The Blogger Outreach Tactics Your SEO Team Wants You to Learn

In an industry where content marketing is king, the most  successful blogger outreach establishes a mutual benefit: one that improves SEO for your client AND the blogger you reach out to.

Effective Internet marketers already have the necessary skill set to improve the SEO of any blog. Yet, much of blogger outreach is focused only on hosting the client’s content and improving the client’s SEO. Instead, delivering value to the bloggers’ SEO will have bloggers knocking at the door for your content.

This post will show you ways SEO skills can help build mutually beneficial relationships with bloggers broken down into 5 different parts:

* Building .edu and .gov links
* Increasing reach and building authority in forums
* Directories: The perils of co-citation
* 8 guest post tips to increase mutual benefit and improve SEO

One of the main goals in SEO is developing inbound links from authoritative sources in a target industry. Often, the most authoritative links are .gov and .edu links.

What’s the added bonus to .edu links? You’re providing content to a generation that loves viral marketing. Give students something worth talking about, and your message will reach further than any SEO could have benefited.

How To Build .edu Links

If you’re trying to build an .edu link, one point of contact should be the College Career Center, since many career centers have a blog presence. Some colleges have ventured into YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. Choose which channel is best for your message.

Again, the focus should be mutual benefit marketing. What can you provide to a college that will be worthy of an .edu link? Mostly, this falls under educational videos or linkbaits.

Some pitch ideas:

• Apps That Will Help You Succeed in {Insert Major}
• Networking 101: Five Forums {Insert Major} Should Participate In
• How to Build a Career in {Insert Major}
• New Trends in {Insert Major} Industry

Important factor: the topic of your pitch has to be relevant to a major that is provided at that University. If you’re pitching a College of Nursing on, “How to Build a Career as a Stylist” chances are the recipient will fail to see the mutual benefit.

How To Build .gov Links

Do a search for “inurl:.gov keyword” and you’re likely to find an industry related to your blog.

Here’s the catch: college administrators are open to guest posts educating their students, government officials are not. You will rarely find an opportunity to guest post on a .gov. Guest posts on .gov are typically open only to other government officials.

So, is there a mutual benefit marketing approach to building a relationship with a  .gov site that may result in some link love? Certainly…

Focus your tactics on interviewing specific .gov professionals. In turn, they’ll love you for supporting the fact that they’re the “go to” in the industry. Post the interview on your site, and more often than not, that .gov will link back to your interview. After all, who doesn’t want to promote the fact that they were interviewed?

Examples of Agencies you can Interview:

• Visitors Bureaus
  • Ex. http://www.nyc.gov/
  • Industry: Travel and Tourism
• Healthcare
  • Ex. http://www.healthcare.gov/blog/
  • Industry: Doctors, Nurses, Healthcare
• Education
  • Ex. http://www.stopbullying.gov
  • Ex. http://www.choosemyplate.gov/
  • Industry: Mommy blogs, Foodie blogs

The key is to get far down into the website until you find a specific individual to reach out to. Instead of sending an email to about@florida.gov, try to find Kelsey@florida.gov. Otherwise, you’re taking a risk that your email will be lost in a flood.

Forums are one of the best channels for reaching out to people that are interested in your industry. Scoring a link is great, but combine it with reach and word of mouth, and it’s even better.

How to Build Authority in Forums

In order to prevent spammers from taking over forums, the forum administrators will have established measures to prevent linking. In forums, dofollow links need to be earned. This doesn’t mean they’re impossible to gain!

If you’re in blogger outreach for the long haul, you should register at several relevant forums. Most forums require you to be a member for 30-90 days and have an undefined number of comments in the threads before you are granted a dofollow conditios. SEO aside, you should be involved in forums to build a voice of authority in your industry.

Not all forums are created equal. There are a few conditions you want to check off your list before taking the time to build this relationship.

Checklist: Is this Forum Worth My Time?

Step 1: SEO ✓

Find a URL within one of the threads. Highlight the URL along with some surrounded text. Right click, and select “Source Code.”

Do a CTRL+F to find the condition “nofollow.” If it is present, it means you will not gain link juice from listing a URL. If it is not present, then the links will provide link juice. Check several links to determine whether signature links or comments links provide “dofollow.”

Step 2: Reach ✓

Even if links are “nofollow,” forum participation may be worth your time.

Check to see if the number of unique visitors is high through Compete. If the UV is over 10,000, then it may be worth posting because participation increases your reach. In this case, make your username your brand name, and post on topics that are related to your niche.

Directories are ready resources for building links. Similar to forums, some directories provide “dofollow” links where others don’t.

Directories also present a risk for bloggers, known as co-citation.

The Co-citation Equation:

What many bloggers overlook is is the fact that spiders also evaluates the other blogs listed in the fitness category.  If there are irrelevant, or worse inappropriate, blogs listed under the same category, you will be pegged as inappropriate.

