Outreach. It's arguably the most important part of the link building process—and also the most grueling. Good personalized outreach is impossible to scale effectively, and it's easy to fall into a rut. What should you be doing to maximize your success rate and to stand out from the crowd? In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand offers up some methods of bartering value to earn genuine links, catching your target's attention, and gives actionable advice on what exactly you need to include in your outreach correspondence.
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Video Transcription
Howdy, Moz fans. Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're going to chat about link building outreach in this skeptical, jaded world in which we are forced to live as marketers. Look, I think we know a few things. This is really continuation from our Whiteboard Friday where we talked about the frustrating part of the flywheel where social shares are just not, on average, in most cases, getting us to the links that we need in order to rank.
So we know a few things.
It is still the case that links are well-correlated with higher rankings. It's still the case that nearly every site and page that ranks well in Google has some input that is related to their link profile, and sometimes that's stronger and sometimes it's a weaker influence. But we know we need links to rank well, especially in competitive search results.
It's incredibly rare to earn those links just by publishing content and sharing it socially. Getting it in front of an audience, unless your audience is extremely link-likely and you've already built up some authority, and linking is a behavior that you've acclimated your community to, this is really, really tough. It's not going to work on its own.
We also know that link outreach is a hard, grueling, manual process. There's no doubt about that. This is frustrating. That's why many of us try and use social sharing or subscriptions or publication to attempt to end around that need for direct link outreach because it's such a challenge.
But what we need to talk about...
I know that many of you in the comments and over Twitter mentioned this is: What actually works for link outreach, and how can we make that process less painful and more likely to have success?
I think the reality is that outreach fundamentally involves an exchange of value. As you're going out and attempting to earn a link from someone directly through link outreach, through that one-to-one relationship, whether that's happening on social media or happening in person or happening on the phone or happening via email, whatever it is, if you don't provide value, if you're simply asking for something, your success rate is going to be extremely low compared to the folks who do provide value prior to the link or, better, as part of the link. The link is the way the value is exchanged.
That's actually what Google is looking for. They're not looking for someone who's very successful at convincing someone to give them a link for no particularly good reason. They're looking for an exchange of value, where someone says, "Gosh, it provides value to my site and my visitors to link to this resource, and therefore I want to do it."
Some things that are often perceived to carry real value
Value can be a bunch of different things. Value could be in the ego that it boosts. It could be in the problems that it helps solve. It could be in the form of what you've given them in exchange. Lots of things.
So these are things that we've seen that are often perceived to carry real value, and some of these are taken directly from the BuzzSumo and Moz study, where we looked at things that earned social shares and also earned links, and there were some good cases of those and some different types of content. Some of this is also things that inherently earn links as it is used, things like embeddable content.
So I'll talk through these because I think fundamentally when it comes down to it, it's very tough for me to stand up here and say, "Oh, we did some research." I saw this at a conference recently. I think it was Searchlove, where someone noted one of the things that we've been doing that's had much better success with our link outreach is we reach out asking if they would like to see the piece that we want them to link to rather than sharing the piece with them directly. That gets a much higher email engagement rate like, "Yeah, okay, I'll take a look at it." Then when we do it send to them, those people tend to look at it and link to it more than if we just sent them the link right off the bat because we've engaged in that conversation.
Okay, look, there are a lot of tactical tips like that. But if that fundamental thing, that piece that you're providing that value to the potential linker doesn't carry real value in their eyes, you can't have any success, and that's why these items I think are so critical, so fundamental to the outreach formula.
- Unique research, and we've seen research perform very well. I think because unique research that provides value to entities and organizations and to content creators needs to be referenced. It needs that citation, and I think that's why research, especially research that you do and/or visuals or riffs that you take off of research that's already been created to analyze that data or to turn it into great graphs or interactive infographics or those kinds of things can provide real value.
- Well, I'm jaded about infographics personally, but I do believe that a lot of customized, high quality visuals can work, and certainly infographics can be a form of that, that do work in some sectors. I think that we're seeing that in tech and in marketing and in legal, and in a lot of places where you see a tremendous amount of outreach, infographics are actually losing out because they've been so saturated, and every content creator in those niches has 10 people reaching out to them every week offering a new infographic. You're just not standing out from the crowd. But I do think there are other forms of visuals, everything from photography to illustrations to customized graphics and charts, to drawings that can be very valuable there. That's why I've mentioned it here.
