You probably know that an optimized website and great content are an important part of SEO and they can help you get found in the search engines.
At this point in 2019, you’re probably no stranger to the other massively important ranking factor either.
I’m talking about link building.
Why Link Building?
Link building, or gaining backlinks, is the process of getting other sites to link to your site. Google loves quality links. The more credible sites you have linking to you, the better you look to Google, boosting your site in the search engine results. But there’s a catch. Building these links isn’t an overnight thing. Especially if you want to ensure only quality sites are linking to you. So are you wondering how to do blogger outreach? Here are 20 blogger outreach strategies to build quality backlinks.
#1 Expert contributors
One topic, many experts. Get multiple experts to contribute their input and compile a blog post, ebook or physical book. Let all your experts know when and where your big piece of content is accessible; they’ll be thrilled to be featured as an expert and many of them will link to your blog or your website when sharing the good news. Want more? Many of these bloggers will reciprocate, and ask you to contribute when they compile something similar, giving you more opportunities to have your link shared on other websites.
#2 Putting an embed code within an embed code
When you create a valuable infographic, others are going to want to use it. So you typically create an embed code to make it easy for them. But what if you tweak that embed code so that when anyone embeds it on their site, they are actually linking back to your website? Use this form to create your unique embed code.
#3 Add your link to shared photos
Do you have a photo that seems to be getting shared often? Do a Google search, or even set up a Google alert, and find out exactly who is using your photo. Reach out to them and ask if they can put the credit link in the photo’s meta field so any time the photo is clicked, people end up back at your site.
#4 Guest post on turbo
You already know that guest posting helps build backlinks. But here is another way to discover even more places to guest post. Start by finding a guest post done by one of your competitors. When businesses guest post, they typically use the same byline each time. So copy a piece of that byline and use it to search Google. You will find other places your competitor has guest posted, giving you lots of blogs you can pitch as well. Then you can even take it to the next level and scale your blogger outreach.
#5 Research competitor backlinks
Use Ahref’s Site explorer to find a competitor’s backlinks. Plug those links into an Excel sheet, upload it to Google Custom Search to help you find where they have guest posted or had sponsored posts written about their business. Use this data to find your own guest post or sponsored post opportunities. Even if it’s not guests posts, find emails for outreach faster.
#6 Find emails for outreach faster
The first thing you need to do when reaching out to bloggers is find those email addresses. There’s tons of email finding tools out there. We use Email Hunter a ton. You can also use ToutApp for Chrome or try Rapportive. It’s an add-on that gives you LinkedIn profiles right in your Gmail. So how are we going to use it to find e-mails? If you have a company name and a person’s name, you may be able to figure out their work email. Keep plugging in tentative emails until you find on that pops up with a real LinkedIn profile.
#7 Hack your blogger networking
If you have created a network around your business or your blog, create a badge for members to use on their site that shows they’re a member. Then Google reverse search the badge image and see who is using it. Reach out to those people and ask them to embed your link into the badge image.
#8 Create expert infographics
Similar to an expert blog post or book, you’re asking multiple bloggers to contribute to one infographic. Make the infographic using a tool like Venngage, quote the bloggers in the image, make sure your URL is embedded within the infographic embed code, and have the bloggers share it.
#9 Reach out on Twitter
Follow writers and bloggers from your industry on Twitter using best practices. Start interacting and building a relationship with them, that will turn into something more. They may start including your link in their posts, or even agree to let you guest post.
#10 Go a step further on Twitter
Check your mentions to see who has tweeted your content. Now reach out to them, thank them for sharing, and let them know they can link to your post. Not everyone will, but you will find that some people will add your link to their posts, their newsletters or other content. Sometimes it just takes a little nudge to get them moving.
#11 Use IFTTT to find PR opportunities
IFTTT (If This Than That) is a site that lets you create “recipes” that trigger one thing when something else happens. So use it to find PR opportunities on Twitter. Set up a recipe from Twitter to email (or even text if you’d like) so that any time the journalist hashtag #pprequest and your niche is used, you get an email alert.
#12 Use HARO
On the same note, use HARO (Help a Reporter Out) to get more press and links to your site. Sign up for free alerts for your industry and search through them daily to see if any fit your niche and your business.
#13 Run a blogger competition
Bloggers like to one-up their fellow bloggers, but they’re also extremely helpful and cooperative. And they gladly share each others’ posts and blogs, because they know other bloggers will do the same. So make use of this sharing tendency. Create a blogger competition where bloggers must write on a certain topic to enter. But here’s the catch! They also need to spread the word and nominate other bloggers for the competition. It’s a great way to get other bloggers involved, and spread the word about your competition and your link. Leverage technology with a competition engine like Gleam.io to make the process easier.
#14 Remedy broken links
But on other sites. If you come across a broken link on a website, reach out to the blogger. Let them know they have a broken link, and suggest one of your similar posts to replace it with. Chances are they will be so grateful that you pointed out the error in their site, that they will gladly replace the broken one with yours. They have commercial grade tools available to scale this type of outreach but be prepared to kiss a lot of frogs before generating a decent amount of links.
#15 Broken links on turbo
Don’t just stop there with the broken links. Toss that broken link into Open Source Explorer and find other sites that have linked to it. Now reach out to those sites as well, suggesting one of your links to replace it. Make sure you pick one of your links that fits the website or blog post to really boost your chances that they will accept your link.
#16 Get your customers to link to your site
If you have an intake form for your business, include a spot for them to leave their website URL, if they have a site. Keep track of these customers, and create a separate mailing list for those with a website. Send this list links to your most valuable content, free stuff, useful infographics with your link embedded, etc. and let them know they are free to share or use it in their content. You already know they have website, so the more valuable the content you share, the more likely they are to use it on their own site.
