Can you imagine this? Your new app gets reviewed on TechCrunch. Your blog post gets published on HuffPost, Forbes or Entrepreneur. Your fashion line gets reviewed by a super-popular fashion blog like Sincerely Jules or Monikh. Wouldn’t you like to get your brand promoted by an authoritative person in your niche?
Yes, that would be great, as such collaboration gives you a greater exposure and builds trust with your audiences. Popular bloggers have lots of influence and power and a link coming from their site to yours can skyrocket your SEO rankings and traffic.
The only problem with this strategy lies in the fact that, today, everyone wants to work with an influencer. They’re receiving mountains of similar requests every day and, to get yourself noticed, you need to know how to reach out to them effectively. Here are a few ways to nail blogger outreach.
The first thing you need to do is find your perfect guest-blogging opportunity. There are a few groups of people you want to target — bloggers who already wrote about similar topics, bloggers who already shared articles on topics similar to yours and bloggers who tweeted articles on similar topics.
Now, there are numerous ways to find such people.
Use Google’s advanced search operators to find bloggers who wrote about the same topics. All you need to do is google your major keywords and gather the list of articles that appear in the SERPs. If searching for them manually is too much for you, you can always use tools like Ahrefs’ Content Explorer to identify the latest content on similar topics.
Spy on your competitors. Use tools like SpyFu to track your competitors’ link-building tactics and see where they get their backlinks from.
Check comments on the most reputable sites in your niche. Many new bloggers who struggle with their online visibility leave comments on such sites to get noticed. This is an easy opportunity to identify them and connect with them.
Monitor major blog directories to find bloggers relevant to your niche.
Use Google Alerts and similar tools that will help you track your major keyword mentions across the web. This way, you will know whenever someone publishes or shares an article on relevant topics and be able to connect with them in a timely manner.
Track new backlinks to viral articles. Evergreen content constantly receives new backlinks — and your goal is to find people linking to it. This is where tools like SE Ranking, Ahrefs and Monitor Backlinks can help.
Even when you make a list of prospects using Google or the tools mentioned above, you still need to check them to see whether they’re reliable enough. Pay attention to their rankings, domain authority, industry relevance, meta descriptions and title tags, as well as the overall UX.
Now, when done manually, such research takes time. This is why you should consider using link prospecting tools to find bloggers. For example, tools like Dibz not only automate the process of finding influencers, but also have built-in spam factors that filter out irrelevant and poor-quality results from your list.
If you think that all you need to do is reach out to a reputable person in your niche and ask them to share your content or link to it, you’re wrong. Influencers receive a bunch of similar messages daily. And, if these messages don’t grab their attention, they’re likely to ignore them.
Therefore, to get the most out of your blogger outreach, you need to focus on building deeper relationships with bloggers.
First, get to know them so you can clearly emphasize how the collaboration with you benefits them.
Before you start writing a guest post for a popular blog or asking them to link to your existing content, you need to understand who your target blogger is and who their audiences are. Follow them on social networks and check how they engage their audiences. You need to know what they like, what content they usually share, how well they engage with their audiences and so forth.
Like and share their content extensively on social networks. The same goes for their blog posts. Turn on notifications to keep up with their latest blog posts and link to them, share them on social and leave insightful and valuable comments on their blog.
Finally, when leaving comments, use your real name. You want to build a stronger and authoritative personal brand and get them to remember you once you reach out to them.
Any reputable blogger has spent lots of time and effort creating a spotless personal brand and building a wide following of people who trust and listen to them. They don’t want to compromise the authority they’ve established by sharing spammy or poor-quality content just because you asked them to do so.
Instead, they will check you, read through your blog post thoroughly and determine whether it is quality enough to appear on their site. Here are a few powerful tactics to build high-quality links with blogger outreach:
Use tools like BuzzSumo or HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator to identify the most popular content around particular keywords and generate killer content ideas. Write posts on trending topics in your niche, back your statements up with up-to-date stats, and make your content authentic and consistent. Make sure it’s optimized, reader-friendly and spam-free. Once you choose the right content format and put it in the right context, bloggers will be more likely to promote it as a valuable resource with their audiences.
Once you find reputable people in your niche, you could put together a killer long-form article, whitepaper, or e-book and interview credible industry experts. When the piece of content is live, you should inform them and encourage them to share it with their audiences.
Guest blogging is one of the most significant link-building opportunities. It lets you build links organically, boost your brand awareness and position yourself as an authoritative resource.
However, marketers usually underestimate the power of this tactic. Guest blogging is not just about writing a post on any topic and publishing it anywhere on the web. On the contrary, you need to use the above mentioned tactics to understand an influencer and tailor your blog posts specifically to them. Here is what to consider when writing guest posts:
What kind of content do they create and publish?
What topics do they cover in their posts? What niche do they belong to?
What types of content do they prioritize?
Do they publish long-form or short-form content?
What kind of content resonates best with their audiences?
What tone and voice do they use?
Are there any specific guest blogging guidelines they’ve provided on their site?
“Hey, I wrote a post on the same topic recently. Would you like to link to it or share it?” is not enough to earn your desired backlink. Bloggers don’t care about whether you wrote about the same topic. The only thing they care about is the relevance, authenticity and quality of your content. They care about the value you bring to their audiences.
It’s important to write an outreach email that stands out and emphasizes your values:
Use a private email address that humanizes your approach.
Write a catchy subject line.
Tell who you are and what you want from them. Be concise and don’t forget to add links to your most popular posts.
Show them that you’ve done your homework, read their blog and researched their social media channels. For example, you could write something like “I noticed that you’ve recently published an article on “The Name of The Article.” I’ve written an article that supports/opposes your claims and I hoped you may be interested in sharing it with your audiences.”
Double-check your grammar, as your writing skills prove how professional you are.
Finally, if you don’t think you have a good reason to reach out to a blogger, then don’t.
Blogger outreach is an integral part of your SEO strategy, as it boosts your visibility and traffic and increases your backlink profile.
And it’s a five-step process:
Finding the right bloggers.
Getting to know them.
Writing high-quality blog posts and guest articles.
Building strong relationships.
Writing an outreach email that doesn’t suck.
Blogger outreach and backlinking are essential components of any successful SEO program. Ramp up your strategy by downloading the Ultimate SEO Checklist.