- Embeddable content is wonderful because it naturally acquires that link by saying like, "Hey, here's a calculator or here's a tool that you can embed on your site if you'd like to." You get that link back as part of the embed, and I think that can work great.
We've also seen a decline, actually. Embeddable content used to be all the rage, say, 6 to 10 years ago. It's actually waned a little bit, and for that reason, I think can be more powerful, can stand out a little when it is used. So I think that's a tactic that I would encourage folks to try again.
Badges are a form of this, but they're the most mild, least uniquely valuable form of that. So if you're going to do a badge, it better be a badge back to something that is very powerful or really, really triggers a great commitment. So if you're an Etsy top seller and you get a badge to put on your website or an embeddable widget from your Etsy store so that people can buy directly from Etsy from your website, okay, those things provide real value, and, of course, I'm going to link to them. But just a badge that's like, "I think you're a great blogger." Tough.
- APIs and data plus business development. These are tough things to build, but it can be very valuable. If you're providing data on an ongoing basis, especially to large organizations or powerful entities who are using that data, either publicly or even privately, very often you can include in those agreements some form of a, "Hey, we'd like some co-branding. We'd like you to link back to us. We'd like you to say the data was provided by us." Hard to do, but that's a great thing because it's powerful and it gets that link.
- Content that makes, well, your target look good. If you are inherently saying, "Hey, here's a piece of content. We did a truly substantive analysis of 5 or 10 players in the field. Your product, your service, you, your company, your content stands out in this way, and we've quantified that, and we've produced this piece." Yeah, I'm going to be much more likely to link to that than just a, "Here's a badge that says we like you." So I think these can still work well, and playing to people's ego can still work well.
- Guest content. We see guest content still doing very well despite Google's warnings about guest blogging. Of course, we talked about that couple of years ago on Whiteboard Friday. Guest content is still very powerful. It almost always includes a link back. The key is that this content has to actually provide value to the target. I think if that content does provide great value to the target, you can get a link from almost anywhere. The key is convincing them that it's going to perform well for them and going to perform well with their audience.
As a result, it's very easy for folks who already have a platform, who are already thought of as influencers and thought leaders, to get their content on to other sites. It's much tougher as an unknown, and this is one of the reasons why I think building up your platform first and then leveraging guest content can be so valuable.
- Last one that I'll mention here is a service or favor that makes your target want to refer people to you. Now this is a challenging thing to accomplish, but if you are a service provider, a content provider, a data provider, or a product provider who has done something amazing and unusual, something that makes you stand out in the minds of a customer, and you know that customer has a website, and that customer could be a business or an organization, an entity, those kinds of things, and you know that that organization often deals with people who need services like yours, reaching out and saying, "Hey, we'd love it if you'd refer folks, and here's what we're willing to offer," and those kinds of things can be another great way to go.
The outreach email itself
This is the thing that gets talked about a lot, and I hear the same advice over and over again around link outreach. I get a little frustrated sometimes.
It need to be customized and well-written, and you need to flatter your target, and it shouldn't be automated.
Those things, that's just table stakes.
That is merely send a good, competent email. That is not advice or tactical, useful, actionable advice.
I get very frustrated when I see those same pieces of advice over and over again. I think where you want to go is places that other outreach emails don't go. So if you can, try and look at a dozen or a hundred outreach emails from other sources to people like those in your target market. You know that they've received those emails.
You can even reach out to people in your audience who you already have a relationship with. I'm sure you have some relationships like that with people, who are influencers in your field already, and ask them, "Hey, can you send me the outreach emails that you get? I just want to take a look at them, because I think they're all terrible, and I never want to do that to people. I'll send you mine." What you will find is that they are almost never authentic. They're rarely humble. They almost never create a real connection.
In fact, the vast majority of real connection emails that I get from folks that I've never met before are not about outreach, and I think that's what forms that real connection. I've seen a few of these that are outreach emails, but they do create a real connection, like they have actually read things that I've made and watched them, or been at events that I've been at, or worked with companies that I've worked with, or whatever it is, and they form that real connection in the email authentically. They need to stand out as unique. Unique meaning they don't look like those other 150 outreach emails.
