Link building is a vital part of off-page SEO strategy. However, managing off-page SEO means that you cannot control the sources and volume of these links. So, the question is:

How to build a backlink SEO campaign that works?

How do you convince influencers to allow you to fetch backlinks from their blog? Through this article, I’ll show you how to do it via blogger outreach. For easy understanding, I’ve broken the process into four sections:

1. How to find the right prospects?
2. How to engage with these bloggers?
3. A few tactics for building quality backlinks
4. Compiling and analyzing the results

But first…

Why Backlinks?

Simply put, backlinks bring traffic for your website.

Building backlinks means that your website receives a link from another website that directs back to yours. The greater the credibility and authority these sites linking to your website hold, the higher your website climbs in the search results.

Nevertheless, Link building calls for time, patience, and consistent effort. Using blogger outreach can help you create a quality backlink campaign. Having said that, it requires building relationships with bloggers, and we all know that relationships aren’t built overnight!

So, you may ask, is it worth it? I’d say…totally.

What is Blogger Outreach?

If you are familiar with influencer marketing, blogger outreach won’t strike you as an alien concept. In fact, blogger outreach is a form of influencer marketing, where you leverage the fan-base of the blogger for getting traffic to your site.

In other words, you look for a blogger-influencer who has gathered thousands of fans and tons of daily traffic within your niche. You essentially seek their permission to tap into their traffic via guest posting on their website and social media channels.

This is indeed a great idea to fetch exposure and get more of relevant audience on your website. Now this is possible only if you choose the right bloggers who can influence an audience that matters.

Bloggers, especially those who have huge social media following, now hold a lot of power. A backlink from their website can work wonders for your SEO strategy. Beyond that, building a strong relationship with these influencers can also:

• Drive referral traffic to your website via social media
• Grow your network
• Boost the chances of natural link building

Undoubtedly, blogger outreach is a win-win situation when it comes to building effective backlinks.

So, how do you do it? Let’s have a look…

1. How to find the right prospects?

The very first step towards the success of your influencer campaign is to find the relevant influencers. You need to find the ones who not only relate to your niche but also are active and have a lot of followers.

Finding the right prospects is easier than it sounds, but it requires time. A lot of time! The best way to do so is by using a spreadsheet to maintain a record of influential bloggers you come across.

Further, you can try some of the following tips to look for prospective influencers in your niche.

• Hunt through Blog Directories

  You can find almost anything on the internet these days; this includes blog directories as well. These blog directories help bloggers to list their sites, which in turn are made available to other bloggers and people like you to help easily locate each other. All you need to do is access the directory, and find and match the prospects you are looking for.
  

  Some examples of blog directories are listed below:

• www.bloglovin.com
• www.blogs.botw.org
• www.ontoplist.com
• www.icerocket.com

• Chase comments on blogs

  

  Though it may seem like finding a needle in a haystack, finding bloggers in comments on blogs is a lot easier. Why? Because you may notice that a majority of the comments are from other bloggers. Since most of these bloggers may be struggling with problems that the author may just have solved for them, they leave a comment on the article.

  This is actually a very common practice. So, you can easily scroll through some popular blogs and search through the comments section within them. Soon, you’ll be able to find a few bloggers you can reach out to.

• Keep an eye on your competitors

  If your competitors are doing well with their SEO efforts, there is a pretty good chance that their backlinking approach is effective and fruitful. In fact, people are probably linking out to them. But who are these people?

  To know the answer, you can make use of SEO “spy” tools that let you spy on your competitors. You can easily track their backlinks using these tools. And if people are linking to your competitor, there is no reason they won’t link to you as well.

  For example, SpyFu is one such SEO tool that allows you to spy on your competitors and see what they are doing, including the source of their precious incoming links. Moreover, it allows you to download a copy of their backlink profile which you can use to devise a plan of action for your own backlinking campaign.

• Google is your best friend

  

  Google never fails to find relevant results for any search. You can use Google to find relevant bloggers who are willing to accept guest posts. All you need to do is to use the right set of keywords.

  For example, “write for us” can bring up some promising results. You can try putting in variations of these terms, such as “guest post”, “product review”, and more.

2. How to engage with these bloggers?

Forging relationships with the bloggers can surely help you secure backlinks through blogger outreach. The stronger the relationships you maintain with the blogger, the longer the benefits can last for you. In other words, you’ll keep on receiving inbound links from them.

As we all know, blogger outreach can be a bit difficult at times. However, if carried out in a planned way, it can be the simplest technique to build links. Here are a few tips that you can use to nurture your relationships with these influencers and ask them for links.

• Indulge in to know about the blogger

Influencers are a big deal. As with any individual, they like to be appreciated for the position they hold. In other words, the more you know about the bloggers, the better are your chances to convince them to work with you and provide you a backlink.

Whatever you write about for your guest post, just make sure that it’s in line with their target audience and matches their values and style of writing.

