If you are trying to grow your business and improve your presence online, reaching out to bloggers is one of the most effective things you can do.
By having your page mentioned, or appearing as a guest contributor, on a popular blog not only do you get yourself in front of a wider audience than you would normally but you can actually help to improve your SEO ranking as well.
Know Your Target Audience
Before you start reaching out to bloggers, take a moment to reflect on exactly who your own target audience is. The ideal blogs for you to approach are blogs that people within your target audience will be reading.
It’s highly beneficial to reach out to blogs that are targeting the same audience as you are. If you can build a good working relationship with these blog owners it can help you to improve your own content, and in turn you can help them with theirs. You could also consider blogs in related areas. For example, if you are running a travel blog aimed at women in their 40s then a food blog aimed at women in their 40s would be relevant because you could write about food in different countries, which would apply to both blogs.
What you absolutely shouldn’t do is reach out to any old blog, regardless of their target audience. Having your blog mentioned in places that aren’t relevant can actually damage your SEO ranking. It can be quite complex to navigate what type of blogger outreach will be good for SEO and what won’t, so a lot of people engage the help of an agency for expert guidance on this work. If this is something you think would benefit you, pop over to www.clickintelligence.co.uk.
Google Search
Once you know which blogs you are targeting, search for them in Google! The blogs that appear highest up the rankings are great ones for you to target because they will have good domain authority, meaning that they are trusted by Google.
If your site or blog is mentioned on a site that is trusted by Google, this is a great way to improve your own SEO ranking.
Approach Bloggers in the Right Way
Once you have a list of bloggers that you want to approach, you can start reaching out to them. The way that you do this is crucial.
Remember that blog owners are people like any other, and they are also very busy, so you need to approach them in a way that helps them to see the value of responding:
● Do your research. Get to know their blog, read as many of their posts as you can and don’t skip the about me section.
● Always appreciate their work before you make a pitch, be genuine about this. Tell them why you like it and what it means to you personally. This will help to create a personal connection.
● Clearly highlight what you are offering them. Usually this will be great content for their blog.
● Be concise, make your point but don’t make your message too long.
● Let them know how they can reach you if you are interested, and try to put a time frame on it rather than leaving it open ended. Something like ‘I will be writing a piece next week that I think would be perfect for you’ lets them know that they need to respond fairly quickly.
● If they don’t respond, don’t be afraid to follow up.
Repeat this with as many bloggers as you like, and pretty soon you’ll have a nice network of blogging friends!