This is the sucky part. These outreach emails do not scale. The ones that work tend not to scale, and it tends to be a link builder's job to scale this process, because you need lots of links, you need it to point to lots of pieces of content, and so you're always looking for scale.
I would urge you to go the opposite direction. Narrow your funnel. Worry less about the number of people you're targeting and more about the success rate, because once you get the success rate high, you can turn up the volume really fast. But if your success rate is low and there's a limited market of influencers in your field, you can quickly burn all of them with your outreach before you ever have a chance to get good at it.
Link outreach is supposed to be hard.
This process is not supposed to scale. If it scaled, it would be easier. Everyone would do it, and there'd be no competitive barrier, no competitive advantage to being great at building and earning links.
So I think this frustration exists in the world. I want to recognize that and have empathy for it and for all of you who have to do link building outreach, but I also want to say that's part of the magic that happens here. So you should account for it and expect it and not fear it.
All right, everyone. I look forward to your comments. I'd love to hear your link building outreach strategies and tactics, what's worked for you, what hasn't. We'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.
Hi Rand,
Awesome advice, I would only say that personally I would add Real digital PR. If your brand actually does something newsworthy, then you don't even need to create something... if your story is unique ect. For example if your product is incredibly innovative, or you do a crazy stunt that is worth covering or you break a world record... I think these perform really well and there is loads of options.
Another one that works really well is supporting a charity or offering a really good student support program, these things are always work well with universities and charity sites and then the media off the back of that.
Let me know what you think.
Yes! Links are just by-products of getting the media, bloggers, and people in general to talk about you online -- and that comes as a result of doing publicity, not "linkbuilding."
Any company that wants a lot of links on relevant websites that are natural and authoritative should hire a publicist over a "linkbuilder" any day.
Every time the battle between link building and PR is brought up, I have a hard time choosing sides. But in the end it's clear to me that the truth lies somewhere in between. So on the one hand I'm not afraid to use "link building" as a term, and we analyze all links we get. But on the other hand--the only team that deals with link building for us is the PR team. And their main focus is on publicity, mentions, and referring traffic.
I agree that a publicist would (usually) do a better job than a "linkbuilder" with natural and authoritative links. But I also think that the only way this could work well is if the publicist works closely with SEO, and constantly gets SEO's input on the domains to work with, preferred link location, and yeah--sometimes even on the type of link.
Amen! Depending on a. the market that your'e in (e.g. Silicon Valley or NYC vs Miami or Desmoines) you'll find publicists who are strong at getting placements in traditional media but very few who truly understand and better yet, understand or work with SEO (much loetech savvy). At least that's been my experience in pooling resources either in the corporate world or for my consulting practice engagements. the most amazing publicists with whom I've worked with were superbly connected and their people skills rock star but they couldn't figure out technology to save their lives. And vice versa with my SEO experts. Techie smart but not connected or publicity savvy.mm
I guess depending on the market totally...my experience say me that
Love this. So many "SEOs" think link building still has to be anonymous, scaled, etc. If your company is doing cool things, there is probably an outlet (and a respectable one at that) that will write about it and link to it.
Exactly! So many people -- including many in this comment thread -- think that the best way to get links is to produce great "content" and then get people to link to it. (The discussions seem to focus on the details of this strategy -- but the overall strategy is wrong.)
(insert Matrix meme)
What if I told you that there is a way to get numerous authoritative, earned, natural, and relevant links without creating one single piece of "content"? It's called publicity, and it's been a part of the marketing promotion mix since long before the Internet existed.
All of the money that goes into producing "content" can go into publicity campaigns instead -- and it'd likely get far superior results. Plus, there'd be less crap published on the Internet in the flood of "content" that happens every day.
We also know that link outreach is a hard, grueling, manual process... Link outreach is supposed to be hard.
You know why it's hard? Because people are thinking about links in an entirely wrong way. If people would think about it the right way, it'd be a lot easier.
Rand, I have so much respect for you and Moz because I started my second career in digital marketing thanks to randomly finding SEOmoz -- as it was once known -- years ago. But as people probably know by now, this is the one issue on which I always must take issue.
