For a very long time, backlinks have been one of the top-ranking factors for search engines. However, search engines like Google have punished sites that try to cheat the system by buying backlinks from authoritative sources.
So, if you can’t buy links anymore, how can you get backlinks for your content? The answer is blogger outreach.
Think about it: Writers want to link to high-quality, credible sources to support their claims. Why shouldn’t your site be the one they link to?
Getting backlinks naturally doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, effective link-building outreach is a whole lot easier than people think.
In this guide, you will learn:
- What blogger outreach is
- Why getting links naturally is important
- How to find websites with link-building opportunities
- How to create the perfect outreach message
- Content strategies that attract backlinks
What is Blogger Outreach
Blogger outreach is the process of contacting bloggers to promote your brand with either a written article about your brand or a backlink to your website. It’s important to build long-term relationships with these bloggers so you can continue to get relevant links without having to build new relationships.
The goal of link-building with blogger outreach is to build authority and trust in the eyes of search engines. It can also be a great way to bring in more traffic directly from the website you were linked to.
When contacting other websites, you should look for niche-relevant, high-quality content that will help attract your ideal target market.
Why Building Links Organically is Important
As mentioned earlier, it is very easy to buy backlinks from sellers who promise the world and the #1 rankings you have been dreaming about. However, this is super risky and against Google’s guidelines/recommendations.
If Google catches you trying to cheat the system, they will give you a backlink penalty. This will not only guarantee you will lose almost all of your rankings; it is nearly impossible to recover from. Once you are caught, Google loses all the trust it once had in your site and will put it towards your competitors.
Building links organically avoids any chances of getting a penalty and slowly lets search engines know that you’re a trustworthy source that should be ranked.
Natural Link-Building Advantages
- Higher search engine rankings: When you get a link from another reputable website, search engines see this as a sign of value. It directly transfers some of the trust they gained to your site. Getting these types of links consistently will help push your website higher in search results.
- Improved domain authority: The stronger your backlink profile, the more authority your site will have. If your site is filled with low-quality spam links, it will send a bad look to search engines, taking away your credibility. This is why it’s important you build your backlink profile with as many high-quality links as you can. The higher your authority, the more that search engines will trust you.
- Increased organic traffic: As your search rankings increase, you will, of course, get more organic traffic. This traffic is super high-quality because it comes from users searching for that exact piece of content.
- Long-term benefits: Unlike paid link building, which is for quick results that die out quickly, organic links have a much longer impact on your SEO strategy. This will lead to rankings that won’t just disappear overnight.
Identifying Websites with Link Opportunities
Now you know what blogger outreach is and how it can benefit your site. It’s time to figure out how to find websites you can reach out to for the most success. The majority of bloggers and site owners want to make sure that their content is high-quality and held up to a certain standard.
We can take advantage of this by finding opportunities to improve aspects of their content and reaching out to them, showing them the problem and why you are the solution.
The first thing you should do is put together a list of niche-related sites with good domain authority. This list will serve as the basis for all the link-building strategies we will cover.
Broken Link Building
Sometimes, websites link to a credible source, but that source can later be taken down for various reasons, resulting in a broken link in their content. Broken links can often go unnoticed for long periods of time as these websites regularly link to hundreds, if not thousands, of sources.
This is where you can come in. You first want to figure out why they linked to that source and what it was about. You can then use a related piece of content on your website to replace the outdated link. If you don’t have a related piece of content, you can also write something new, which would make you one of the most updated sources, giving that webmaster another reason to pick you.
How to Find Broken Link-Building Opportunities
If you have the right budget, you can use tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to find link opportunities. I personally prefer Ahrefs, but it depends on your overall SEO goals and what works best for your brand.
If you are looking for a good free option, you can use the broken link finder from Any Software You Want.
Go through the niche-relevant website list you put together earlier and scan them for any broken links. Resource pages are typically where most of the broken links will be, as these pages have a lot of outbound links.
Once you have found the links, you can create the content that will replace them and then craft your outreach message.