3 Questions To Ask a Directory 

 

1. Does my website logically fit into any of these categories?

When you submit your blog to a top category, you risk being co-cited with an unrelated blog. Your goal is to submit your blog as deep into the categories as you can, thus improving the odds that your blog will only relate to other sites in your niche.

Example: Your website provides running shoes for women.  What category should you place your blog in?

• Good Answer: Top: Shopping/Clothing/Womens/Footwear/Athletic
• Bad Answer: Shopping

2. Is this directory big enough to attract viewers?

Some directories only have a few blogs listed in a few categories. Try to aim for directories that have at least 10 blogs listed in each category.

It’s also a  good idea to check the traffic a directory receives. A directory may appear to be stellar, but the unique visitors will tell the truth.

3. Is this directory going to provide me with dofollow links?

Again, do the source code CTRL+F to find if there is a “nofollow” condition. Measure the unique visitors against a nofollow condition to see if its worth your time.

1. Provide SEO Tips to the Blogger

Blogger outreach is a give and take. If you’re always pushing content, and never giving back, bloggers will be missing out on any mutual benefit.

Use your SEO knowledge and tools to help your blogger improve their site. For example, inform the blogger of:

• A broken link on their site
• A social media icon that points to the wrong account
• A misspelling within one of their articles

2. Use Keyword Focused Anchor Text

Incorporate your link within the content, not as a byline. When you incorporate the link, make sure the anchor text is a keyword phrase that relates to your industry.  This helps the blogger, the post and your client rank for the related keyword.

If you were a car insurance company, for example:

• Bad Example: “When you’re out driving in the rain.”
• Okay Example: “Guest post by Company Name”
• Best Example: “If you’re looking for cheap car insurance”

3. Make Your Comments Stand Out 

Commenting on posts is a great way to get the bloggers attention. Look for a post that isn’t flooded with comments, this will help you stand out. Bloggers also appreciate when there are more comments on a variety of their posts.

4. Stand Out to the Readers and the Editor

Try to comment on posts that were written by  the person you are going to reach out to. With larger blogs, there are usually multiple editors, so find your point of contact first. Bloggers always appreciate comments. Adding your name to the blogger’s comments will help establish a relationship, and enable you to stand out in a future conversation.

An even better objective is commenting on the blogger’s post that relates to a topic you’re going to pitch. This shows that you and the blogger have a mutual interest.

4. Comment Love That Builds SEO 

When commenting on a blog post, try to include related keywords. This improves the keyword density for the bloggers’ post. It validates to the search engines that this post is related to the keyword title.

Bloggers value SEO-ed comments more, and will remember it when you reach out. It may even inspire the blogger to comment back! Voilà, relationship established.

5. Instablogs Don’t Build SEO

A lot of larger blogs have set up “instablogs” where they give users a UN and PW to the site. This allows the guest bloggers to post related content whenever they like on their own instablog.

While the main blog provides dofollow links, many instablogs have the nofollow condition. Most large blogs will accept guest posts on their main blog, you just have to provide content that is up to par with the specific standards.

6. Sk.zip a Step, Make a Friend

The blogger approved your linkbait- congratulations! Now, save an extra step for both of you by separating the images out as separate .zip files. Trust me, most bloggers will ask for this anyway, so it’s better to do it from the get go.

Using Word, file save as “webpage, filtered.” This will create a separate folder on your desktop of all the images that were used within your article. Attach the separate images along with the article and everyone will be happy.

7. Reach Me, or Reach No One 

Reaching out to the wrong person will get your message nowhere, fast. To find the best person to reach out to, look at the “About Us” page, not the “Contact Us” page.

The “Contact Us” page usually has a general email. Instead, you want the email address of an editor or publisher. You also want a name to address the email to, not “Hello, Blank.”

8. Build a Mutually Beneficial Relationship 

Throughout this whole process it is important to remember the goal: establish a mutually beneficial relationship. Steps 1-8 will all help you succeed in your goal. You should also be establishing a relationship on as the social profiles that the blogger is on.

Comment on the bloggers posts, but also tweet their posts, give credit to bloggers Twitter account, like their Facebook page, and more. Help build the bloggers reputation, and they’ll be more likely to help you.

As Justin Sanger said, atomization, being seen everywhere, is the new SEO. In order to be seen everywhere, you need to start building valuable relationships. These relationships can’t just exist within our normal limits of .com’s and of Facebook pages, they need to exist with .edu’s and .gov’s, forums and social media.

We need to start stepping outside of the marketing box. It’s no longer just about pitching content, but also establishing a mutually beneficial relationship.

What new steps have you taken in your blogger outreach? Are there tactics that you find succeed, where others fail?