Our entire approach to links is based on a faulty premise: That "linkbuilding" is something that we actively do. This is 2015, not 2005 -- we need to change our whole philosophy. I've always called for a whole reversal on how we view links: The best links are not something that one goes out and gets directly. The best links are those that others give you without you needing to do anything directly. Links are by-products of good marketing in general and publicity specifically.
And how does one do that last part? By creating and executing strategic publicity campaigns. As I wrote in a Moz post two days ago on integrating traditional and digital marketing (with a Back to the Future Day theme!), the key is to get the media, bloggers, and people in general to talk about you online. Natural, authoritative links will come as natural by-products.
Regardless of whether you're a local, small restaurant or a large, enterprise B2B company, the answer is simple: Do publicity stunts or do something newsworthy, and get the media to cover it. A lot of the coverage will contain links. Bloggers who read the major media will often write blog posts that will then often contain links as well. People will read the bloggers and perhaps post on local or topical message boards or online communities with links. Run continuous publicity campaigns, and the results will snowball.
What I recommend: Go find a random blogger who knows nothing about marketing or SEO. Ask him or her why they linked to something specific in a given post. I guarantee you that the answer will almost always be similar to "Oh, I just read about that somewhere and thought it was interesting!" -- in other words, it was the result of a publicity campaign or other media coverage.
Every large company already has a whole department of linkbuilders -- they're called publicists and PR executives.
Bottom line, all of the best advice that we see on links says that the best backlink profiles consist of the following:
And that's just what comes as a result of publicity campaigns and related PR work. If I could wave a magic wand, I'd make all discussions of "linkbuilding" disappear. Study PR and publicity instead.
The best part? You'll never be at risk of a Penguin penalty because you're not doing anything artificial and manipulative to get links directly.
I think Rand and Moz agree with you but they're looking at the full spectrum. Philosophically, Moz seemed to have shifted to the link earning mentality and content promotion for awhile, and de-prioritized link building, but as Rand had mentioned before - that content flywheel doesn't always appear. Links need a nudge. Links are a real part of the algorithm. For companies that need to have more guaranteed results, publicity stunts don't always work. The media can be just as skeptical about businesses pulling stunts for attention, so it has to be the right blend of magic.
I agree the philosophy has to shift more towards what you're saying, but I think Rand is advocating for a blend of both what you're saying and manual outreach which is more realistic for many.
Even you have a great PR team working on your publicity you cannot just go for pure natural reach and link earning. If you taking an advantage of both: a) good tactic to earn links and b) great publicity that is a best way to go I think.
Hi Samuel, I like what you said here about PR executives and publicists to first get the coverage and then earning links without approaching. Don't you think its not a feasible strategy for small companies and businesses who don't have initial budget to hire specialists. It seems like a lost battle for them from start. Is there something that a small business who just starting out can do these things without having a budget constraint.
Yes it is possible, the small business needs to build their relationships with those websites to earn links with them, usually by producing a value exchange proposition. No battle is ever lost in the digital marketing, you just need to create the right strategy :) Initially, it can be tougher w/o the brand recognition, but that is part of the strategy, build brand awareness and authority. We all need to start somewhere.
Is there something that a small business who just starting out can do these things without having a budget constraint?
First of all, whenever someone asks, "How can I do X for free or cheap?" I always respond with this question: "Do you believe in your product?" If you believe in your product, then you will take the risk and invest some of your money or get a loan. If you're too scared to invest your own money, then that's a subconscious sign that you don't really have faith in what you're doing.
Second, publicity campaigns are often cheap and require nothing but creativity. Here's one example. Say you're a small coffee house in Boston on a cold winter day. Get all of your baristas in winter jackets with your logo, and pass out free coffee at bus and subway stops in the morning. Put your Twitter handle and/or hashtag on the cups. Encourage people to take photos with the baristas and post them on social media with the hashtag. Tip off the local media and city bloggers what you'll be doing before you'll do it.
That could get a lot of attention -- and it'd be very cheap.
And make a blog post giving details about the hashtag campaign and more information. That way when you let journalists know they can link to it to provide more context. And then if it's actually successful and people are talking about it on their websites, you can follow up by thanking them and asking them to link to your blog post.