#17 Find who is linking to your competitors
Use the Clique Hunter tool offered by Majestic SEO. Plug in competitor URLs to help you quickly and easily find who is linking to them. Use this information to reach out regarding adding your own link, guest posting opportunities, collaborations and more.
#18 Beat the competition
You have an idea of who is linking to your competition. Now, use a tool like BuzzSumo or Ahrefs to you find posts that have a lot of links. Your job is to create a piece of content that is similar but better! We call this the SkyScraper technique. If a post is a top 10 post, create a top 25 list. If a post states some facts but doesn’t back it up properly, create way that is packed full of researched statistics and case studies. Now reach out to the sites that are linking to those other posts and see if they would consider linking to your new article.
#19 Comments on other blogs
It may sound simple, it may even seem like an afterthought. But commenting on competitor blogs is a great way to not only gain backlinks but to gain traffic. Many blog commenting systems allow you to put your website URL into their fields, along with your name and e-mail address. So whenever you leave a comment it automatically links back to your website. Sure, it’s usually a No-Follow link, but this could lead to a more referral traffic, awareness about your product and potentially inclusion in a future article.
#20 Mention bloggers in your posts
When writing a blog post, mention other bloggers, or use their site as an example of something great. You may already do this, but the step you could be missing is letting them know. Reach out through email or Twitter with a simple message saying you mentioned them in your post and your link. They will do the rest. They may share it on social media, on their newsletter or even keep you in mind for future linking to return the favor. Building quality backlinks via blogger outreach that actually raise your status with Google is no easy feat. To help give you some more perspective, we posed this question to SEO agency experts: How do you go about your blogger outreach? Please share any favorite tactics, tools or partners you use to attract quality links for your clients. Here is how the experts weighed in.
Digital Agency Approach (Ecommerce Development / Website Development)
As far as blogger outreach is concerned, we would like to mention that over the years there has been a drastic change in the way bloggers outreach has been done. For us blogger outreach is not just another SEO activity rather we consider it an opportunity to get connected with your audience in a substantial way.
We do Blogger Outreach considering the number of SEO and Social factors and our major parameters are:
- Understanding the Need of the Bloggers and users
- Domain Authority of the Blogging Website
- Exploring the most followed social influencers and opinion leaders of the industry
- Setting Goals
- Finding the Relevant Bloggers
- Collaborate with the Top Bloggers
Though, there are now many tools available for doing Blogger Outreach however we mostly trust the following tools in order to get deeper into the Blogger Outreach:
- BuzzSumo – For checking the most trending content topics
- SEMRush/Moz – For knowing the domain authority and other SEO parameters
- UbberSuggest – For finding the best keywords
- Hashtagify – For finding the most trending and popular #Hashtags
by Blake Nolan, Chief Strategy Officer at Storm Brain
Don’t Let A Mention Go Unlinked
Ahrefs has a great feature that will alert you to potential client brand mentions. We set this up for our sites as well as for our clients, and we check out the ones that look promising.
When you do get an unlinked mention – reach out politely to ask if they would consider turning it into a branded link back to your site.
by Chris Sloane, Owner at Heaviside Group
Unlinked Mentions
Using advanced searches to find online mentions (citations) of a specific brand—or anything directly related to it without links. There are several ways to find these opportunities whether using Advacbed Google operators or using tools like Moz or Ahrefs. Once you’ve compiled a list of potential targets its time to do outreach. The key to success with this tactic is to keep at it and getting in front of the right person who can help.
by Ilan Shabad, Head of SEO at One Egg Digital
Simple and Effective Blog Outreach Tips
Create Truly Exceptional Content.
Identify Influencers and outreach websites Using Search Operators, it should be industry-relevant.
Develop a Powerful Pitch and send a request.
Draft content according to their guidelines and include author details in every post with your brand link.
Try to mention your blog link related to the topic as a reference in the body content.
Be genuine and use your real profile for blog outreach.
by Matthew Fritschle, Content Strategist at Aumcore
Graphic Design Partnership
Creating custom graphics for posts and pages requires a lot of work and it’s often something bloggers either struggle to do or would happily have taken off their hands. There are a lot of different online graphic design agencies out there like Design Pickle or Flocksy that can create designs for you at scale. I use one of these services myself. It not only meets the design needs of my clients, but can also be leveraged as a resource for link building. I’ll offer a blog or business a certain number of graphic design deliverables a year in exchange for a partnership link. The unlimited graphic design service I use handles all of the work, so I don’t really have to do anything and I earn a link in return. This process is scalable and can be used with dozens of sites, because these graphic design services come with the bandwidth to increase production. This link building tactic is a great way to get local links, because local businesses and non-profits often have the greatest need for design help.
by David Kranker, Owner/Digital Marketer at David Kranker Creative
My 8 Rules for Outreach
Read the about me page.
Create a network instead of running a campaign
Be specific
Try reaching out to the little people
Create linkable assets with the bloggers’ audiences in mind not yourself
Create a multi-channel plan before reaching out
Create audience personas
Connect with your bloggers on a personal level
by Kristen Matthews, Director of Digital Marketing at GroupHigh
Don’t Be a Jerk
Personalized outreach is amazing outreach. Make sure your initial email contains these elements:
Evoke curiosity with your subject lin
Show them you know them
Avoid fake flattery
Explain why you’re contacting them
End with a clear call to action
Only use your best work
by Joshua Hardwick, Head of Content at Ahrefs