How to do Blogger outreach for backlink in 2021

 

  welcome to the final lesson in our link building module. 

Today, we're going to cover how to doblogger outreach that leads to backlinks. And this may very well be the most importantlesson in this entire module because nearly all link building tactics require somesort of email exchange.

 So today, we'll cover the primary objectiveof blogger outreach, two common approaches, and I'll break down the anatomy ofa good quality outreach email. Let's get started. So the primary objective of blogger outreachis to convince those with large targeted audiences to talk about you. And from the perspective of an SEO,you want them to link to your website. 

Now, outreach doesn't mean broadcasting,meaning, you shouldn't be sending every single person the exact same email likeyou would through email marketing. For example, this outreach email that I got iswhat typical blogger outreach looks like today. 

First of all, I can see that they didn't eventake a second to check what my name is when literally two-thirds of all pages on mypersonal site have my full name on them. Instead, they stuck with the generic "there,"used it in a mass mailing software, and broadcasted it out to hundreds, maybeeven thousands of people. 

But the name thing isn't that big of a deal. Second, this is clearly a generic templatedemail with zero consideration for the recipients. The person says "I'm writing becauseI saw your post here." Then they didn't even take a secondto proofread the email. And their justification for me to link tothem is because "it fits well in my post." On top of that, the person followed up withme three more times with nearly the exact same email all sent within the same 30-minute period.

 This, ladies and gentlemen, is called spam. And the results of these kinds ofemails lead to nothing. The page the person wanted me to link to gota total of 2 backlinks and both of them are irrelevant and look like they've been paid for. And those backlinks aren't moving the needlesince the page gets zero organic search visits.

 These kinds of emails along with hundredsof others in my inbox are prime examples of why you need to write good quality emails. Otherwise, you'll just blend in with the restof the spam people get on a daily basis. After all, these are unsolicited emails. Now, to be clear, it doesn't mean that youcan't use some sort of template to send a lot of emails efficiently. 

For example, I literally just got thisemail in my inbox and it says: "Hey Sam, I just published a roundup post about theBest Personal Blogs to Read and I featured you in it" -- and that's a link to his post. Then he explicitly says: "But I'm not looking for a share oranything like that. 

I just wanted to say thank you for all theinspiration you've brought to the blogosphere and digital marketing world. Best of luck in your endeavors and keep upthe good work on Ahrefs' YouTube channel." This email didn't come to my Ahrefsemail account. It came to the one on my personal site. 

So he clearly did a bit of digging beforesending the email and I'm sure he sent a similar message to all 117 peoplehe featured. So you might be thinking: what's the pointof this email if he's not asking for anything? We'll get to that later in this lesson. 

Now, the first email that I just showed you is oneof the common approaches to blogger outreach. It's called "the shotgun approach" where youbuild a broad list of targets, load them up into an outreach tool, and then blast outemails to anyone and everyone. The opposite approach to this isthe sniper method. 

This is when you choose targets carefullybased on a tight set of criteria and then send personalized emails. Of the two methods, we recommend going withthe sniper approach because shotgunning emails to anyone and everyone is a surefireway to burn bridges. Plus, no one likes spam. And for that reason, the rest of this lessonwill be centered around the sniper approach. 

So before we get into actually crafting youroutreach emails, let's quickly talk about who you should be contacting and howto find their email addresses. In general, you'll want to contact the authorof the post if they work for the website. For example, this is a post written byJoshua Hardwick on the Ahrefs blog. 

Seeing as his profile states: "Head of Content@ Ahrefs," you know he works there and controls what gets published on the Ahrefs' blog. Now, for this post by Josh, there wouldn'tbe any use in contacting him because he doesn't work for Sitepoint. 

In this case, you'd want to contactthe editor of the blog. To find who that person is, you can checkplaces like the website's About or Team page, their "Write for us" page if they haveone, or their company's LinkedIn profile. 

Now, to actually find the person's emailaddress, the easiest way is to check Contact and About pages. This works best for websites withone author. For websites that have multiple people involved,like Sitepoint or Ahrefs, you usually won't find individuals' email addresses on their site.

 So to find these emails, you can use a toollike Hunter.io, go to their email finder tool, and just search for their first and lastname as well as the domain. Hunter will then give you their best guess. In this case, they're wrong, but the successrate is generally quite high. Alright, so if you've done the work for thelessons in this module to this point, then you should have chosen one of the 3 tacticsI outlined, created a list of prospects, vetted your list, and found some email addresses.

 So it's time to actually write the pitch. Now, while there isn't exactly a streamlinedformula for every outreach email you send, I want to talk about the anatomy of a simpleoutreach email that has been effective for me for many years now. And there are 5 main parts to a typicaloutreach email. 

First is the subject line. The goal of the subject line is simplyto get them to open the email. Otherwise, there's no chance atgetting a response. But you don't want to clickbait them becausethat'll only leave a bad impression. So when you're writing a subject line, youwant to briefly and accurately describe why you're emailing them and ideally,evoke curiosity. 