If that sounds like link building, it's because it is. And it's how link building and PR live together. One does not best the other, they should work together. Content shouldn't just be thrown up for the sake of content. It should have a goal - and the goal can be to boost the PR AND linking opportunities at the same time.
Building great content is good, so is publicity, but the books at the top of the best seller lists aren't there because they're the best books ever written, they're there because they were marketed. Link building and PR do live together because they reinforce each other. PR might appear more organic and link building might take less 'organic' forms, it doesn't mean it doesn't spread 'awareness' or 'marketing.'
No one would be saying "don't buy advertisements, just make great content." There are hundreds, if not thousands, of movies and books and other forms of media that are incredible, life-changing pieces of work that'll never be in the limelight because there was never any push.
You want to help nudge things to the precipice and then let gravity do the work, I think.
This isn't an endorsement of being sneaky though, obviously. People who don't like horror being shown horror advertisements were never your audience in the first place.
Hi Samuel, there is a fundamental flaw in Google's algorithm. The algorithm is based on the concept that "people link to good content." Even-though that is true to an extent, the main flaw is that "people don't always link to content that people want to find." People often want to find products. People rarely link to product pages. Google's link based ranking methodology works great for informational queries because people naturally link to great information. But there is a huge whole in the algorithm when dealing with product/services pages. Therefore, it is often necessary to intentionally build links to these types of pages because there would be none naturally; and we know that direct backlinks to a page certainly help its rankings.
How can we use PR to solve this problem? I'm open to suggestions.
Hi Anthony, when PR team publicize your content, people and media get to know about your product and services, will start recognizing your brand, and then they can link directly to your home or service pages. This is my assumption. For e-commerce sites, generally they don't have much informational content, then on-page optimization and paid ads are more effective.
Hi Rajesh, I think PR has got tremendous potential to build the overall link profile for a website and its overall authority since people will naturally, as you point out, link to the homepage. Unfortunately, people don't usually link to product/services pages. Certainly on-page optimization will help but if your competitor's page has links coming into it, you'll probably need some too to compete in organic search.
Yes Anthony, and as Rand also said, In a competitive niche, Links can be a deciding factor to rank higher in organic search. A home page generally have everything, so a visitor will be able to see the products/services. Any effect on Link juice, I don't know.
An important point Samuel said in his reply to my question on budget limitations for a new company, is to go for creative publicity and I agree with him. It is possible to get eye balls if we adopt a more creative way to market our product/service, even on a low budget.
I have also seen some startups here go for paid news option. Here again, PR guys comes in handy. Off-course the link will not be natural but who cares if they are coming from big publishing sites.
Hi Rajesh,
Samuels reply to your query doesn't appear to be a low cost solution in my eye's although I guess that's relative...
To pay to have your social media vanity's put on coffee cups will cost money, to have your Logo printed onto some winter coats, will cost money, to have your staff go out giving away free coffee will cost you wages for their time and of course the cost of the free coffee.
I agree it's not a bad idea if you can afford it but if you are a small website owner for example and you create great informational content and you have very little social media presence, without any links, no one is going to find your content. Out reach to people that may find real value in your content is a great place to start, your content compliments theirs and will be of use to their readership or users you are likely to have some success.
Without gaining some links initially it's going to be a long road to getting any rankings. I paid a Professional Journalist to write quality content for one of my sites which I haven't yet completed. The website as a number of decent informative, original posts on it yet no one can find it, it is not magically ranking well, and it's been live for quite some time.
Out reach is probably going to my best bet to get the ball rolling on that site IMO
Hi David,
Two points. First, I have not neglected the outreach part. Infact I am doing the same for my new business on level-1 where I am trying to build some relationship with relevant influencers, media guys, etc. I didn't look too much into the Samuel's Coffee example as it may not be the best solution for me, my industry. But I realized that creative publicity can work, on what scale, it may depend on the budget.
You talked about small website owner. I honestly feel, in large competitive niche, it will be tough to survive without PR and publicity unless you have the patience for continuously producing quality content, marketing it well and building relationships. But there is no guarantee that the big players can't adopt this strategy. With more budget and resources they have the power to do it much faster and better.
