you can ride the waves of their success to boost your own visibility and authority.

We hope this article has helped you understand barnacle SEO, its importance, and how to implement it. You may also want to check out other articles on our blog, like our insider look at the top SEO secrets used by the pros to grow their revenue or our list of SEO hacks guaranteed to improve your traffic.

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Kato Nkhoma Content Writer

Kato is one of those rare unicorns born with a pen in his hand—so the legend says. He’s authored 2 books and produced content for hundreds of brands. When he’s not creating content for AIOSEO, you’ll find him either watching tech videos on YouTube or playing with his kids. And if you can’t find him, he’s probably gone camping.

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