Guest Posting
Guest posting is when you write and publish an article on someone else’s website or blog. The goal is to include one or more links to your own website. This is one of the most popular ways of getting niche-relevant backlinks from authoritative sources. The reason guest posting is so popular is that it is a win-win scenario for both you and the webmaster.
While it’s one of the most effective outreach methods, it comes with challenges of its own. You first have to find websites that accept guest posts. Fortunately, a lot of them do, as long as you are able to meet their requirements.
Most blogs have requirements for ensuring that their site’s content is relevant and high-quality. These might include avoiding AI-generated content, avoiding unrelated content, writing a certain number of words, and following any other guidelines the webmaster might have.
It’s important to reach out before you write any content to make sure you are able to meet their requirements. When reaching out to them, you should give them multiple topics/titles to choose from that would be relevant to the stuff they are already posting.
Remember that these sites will most likely receive a large number of emails offering guest post-writing opportunities. Offering them multiple options and showing that you have researched them a bit goes a long way in building relationships.
Updated Information
This one is a lot more straightforward than the methods we have covered so far. When looking at the outbound links of your site list, see if anything looks outdated. Statistics are your best bet for finding outdated content, as new surveys and data come out every day.
For example, Google might have had X% of search engine share last year but only has X% this year. If any websites are still linking to last year’s source, you could write some content that has the updated statistics and have that site link to you instead.
This doesn’t just have to be with statistics. Some examples of information that always needs to be updated are strategies, tools, educational content, etc.
Competitor Backlinks
Your competitors are already ranking for your target keywords, so you should copy their strategies. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. You should frequently look at your competitor’s backlinks and see if you can get links from the same sites.
These are the websites that got Google to trust your competitors, meaning you can use the same links to get Google to trust YOU.
How to Find Your Competitor’s Backlinks
I recommend using Ahrefs for this. Not only do they make it easy to view your competitors, but they also make it super easy to analyze the backlink profile of any website. The profile shows you the authority, traffic, anchor text, and more of the site the link came from. You can then sort by websites with the highest authority.
Once you have put together a solid list of your competitor’s backlinks, see if you can “steal” or “takeover” their link by providing higher-quality content than your competitor. This not only boosts your authority but takes some of theirs away.
How to Craft Your Message
This is arguably one of the most important steps in the whole outreach process. You not only have to get someone to click and read your email, but you also have to show them why they should partner with you. These people get outreach emails every day, so if your message isn’t perfect, chances are it will just get marked as spam.
You want to make sure your email is personalized, engaging, and easy to respond to.
Personalization
Personalization is the key to getting the intended user to respond to your email and want to work with you. To best personalize an outreach message, research everything you can about the recipient.
You want them to feel important, and a great way to do this is to show that you spent time figuring out who they are before sending your email. You should include their name and any relevant details about their company or industry. Bringing up their past projects is another great way to show you have done your research.
Building a shared connection shows you’ve taken the time to understand their situation and you are trying to help.
Subject Line
The subject line is the first thing the recipient sees before clicking on your email. You want something that stands out while still accurately describing your message.
Here are some guidelines you can check off for creating the best subject line:
- Keeping it short: Long subject lines will be cut off on smaller devices. Since the majority of emails are opened on mobile devices, keeping the subject line short is essential for the highest open rates.
- Bring out curiosity: You should briefly describe what your email is about but leave something out that will force the reader to click the email if they want to learn more.
- Show your value: Give the recipient a reason to click on your email. If it looks like another marketing email, they will ignore it. Show them you are worth something by including some of the benefits they might get from reading your outreach message.
- Avoid clickbait: Clickbaity subject lines make you lose all credibility. They might lead to higher open rates, but in the end, people will be more annoyed with you and click away as soon as they realize you aren’t offering what you promised.
Examples of a good subject line for link-building outreach:
- “Ideas for [company] to achieve [goal]”
- “How can we help [company] achieve [benefit]?”
- “[First name], here’s how we can help [company]”
Personalized subject lines with names and company names are 50% more likely to be opened.