I never heard of "paid news." After researching, it looks like it is common in India. You said that you've seen startups use it so I was interested in the option for promoting my startup. I do like the idea of doing PR as Samuel is recommending. Coming up with a good angle for the PR is probably the key. I'm thinking of doing a video that will catch attention of professional SEOs to promote my software.
I've seen success with PR teams reaching out to Instagram influencers and asking them to place an affiliate link in their home profile as a way to point to product pages. This is a pretty slippery slope though as you need to be careful with who you pick and make sure you are not aggressive in making them talk about your product in an artificial way as users pick up on that instantly.
Hey Rand,
Great overall advice!
Could you please share the best outreach emails you've received?
I would love to see those as well, great questions Yaniv.
Hey Rand! LOVE IT.
Here are the questions we ask at all stages of a link building campaign... and that culminate in what we hope is more effective outreach:
1) What content do our target linkers value?
2) Who is the audience this linker values and serves (...write/pitch for the linker-valued audience)?
3) Can we use content that's in-funnel or do we need to go a bit out of funnel in order to connect with this particular target audience?
Linkers "buy" your content with their links. Your core premise of value exchange resonates for me in my experience.
Lastly, a side note, we believe there is a distinction rarely made between links/resource page linkers and bloggers as linkers (and certainly PRESS as linkers...). Different content plays differently for each type of linker.
Thank you again - loved this presentation and shared with our team.
Hello,
...it seems that there is nothing new on the horizon
Carmen
About the email tactic - THANK YOU!! These emails, in a way, have done to “outreach” what SEOs have done to “content marketing” - with the intentions obviously self-serving & almost always with boilerplate flattery. To me, “outreach,” especially “influencer outreach,” is starting to feel no different than a spammy salesperson who won’t leave me alone. But if they just focused on building a genuine relationship, and on offering/giving something of value more than trying to get something, they’d be amazed by the return. Quality over quantity, just like any other relationship.
Moz & Buzzsumo, for example, aren’t just ‘partners' that allow in-content linking to each other’s site, but are 2 brands who realized that collaboration & shared research could lead to far better things (for each brand & the entire industry) than keeping to themselves. I’m curious how that relationship started - was it some form of outreach? My guess is that it was more of a mutual respect, maybe public recognition, of each other’s service/industry contributions.
10:32: "That is not advice." Indeed, we are all tired of that approach.
Thanks for sharing.
This was interesting to me: "flatter your target" - I usually counsel people to NOT do that. Reason is that it nearly always comes across as inauthentic. Know your target, very, very well, and know how to describe to them the value in a way that they will appreciate is a much bigger point of emphasis for me.
All covered in my article right here on Moz earlier this week! https://moz.com/blog/preparing-your-killer-content-marketing-pitch
I think Rand's point was also to not flatter your target. He was pointing out, before putting an X through those top 4 "email tactics," that those tactics don't work b/c they almost never create a real connection. Heading to read your Moz post now. :)
Great tactics and strategy laid out Rand - some I knew some I didn't consider. (canceling my infographic order right now :-)
"Nothing worth having comes easy." Couldn't be any truer when applied to links. Pumping out SEO decent content, adding pages, imploring all the off and on page SEO tactics are great but link building IS HARD WORK. I'm going to step it up a game on my blog - VSoftConsulting.com - designing some content to hit those key points and bring more value to possible link friends.
Here's my 1st outreach - would anyone like to do a guest post exchange with me?
My company V-Soft Consulting is an IT staffing & IT services company. Our areas of value & content we can bring your audience (and what we'd be looking for)
I really like the fact Rand you didn't go to the defacto purist version which i'm really tired of hearing: "Build great content and people will link to it" because in reality it takes work and there's a lot of content to choose from.
In the end links... "Jerry, its gold I tell ya, that's gold!"
hey Rand,
Great WBF, as always. Two particularly great points:
1) a good outreach email "does not scale" and...
2 "link outreach is supposed to be hard --> that's why it's a competitive barrier".
Although we're in a technology-driven field, there's something still so fundamentally 'human' about good SEO work. If we're not creating genuine connections with our partners, our readers/customers, our community... it'll always be an uphill battle.