For example:

• How lengthy and detailed content do they usually post?
• What’s their tone of writing?
• What’s their level of expertise?

• Communication is the foundation of your relationship

Free flow of communication is the foundation of any relationship and this holds true to blogger outreach as well.

Time is of the utmost importance for popular bloggers and you must make sure that you value their time. Not only should you get back to them with timely replies, but also clearly specify what you intend to achieve with a guest post.

• Begin by linking to them first

You can simply link to them first, just as a friendly gesture. The more you link out to the influencers first, the more you can urge and convince them later to reciprocate this gesture.

The motive is to get noticed. And you can surely do it if you start tagging these influencers on your social media posts.

• Leave comments on their content

If you’ve joined any facebook group, then you might notice one or two other members who clearly stand out from the rest in the group. You know them inside out, what they do and what their preferences are.

For example, there’s this anonymous blogger who was active on a facebook group, with his comments and eventually, the founder of the group asked him to become an admin. Just imagine how many links he’d be getting now! All of this probably happened just because he was an active member of the group.

Find the prospects you’d want to connect with subsequently and start leaving authentic comments on their content. This would help create a healthy long-term relationship with them.

3. A few tactics for quality backlinks

So you’ve sorted out the prospects that fit your needs the best. And you’ve already gained their attention.  Now it’s time to execute your link building campaign strategy.

• Seek contribution to a single piece of content

This tip can work wonders every time you seek contribution. Start by identifying the niche and topic to write about.

Now you need to pick a format, whether you aspire to write an e-book or a long-form blog post or compile a physical book.

By now, you will surely have a wish-list of influencers and good relationships with them if you’ve followed on the first two pieces of advice. Draw your wishlist to come up with the potential contributors to your content.

To help you pick the best ones, you can:

• Look for someone with expertise on the chosen topic
• Make sure they have a large social media fanbase.

By now, you will probably who you wish to contribute to and stand a pretty good chance that they might already know you. If you’ve got yourself noticed, you definitely will have the right connections!

Reach out to your prospects and ask them to contribute their words to your topic. How much you wish them to contribute to your topic is entirely your call. Maybe, you can invite them to contribute a whole chapter on the topic or just give a small comment.

For obvious reasons, you may need to offer them something in exchange for their time, effort, and contribution.  You may even need to pay them, besides just exchanging a link. That’s entirely fair, so if you need to do it, don’t hesitate. Apart from this, if you can offer them something for free, such as a sample of your product, or your service, it will make your relationship with the blogger even stronger.

Once the piece of content is done, let everyone in your contact know about it. They’ll be more than happy to share your contributions to their audience. In return, you’ll get lots and lots of links.

What’s more, there are chances that your friendship won’t end there. The more you nurture the relationship with the influencer friends, the greater are the chances that your friends will reciprocate the gesture. They may even ask you to contribute to them and this would mean even more links for your website.

• You need to write the best guest post

Guest posting is amongst the most effective outreach tactics there are. You pitch a piece of content to an influencer and request them to publish it on their blog.

In fact, guest posting on sites such as The Huffington Post or The Medium is so invaluable that contributors are only concerned about the link juice it would fetch for them. They are not at all bothered whether they get paid for their contribution.

As we’ve already covered how to prospect perfect guest posting opportunities, all you need now is to fine-tune your pitch as well as what you’ll write about.

The best way to undertake this task is to know the influencers you are chasing inside-out. Ideally, you should try to understand some of the things such as:

• The type of audience they have
• The reason they write
• The type of content they put up

You can also get an idea from the already published guest posts on their blog. Try to know what these guest posts are like, how popular they are, and which are the type of posts performing the best.

Before you pitch your idea, make sure you:

• Go through their guidelines
• Personalize your pitch
• Introduce yourself
• Convince them why you are a great guest blogger

Remember that guest posts are not meant to be about you or your product. Rather, they are all about delivering value to the audience, be it yours or theirs.

4. Compiling and analyzing the results

While you are outreaching influencers and making new friends, make sure that your efforts deliver the results that they are expected to.

Remember that your aim is to acquire more traffic and not getting to know new people. In order to stay on track, you need to compile your results to make sure you are doing it the right way. Or else, all you’ll have at the end of the day is just another online friend.

For example, you can make use of Google Analytics to track the results of your efforts. All you need is to create a single segment for all the guest posts you’ve ever contributed.

This would allow you to see the data related to your backlink building  efforts, including the traffic and conversions you’ve received.

Let’s Wrap It Up

Link building through blogger outreach is as easy as making friends with these bloggers and guest posting for them. All you need to do is foster a healthy relationship with these influencers.

All in all, it’s a three-step process:

• Prospecting relevant bloggers
• Getting noticed by them
• Sharing an exemplary piece of guest post content with them

Share this piece of article if you like it. Let’s make link building easier for all.

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