Blogger outreach, which is usually referred to as guest blogging, is a great way to get new visitors to your website. By writing a guest post for an influential website or blog within your industry you can gain exposure and raise awareness of your brand and yourself as an authority within the niche that you are operating. This can be hugely beneficial in terms of increasing traffic to your website and improving your rankings within the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

For many though, actually getting the opportunity to write a guest post on another website is much easier said than done. It’s rarely as simple as just finding a site you like and asking them if they want a guest post. A solid blogger outreach and influencer engagement strategy can be vital in being a successful guest blogger. So let’s take a look at some tips to performing blogger outreach and creating a successful guest post.

Think About Why You’re Writing It

If you’re writing your guest post purely to earn a link back to your site then the chances are you are going to fail. Yes, the links generated by guest posts can be great for your websites strength and authority but you need to have something valuable to say, a contribution to make to the subject that hasn’t been covered already. Try to find a subject within your niche that either hasn’t been covered extensively or that you have a new take on. There are some great tools available that make the outreach process a little easier. BuzzSumo is one that lets you find content that has been created on particular topics so you can have an idea of what’s already out there.

If your content doesn’t explore new angles then you are just adding to the white noise that’s saturating the internet every day. Make sure what you are saying provides genuine guidance or information on the topic, that’s how you become regarded as a an authority in your field and it’s the only way that your content is going to get shared and ultimately linked to.

Do Your Research Before You Reach Out

Once you know why you are creating your content then it’s time to do some research and find where you can get your content published. Use the SERPs to help you find influencers by searching for keywords relevant to your industry and see who is performing well for them. A high ranked blog will carry with it a high authority and make your backlink more valuable in terms of improving your rankings. It also means that the blog is likely to receive a large deal of traffic which means a high amount of potential traffic exists to be sent your way.

Social media can also play a big role in finding influencers, followerwonk for example is pretty useful for narrowing down the who’s who of any particular niche in twitter.

Once you have identified a few blogs that you like the look of and you have collected the data of website owners and major influencers within your industry then it’s time to engage with them.

Form Meaningful Relationships

This is a vital step in the blogger outreach process that people often overlook. Many would-be guest bloggers opt for the shortcut route and go straight for an email asking the owner of the website if they can write a guest blog for them. Often they are met with stone cold silence and are left wondering where they went wrong.

While it can be time consuming the relationships built with influencers in your niche can be extremely rewarding and the potential brand awareness and traffic rewards are irreplaceable. With that in mind once you have identified someone you would like to reach out to you can follow these steps:

  • Connect with them on social media. Twitter and LinkedIn usually work best for me.
  • Engage with them on their own blog. Commenting on their own blog posts is a good way to start the conversation but be sure to make a worthwhile contribution when commenting to really grab their attention.
  • Retweet/share their posts. Who doesn’t like a bit of ego-stroking? Share their posts and link to their content where it’s relevant to show them that you value their content.

Hopefully by this point you will have gotten some kind of engagement back from them but even if you haven’t you can still approach them asking if they would like a guest post as they will most likely recognise your name and that you are genuine.

Build A Strong Portfolio

When performing blogger outreach you will often be expected to provide examples of previous posts that you have written and that have been published on other websites. Obviously at the start you wont have many examples of posts on other websites but you should be writing regular content for your own blog and use them as examples in the early days. You should ensure that the quality of the posts you create for you own blog are to the same standard as your guest posts.

Take The Time To Write Well

Most importantly of all, once you have the opportunity to create a guest post you need to take the time to research your subject, read other sources and create the very best content that you can. There’s no point in going through the entire outreach process just to phone in the post at the end of it all. This is your chance to create content that will inform others within your industry and establish you as a trusted source of future information.

 

By Stuart Cooke, Digital Marketer at Cornell Studios

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