If we look back at my guest blogging outreachemail from the previous lesson, I showed you a hypothetical pitch where I asked if Icould write a post for a golf site and share data I have on the best golf ballsfor high handicappers. So I might use a subject line like: "New data: best balls for high-handicappers." In my opinion, the "new data" part evokescuriosity and the rest of the subject line explains the topic of the email.

 The next part is the introduction. And while there are numerous ways to writean intro, I think it's best to start by telling them why you're emailing them. And the goal of this part is to get themto read the next part of the email. For example, with our guest postingsample email, I said: "I was digging through your site and saw thatyou have a couple of posts on the best golf balls for kids and for distance. 

But I was pretty surprised to see that youdon't have one for other types of players (ie. seniors)." Now, I will admit that the first sentence coulddefinitely be stronger, but I'm basically saying that you've done this and this, but lookslike you're missing out an opportunity here. The next part of the email is qualificationand justification. 

Simply asking someone for a favor and expectingthem to see a mutual benefit is naive. You need to show them why you'requalified and justify the pitch that we'll get to in a second. For example, if you're contacting someoneto guest post, then explain why they should accept your post over potentially hundredsof other submissions. 

If you're asking them to add your link toa page on their site, give them an actual good reason why they should. So in our guest posting sample, you'llsee that I said: "Being a high-handicapper myself, I spenthundreds of dollars on balls and countless hours on launch monitors to findthe best ball for me.

" So the fact that a I mention I'm a high handicapper  I've tested numerous balls and got afactual data from launch monitors, qualifies and justifies what I'm about to pitch, whichagain, is a guest post about the best golf balls for high handicappers. Now, to really drill in on the concept ofqualification and justification, let's look at an example email for the Skyscraper technique. 

A little while back, we did some outreachto get links to our blog post on SEO statistics. So we emailed people with an emailthat looked something like this: Hi [name], I saw you mentioned how 93% of online experiencesbegin with a search engine on your page about how to do keyword research.

" That's our reason for contact. We then went on to say: "That stat is actually 14 years old. More recent research (2021) suggests thatthis number has gone down to 68%. I think it's lower because social and othersources now account for around 1/3 of traffic." That's our qualification and justificationfor what we're about to pitch. And obviously, the next part ofthe email is the pitch.

 The pitch essentially includes your askas well as your value proposition. And generally speaking, the stronger yourvalue proposition, the higher the chance of getting a link. So for our guest posting example, I said: "If you're open, I'd love to write a post foryou about how to find the best golf balls for hacky golfers like myself." And here's my value proposition: "I'm happy to share all of the data and stats,which I think will help people make an informed decision as they shop through your store.

 So not only are they getting data for free,but I'm showing them how that can bring value to their bottom line. Now, it's not always easy to think ofa solid value proposition. For example, in our SEO stats email,our pitch was: "We published this and a few otherfresh SEO stats here: [link].

 Not sure if you're actively editing posts,but might be worth an update if you are? No pressure  So what exactly is the value proposition? 

We're helping bloggers keep theircontent up to date. In fact, we didn't even directly ask for a link,yet we were still able to pick up 27 backlinks.

 We actually have a full  serieson this exact case study, so I'll link that up in the description, and I highlyrecommend checking it out. Alright, the last part of the email is a simpleone-liner to keep the conversation rolling. 

Simply put, you don't want to end youremail with a cold hard pitch. The purpose of your first email shouldbe to start a conversation. So you might say something like… Is that something you'd be open to? Is there anything I missed?

 What do you think? Do you agree with our conclusion? Or whatever. Now, this is just a basic template youcan use as you start blogger outreach. But I don't want you to limit yourselfwithin this box. 

All you're really doing is talking to people and starting to build some kind of relationship. Just think about it like an in person encounter. You wouldn't go to a party and aska complete stranger to buy you a drink. 

You might strike up a conversation, connectwith them on a common interest, and maybe buy the first round of drinks expectingnothing in return. And as a result, they might want to reciprocateby returning an act of kindness. Again, the goal of the very first email yousend is simple: start a conversation. 

 this brings us back to thisoutreach email that I got. The person who mentioned me on their sitespecifically told me that he's not looking for a share or anything like that. And he literally just wants to say "thank you." So what did that accomplish? 

#1. I actually read his email. 

#2. I responded to him and said thanksfor the mention.

#3, should he email me again, I'll probablyopen it because I'll recognize his name. 

So while there will be times where it makessense to ask for the link or guest posting opportunity right away, there are a lot oftimes when it makes more sense to just start that conversation and see where it leads.

 The final tip I want to leave you with isto only use your best work when sending email pitches. You don't want to email anyone and everyonefor every single piece of content you create. For example, if you had a golf site and youcreated a post on a topic like… 

"what is a handicap," there's nothing interesting orunique about it yet it's still a topic you would probably want to cover. Coming up with a good reason for them tolink to you on this topic would be tough. Plus, time is finite.

 So it's worth doing outreach for your bestcontent because there's a higher probability that it'll result in backlinks. Alright, so with everything you've learnedup to this point, you should be able to create content for your website that'll gettraffic from search engines. 

But there's still one piece to the fundamentalsof SEO that we haven't covered and that's technical SEO. 

We'll be publishing that module first thing next blog so make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on that.