How to Contact Other Blog Owners for Link Building

Today we’re going to go over a method that is unlike any other method you have read online.

We are not going to go over any ruses to trick other web owners into linking to us, or any strategies that may become outdated in the future.

Instead, we’re going to go over how you can contact other web and blog owners in order to gain extremely powerful links and to create a powerful relationship.

Unfortunately, many people today think that outreach means spamming a bunch of web owners. They send out hundreds of e-mails hoping that they’ll get at least one response and a few good links. We are not going to teach you that strategy; instead today we’re going to teach you how we’ve been able to get up to a 50% positive response rate to our contacts with other blog owners. This strategy does take work, but unlike other strategies that you’ll find online.

 

Before Outreach

Any good outreach campaign needs a lot of work done before you ever actually start reaching out to other blog and web owners.

The first thing you need to do is define your offer…

what are you offering to other web owners?

Why would they ever want to link to you?

Sit down and write down exactly what your offer is that you want other web owners to know and understand.

Then I want you to sit down and write out what product you offer to consumers. This should be easier for you since you should obviously know your own product; make sure that you write down these things in as much detail as possible, as the more detail you use, the easier it will be to find the correct answers.

Then what we want you to do is figure out who your target audience is. This should be something that you should already have in your mind, but should be definitely something you keep in your mind while you’re preparing to outreach to other web and blog owners.

This way, when you’re researching what websites to contact, you’re only contacting websites that have an audience that pertains to your own product. This way you won’t seem irrelevant to the web owner, and the traffic that you gain directly from their website will end up converting on your own website.

 

Research

This is the part where most SEO guys really shine. Doing research to find the correct websites to outreach to, shouldn’t be a very difficult task. Feel free to use different operators in Google to try to find the correct websites, or use popular websites such as BuzzSumo.

I often use Buzz Sumo and just type in a related keyword site and find the top influencers and top websites in the same niche. This is very similar to doing competitive research, and should be treated in the same way.

The other option you have is just a basic Google search, which will usually result in a lot of great websites that you can link out to.

Make a list on Excel of the websites that you find, and how you plan on contacting them. List if they have an e-mail address or phone number that you can call, and put the e-mail address or phone number in your Excel sheet.

This will make outreach a lot quicker on the data you get around to it. You may also want to keep track of who has the highest page or domain authority, but these kinds of details are really up to you.

 

Who are you emailing?

Sometimes we forget that we are reaching out to editors or journalists that are in charge of these websites. Many times in our e-mails we will talk about things that won’t really matter to them, since we don’t think like they do.

Instead, just take a moment to think…

What would these people be looking for?

What type of content would they like to put on their website?

You need to show them that your content will help them gain more traction and release something exciting to their readers. They will want something new and cool to show off to the people who are reading their blog or website.

Keep this in mind while you are gathering information on these websites. Make a note if the e-mail goes to the editor, or if it goes to the actual owner of the website, this will help you in the long run so that you know exactly who you are going to be dealing with.

 

Creating your message

The key in this step is not spending hours creating a super long e-mail. In fact, the key isn’t sending out the same template to every single web owner.

What you will want to do is send out a quick short e-mail that shows these editors and web owners exactly what they get out of posting your content. Make it short and sweet; try to hook them as quickly as possible.

The subject line should basically tell them what you are giving them, keep it simple and direct.

Remember all web owners and editors are looking for something new and cool the put on their website anyway, so if you have one of these items that they’re looking for, in the subject of your e-mail, they are much more likely to open it than just some random e-mail that you try to trick them into opening.

The other plus is that you will have higher conversions since none of your strategies appears sketchy. You’d be surprised at how many people try to trick other people into posting their content, and how obvious this can appear to a web owner and how much it can really cost the sender in the long run.

If you want to get an idea of how our e-mails usually look, they usually are only about one sentence long, at max one line long. For instance, if you have just created a cool piece of content that you want them to promote we would just e-mail:

“{Website} just created a great piece of content about {topic} that contains interesting things like {something interesting}

I’d love for you to consider sharing it with your readers.

Thanks,

-{your name}”

Get the picture?

Seem simple enough?

Good that’s because it is, the simpler you keep it, the better results you will have. First off remember that most people read their e-mails on their cell phones, by keeping things short you will have a greater impact in a much more likely chance having your full e-mail actually read.

There also is a very simple call to action that usually results in some simple actions. It doesn’t create a complicated follow up, and there is a simple understanding between you and the web owner no one is trying to trick each other.

This is another reason why we get such high conversions by following this type of strategy, but is why we get so many more responses the most of our competitors do.

 

Things Not To Do

Here are some common pitfalls that you may see people doing when they do outreach. The first one is giving compliments. This may sound almost counter intuitive? After all you want to build up the ego of the people are talking to.

Unfortunately most people will give out compliments on a website that come off is extremely obvious, and leave the other website with no desire to try to link back to them.

Think about it as a web owner, don’t you realize when someone else is trying to gain a link from you? By giving compliments about the website, you’re just showing that you have an ulterior motive and that you shouldn’t be trusted at all.

Another mistake that people make is burying their message in unnecessary fluff.

They read the latest outreach strategies that are supposedly making people millions of dollars, and they try to fit it all into one message. If you have a new strategy that you like to use go for, don’t worry about it that’s how we gain new strategies to use.

However, before sending out an e-mail, read it over and ask yourself if it seems too complicated. You would be surprised how many times I read over the e-mails we were going to send out, and realize that they are almost impossible to understand.

As a rule of thumb if your e-mail is longer than four paragraphs, you probably have a lot of fluff that you can cut out; remember cutting out fluff will only increase your conversions and your opportunity to gain a higher response rate.

The last thing you will want to avoid is spamming other people in your niche. Just remember as a web owner, you most likely constantly see and receive e-mails that are basically just spam. How long does it usually take for you to realize that they’re spam? If you’re like me, it usually takes about 30 seconds, which isn’t long at all. If you are serious about getting results then put in the proper work when you’re outreaching to potential online business partners.

 

Conclusion

In conclusion, outreach is one of the most important parts of search engine optimization. Someone who is good at outreach can gain some incredible links that most people would only dream of having. Good outreach means that you can get more websites to link back to you, and to your viral content, than you would’ve had before.

This is why it is so important that you develop this skill; it will separate you from your competition. Imagine how much easier your life will be when you have a large list of people you can reach out to at any time to gain many links and thousands of visitors. If you properly build up your reputation and your outreach this will no longer be a dream, and will quickly become a reality.

Trust me when I say these strategies work, and when you start trying them out you will see some awesome results. The key is to just follow the advice that we have given above, and you will quickly see amazing results.

 
 
 
Author: Keyur Lalani
Courtesy: www.rankjane.com