How selling digital products will boost your SEO

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There are many benefits to selling digital products. But did you know, selling digital products can actually IMPROVE your SEO? Here’s how…

There are many benefits to selling digital products.

Digital products have a much higher RPM than ads, meaning you can make a good full time income WITHOUT needing crazy-high monthly pageviews.

Because you don’t need those crazy-high pageviews, selling digital products makes you A LOT less dependent on Google.

Being less dependent on Google means you don’t have to worry so much about AI-generated content, AI Overviews, future algorithm updates and anything else Google might have in store for us in the future.

But did you know, selling digital products can actually IMPROVE your SEO?

So, selling digital products is a kind of a crazy win-win scenario – you can be less worried about Google, while at the same time actually performing BETTER on Google.

That means, if you make money via ads or affiliates, adding digital products into the mix can actually increase the money you make from your ads and affiliate links too (since how much you make from those income sources is generally quite strongly linked to how well you rank on Google).

Wondering how?

Well, that’s what this post is all about!

Here are 6 ways selling digital products can improve your SEO…

Miniature trolley containing dollar bills, next to a laptop.

6 ways selling digital products can improve your SEO

1. Selling digital products improves your E-E-A-T

Just the sheer fact that you have a written an ebook or created an online course makes you appear more of an authority in your niche.

But once you have some happy customers, willing to write you glowing testimonials and share their success stories, this will further boost your E-E-A-T, and help you become known as a go-to expert in your niche.

Think about it logically… Who would you trust more – the person who just has a blog, or the person who has a blog, an ebook, a course and a whole boatload of glowing testimonials?

2. Selling digital products gives you more opportunities for backlinks

If you have a successful ebook or course, people are just naturally going to start linking to you more.

They might review your course, feature you in a roundup post of the top ebooks in your niche, or a journalist might reach out to you for a quote because your product means you are now seen as a ‘well known expert’ in your niche.

Miniature trolley sitting on a laptop keyboard. The trolley contains a red sign saying 'sale'.

3. Selling digital products leads to more opportunities

When you have a digital product, people also start reaching out to you with collaboration opportunities – they ask you to speak at summits, they ask you to be a guest on their podcast, they ask if they can feature your products in their bundle, they want to do joint venture webinars and email list swaps with you… and that all leads to more backlinks and more E-E-A-T!

4. Selling products improves brand recognition and trust

If you start popping up as a speaker at summits, guesting on other people’s podcasts, featuring in bundles and getting written about on other people’s websites, that’s going to massively increase your visibility and authority. And that, in turn, is going to improve your brand recognition and trust.

This means when your target audience does a Google search related to your niche, they are much more likely to click on your result (because they feel they know and trust you) and, better still, much more likely to stay on your site longer and visit more pages (again, because they feel they know you and they trust you).

All of this sends positive user signals back to Google, which will, in turn, have a positive effect on your Google rankings.

Miniature trolley containing dollar bills, resting on a laptop.

5. Selling products improves branded searches

But we can go one better, because the more visible you become in your niche and the more your target audience starts seeing you as a go-to expert in your niche, the more likely they are to do ‘branded searches’ – either searching for your blog by name (e.g. ‘Productive Blogging) or your blog name + keyword (e.g. ‘Productive Blogging SEO tips’).

Obviously, users who do a branded search are highly likely to click on your result and spend time on your website, again sending positive signals back to Google.

But also, the fact that a user searched using your brand name sends positive signals to Google and can boost your E-E-A-T too.

Here’s how Moz puts this in their Google E-E-A-T guide:

“Building a brand is a good idea for many reasons, not least for SEO authority. Branded search volume is a good measure of how your brand authority is doing. If more and more people are searching for your brand name, this is amazing news. If they’re searching for your brand name with a relevant keyword attached, that’s even better.”

In fact, brand name + keyword searches may even give you a rankings boost when people search for the non-branded version of that keyword in Google!

6. Selling digital products helps you understand your target audience better

Creating and selling digital products gives you some really good opportunities to get inside your readers’ minds and better understand what they are struggling with.

This happens both when you create your products (for example, when you do market research) and when you sell your products and get feedback from your customers and students.

This will give you great ideas for topics you can cover on your blog (potentially underserved keywords to target that you may never have thought of otherwise) AND it will help you understand searcher intent better (meaning you will write better quality content which better serves your readers’ needs.)

Both targeting underserved keywords, and writing better quality content that better meets searcher intent, will have a positive effect on your Google rankings.

Ready to make the leap into digital products?

I’ve created the Digital Product Success Academy specifically to help bloggers like you make the leap into digital products and protect your business from whatever future curveballs Google throws at us.

DPSA a step-by-step roadmap that will take you along the entire journey of building out all the moving parts of a successful digital product based business.

Basically, I’ve done all the hard work for you and come up with the perfect step-by-step plan to follow, so you can just follow my roadmap and focus on one thing at a time.

Plus, there’s lots of support, motivation and accountability baked in AND a super supportive community of likeminded bloggers and online business owners to encourage and motivate you every step of the way.

If this resonates with you and you’re ready to take your blogging business to the next level, click here to find out more about Digital Product Success Academy!

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