Hook
The hook is how you keep the reader interested after they have clicked on your email. For this type of outreach message, your hook should show them the problem and ask them a question.
For example: “We noticed your page (insert page title/link) is linking out to some pretty outdated data. We recently put together an article with up-to-date data on (outdated data metrics). Would you be interested in fixing (problem) with no extra work?”
This shows them the problem, the solution, and exactly how easy it is for them to do. Depending on the link-building outreach strategy you are using, your hook should always engage the reader and give them a reason to keep reading.
Body Text
The body text is where you include all of the details about your message. Here, you can briefly describe who you are and how you found them and provide more details about exactly what you are offering. The body text is where a lot of the trust is built after you get them engaged with the hook and subject line.
You should not only show them the problem and solution but also explain why your solution works and how it has worked for other companies. People like results, so show them that you can provide them.
Following up
A lot of people won’t reply to your first email. They may be busy or just think what you are offering isn’t quite worth their time. Fortunately, people like effort; this is what follow-up emails are for. It shows them that you want to earn their business and that you are willing to put in the work.
It is recommended to wait 3-7 days before sending a follow-up email. After that, you can follow up every week. It is important that you don’t bother them too much, or you might get marked as spam, which can hurt the deliverability of your other emails. 2-3 follow-up emails are usually the perfect amount before people start becoming more annoyed than interested.
Read more about how to track your email campaigns: Top Email Marketing KPIs
3 Content Strategies to Stand Out
Your outreach means nothing if your content doesn’t stand out from the rest. That’s why I’ve put together a list of the top 3 content strategies that I’ve seen for the best responses.
1. Skyscraper Technique
The skyscraper technique involves finding content that is already ranking for a particular topic and improving it. For example, you might write about all the same topics but also include some topics they didn’t mention.
Now that your page has more value than the original one, you can reach out to all of the websites that are linked to the original source and ask them to link to your improved version instead. The goal is called the skyscraper technique because you are “outdoing” the existing content like a taller skyscraper.
2. Updated Facts and Statistics
Find niche-relevant articles that haven’t been updated in a while. There is a very good chance they have some facts and statistics that have changed since the time they initially published that article.
You should now find the updated facts and either write another article about them or add them to one of your existing related pages.
Once this is done, you can contact any website linking to the article for those facts and let them know you have an updated version. They will most likely choose to update their backlinks to your site because they want their content to be updated as well.
3. High-Quality Visuals
This strategy is often overlooked because it takes more effort, but it can get good results if done correctly. Visuals aren’t just images added to articles; they can be relevant infographics, videos, and examples.
They are super easy to share and can generate a backlink whenever someone wants to use the same visuals on their own website.
For example, you can write about how AI models compare to each other all you want, but people will be much more engaged with a chart showing exactly how different they are. In fact, it is said that visual content gets 94% more views than text content.
Frequently asked questions
How Many Outreach Messages Should I Send?
When starting out, you should send between 10 and 20 emails every day. This should generate a good number of monthly leads while keeping you out of spam inboxes. However, this number can change depending on your industry, email list quality, and how well your email is warmed up. It also changes depending on how competitive your niche is. Some niches will require significantly more work than others.
Is Link Building With Outreach a One-Time Thing?
No, link-building with outreach is not a one-time event. It’s an ongoing process that requires consistent effort to maintain and grow your website’s backlink profile and search engine ranking. To acquire backlinks over time, you need to regularly identify new opportunities, reach out to relevant websites, and nurture relationships.
How Many Backlinks Should I Try to Get With Outreach?
You should focus on quality over quantity. While there is no single “ideal” number of backlinks everyone should aim for, you should remember that a few quality backlinks are better than hundreds of spammy ones.
A good way to measure the number of links you should receive is to see how many links your competitors receive each month. If it worked for them, it will most likely work for you as well.
Wrapping It Up
Now you know everything there is about link-building with blogger outreach, from finding websites, creating content, and crafting the perfect outreach messages. Remember, it may take a lot of effort, but it will be worth it in the long run when you rank at the top for all of your keywords.
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