Good stuff. See you next week!
Andy
Couldn't agree more. The problem that too many people have (and perhaps part of the reason that they spend so much time trying to find the "magic sauce" for a perfect outreach email) is that they don't actually spend time creating something that is unique, valuable, or just plain "cool" enough for most sites to care to link to it. If you build an insanely useful tool or piece of content (proprietary data or statistics are an especially powerful draw) then people will actually want to send their audience to it/show it off to their audience.
Start with something awesome (and unique, and useful.) Tell the people creating content about it. Get links.
Speaking for myself, the competitiveness of the industry and keywords determines what link gathering method is used. If it is something like "how to grow peanuts indoors" you can still use mindless old school methods.
If your keywords are centered around "diamond rings for sale" you would be better off creating some unique content that can bring unsolicited back links. If the the content is strong enough you can use some paid promotion to jump start the traffic.
Thanks for the post rand. I have a little question and curiousity about a topic. Please some one give me an Advice.
Which one is a more powerful link building technique. Case 1 or Case 2 as below?
Case 1:
xyz.com obtaining 70 Domain authority and under the domain there is an article called "blue shirt" (xyz.com/blue-shirt.html). Blue Shirt article obtains 35 Page Authority. and refer me a link to my product page related Blue Shirts as well.
Case 2:
abc.com obtaining 70 Domain authority and there is a new article with "0" value Page Authority value and giving me a link.
Usualy i prefer links from little higher PA and DA and ofcourse with no Spam Score. If someone gives me a link from a very fresh article i just disavow it. Am i doing right here?
Nope, you don't have to disavow backlinks from websites with zero authority. This procedure is only necessary for negative-value backlinks (from spam/scam or scraper domains, for instance). Of course, case 1 would be ideal, but for a starter, a handful of case 2 links is absolutely OK. Google knows that a natural backlink profile needds to get built up, and this takes some time.
Hello Ryan,
Thanks for your a useful blog about blog outreach. After study your blog i have learned more. You make it a easy to understand the with video transcribed. I am new in online marketing and learning SEO. I got many tips and hope to apply in my work. Thanks again.
Another valuable WBF. Whatever points has been mentioned in this post, going to implement.
I've been in this business a very long time, seen so many trends come and go, but I have always had a love/hate relationship with link building. (That ex that just won't go away)
I think the advice here is fair, but personally I will always tend to prefer using publicity and as much natural link generation as possible opposed to direct outreach.
Yes, I do see great results from these methods without needing to bug anyone, but appreciate everyone is different and some cases do need some direct outreach as part of the mix.
Relevancy and quality are so important rather than volume, but this can be said about 90% if not 100% of digital marketing.
The point I think I like most from this Whiteboard Friday is whatever methods you use make sure you offer something of real value.
LM
It seems to me that the key here is not to have a 'herd' mentality. Building up relationships with key influencers in your respective industries, (although time consuming and hard to scale) is the single most effective way to infuse your rankings with quality links.
Hello Rand,
Important point mentioned, I completely agreed with that. Publicity and link building both are different things. The fact is quality link building still works the best.
Hey Rand! I really enjoyed your video, I definitely think that it's vital to be unique and actually show interest in the person you are link building to. Something worth mentioning when outreaching, as you mentioned, is offer them something that they may not be able to do themselves such as data or expert advice about a topic, especially for bloggers that don't have the resource to do so. Keep it short, keep it valuable, actually give them a reason to read your email and not a sales pitch.
When it comes to building links, it's important to take a step back and do it right. Taking a personalized approach is the way to go! Sticking to a winning content marketing schedule, engaging in social media, and doing guest posts can all help build a strong link base. Above all, it's important to prioritize making a real connection over link building! It's much more important to build the links slowly because this will result in a much higher quality.
Here is one of the better guides, you have to read:
"90 SEO Experts Talk White Hat Link Building, Outsourcing And Scaling" -> Revolutionized the way I work.
Has anyone here had much success with mailing lists? Basically, create a fantastic piece of content then feature it prominently in a newsletter. As part of the newsletter encourage people to share it on their social media or their blogs.
