It’s more important than ever to build strong relationships with influential bloggers, especially those who are considered experts in your field. It’s easy to send out blanket emails requesting opportunities to post on influential sites, clumsily fitting in a link to your site at the end of the post, but with the latest Google updates, this is no longer a technique that will get your rankings soaring, nor win you many fans.

Instead you must focus on the bigger picture which means you need to be thinking about more than just links. Brand awareness and quality over quantity is key. One great link can be worth a thousand low quality links. In this sense, making the most of your contacts and regularly building new ones is crucial for a successful strategy. This is something we emphasise on our SEO Training courses.

Imagine trying to sell a new energy drink that has no name, no logo or branding on the can and tastes exactly the same as every other energy drink on the market. Your only sales method is to shout at everyone you see in the street telling them that your energy drink is great and they’ll love it. Sure you might sell one or two but you’ll never get anyone coming back to buy it again.

A lot of guest blog requests are a bit like that: impersonal, badly written and no different to what everyone else is doing. Most bloggers will be receiving guest post requests on a daily basis, the overwhelming majority being from completely ‘cold’ sources, often written in broken English or with terrible grammar.

Instead, you should be aiming to be the Red Bull of bloggers. Build up your brand to the point that everyone knows who you are, people trust you as the leader in your niche and you’re seen to be delivering what people want.

If you can do this then business will be booming, traffic will be flowing in and you’ll get a much better ROI.

So how can you use outreach techniques to help you do this?

Find Influential Bloggers

A simple Google search will do wonders for finding the ‘thought leaders’ of your niche or you can also try using a tool like Followerwonk for finding influencers on Twitter or other social networks.

Another a great way to find these people is to simply meet them in person.

I don’t mean tracking down their phone number and trying to somehow arrange a personal meeting (unless you collect restraining orders as a hobby). Go to conferences and seminars in your specific field, listen to the speakers, and strike up a conversation after their talk.

People will always be more responsive to face-to-face contact and you’re more likely to be remembered, which means that when you go on to the steps below, you’ll already have an advantage.

Interact on their Blog

Commenting on personal posts is, and always has been, a great way to engage with influential bloggers.

By commenting, we mean adding value to the post. Don’t just comment to link to your blog for a start; that’s a pretty obvious no-no by now.

Don’t comment on everything either, instead comment only if you have something worthwhile, as well as original, to say. If someone has said something similar before, don’t bother!

Make the most of Social Media

Why would you send an email when you can tweet, like or share?

Social Media is the greatest tool at your disposal. Not only can you add influential bloggers and chat to them without coming across as a stalker, you can promote their content by sharing and liking (or +1-ing) it. Eventually, they might start to do the same for you.

Make sure you add a little compliment when you do share, like ‘Hey check out this awesome post by Blah-Blah, it really explains things well’. People love compliments, even if they pretend not to! If it’s on Twitter, @ them in your tweet; they’ll see it and probably drop you a little tweet back thanking you.

Don’t even think about asking for a link or for them to share your content at this point. Again, it’s about more than just getting a link, it’s about building a relationship that will do much more over time. SEOmoz’s Rand Fishkin explains this point well in this Whiteboard Friday video.

Maintain the relationship

Don’t just make contact once or twice and ask for a link or some help: keep regular, like you would in a real relationship. Connect with them on social media when it seems appropriate and you have something worthwhile to add. And take the hint if it looks like you’re annoying them.

Keep it casual; think of them as somewhere between an acquaintance and a friend and tailor your contact accordingly.

Being remembered is important. It may seem a bit gimmicky but why not try something like sending influential bloggers free merchandise. This isn’t the same as straight-up bribery. Instead, it means that when they come to write about your niche, your name will pop to mind: they’ll think ’Oh yeah so and so who sent me that free T-Shirt writes about this stuff, I’ll give them a mention’. This YouMoz post should give you some more ideas for ways to get yourself remembered.

Or if you don’t have anything physical to give away why not try helping people out? Keep an eye out on social media for influencers looking for a hand – site issues, questions that need answering, or even a lift home – if you help them out you’ll stick in their mind as a great person.

A good way to keep track of these relationships is to keep a database with information and contact details about each blogger and keep it updated with the progress/stage at which your relationship is at: someone you’ve been talking to for years will be more open to sharing your content than someone who you’ve only known for a few days.

Making sure you know who to target and with what is important and having a database will help you do this.

These techniques should help you build and sustain more effective relationships with other bloggers but this should only be one tactic in a broader SEO strategy. Learn how to fit blogging into your overall SEO strategy on our 1-day SEO workshop.

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Tags

blogger outreach, blogging, guest blogging, guest posting, link building, link earning, SEO, SEO skills

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