For it to be successful you will need to know your audience very well, do the unique research to create the content they will find compelling. If you run email campaigns over time you can gather data, open rates, click through rates, clicks to content, etc.I use constant contact and I can see everything in graphs very easily. From there I was able to determine what my audience found the most compelling, what time of the days had the highest open rates, etc.
People won't share anything if you just tell them to, rare. If the content hits home and connects with them, basically something awesome, it might get a share, but them think about why you are pushing it. Are you offering something free, tips, a giveaway, e-book, free trial, etc.? If so, then mention that in the email. Also, constant contact is a great recourse if you want to learn about email marketing, it is a powerful platform and their tech team is great. In about 2 years and sending thousands of emails via an email marketing platform I have learned a lot, especially the first 6 3-4 months, but there is so much to learn. Now it is all about sending emails to get a particular action. If you have questions you can message me, happy to help.
Very helpful video, as always. Thanks for the great advice, Rand!
Dave
A good outreach email doesn't scale.
Preach, Rand!
Thank you for another great WBF
Wow! The last two minutes were great. Kick 'em in the pants without them realizing they were kicked in the pants. :-)
Thank you so much for discussing how outreach should fundamentally involve an exchange of value. As a website owner, I'm constantly inundated by emails asking for a link or guest post on my sites. 98% of them end up in the trash bin because it's instantly apparent that there's absolutely no value in me sharing the information.
I read 1000's similar articles, but no one give the short and clear answer, how it works and how it concerns to google search.
Everyone is claiming each other,it is account of Spam but I do not thing so because in marketing arena everyone do mislead little bit.So do not say he is spammer.Admin is here he knows everything .
I can't even begin to tell you how timely this whiteboard Friday is,
As always incredible actionable tips and principled takeaways...
It's somehow amazing that I honestly haven't been on this site for what I know is way to long, but coming back just feels like home,
Thanks for still doing all of this today when lets be honest; you don't need to.
It means we can write guest post once again.
I think many people forget that bloggers are blogging because they want to build relationships, and grow their audience - like originally they are happy to collaborate with you if you do understand how the collaboration can be of use for them, we always talk about this, when reaching out to them, and always put emphasis on collaboration, rather than value exchange or getting the backlink, etc.
Great video, Rand!
Touche with your quote Rand 'Link outreach is supposed to be hard, that's why it is a competitive barrier' I would suggest keeping outreach email short at best, because people do not have a lot of time to dive into your well written extensive pitch. I'd prefer networking with influencers and journos on Twitter and engaging with them to get things done in a better way rather than pitching them through old school method(email outreach).
Thanks for the video, Rand!
I sometimes think you are some kind of a double agent or something, working for both Moz and Google. :) I really admire your enthusiasm and what you are doing here at Moz Blog and in Whiteboard Friday.
A couple of weeks ago, your colleague/contributor, Katy Katz, wrote a similar article about value in emails, when she gave an example of a fantastic email (campaign) she got from the Hustle. It's actually inspiring, if you think about it.
Now, the 'key' you mentioned about convincing platform owners that you content is going to contribute greatly to their website/platform is probably the most challenging thing to face with. I still try to reach out to them, but all in vain.
Thanks, once again, for the video.
Best,
VS
We are using "service or favor" as value, as our favorite in our agency. When we have client that understand that, it's great, althought they don't get it always so then we either offer our service or try some other tactics.
Hi Hi! Mr Rand Fishkin: I liked the video and enjoyed the character which accompanied it:) Let me start by saying i don't want a link:) {Who would want a link from MOZ?} JK! I want to know if you have published a video or article on how to outsource relationships and link building. I am familiar with Upwork, Fiverr..... so far has not worked for me in my trial runs. I create high quality content, work for a University, Government, Business....very busy when not creating.
If there isn't a post or resource can you direct me somehow? My dilemma is being somewhat Type A.... I do have incredible relationships in real life, and run my business on exactly what link building takes ...but for some (many) reasons I don't do it online. I can't find someone who is really into marketing in a positive way, and hopefully avoids creating content as I avoid reaching out. it would be a perfect match. I'd prefer building a team with potential ownership (hopes and dreams now)
In my gut I know they are out there but can't think of where! Do you know? I think there are many others like me who want to find someone. Perhaps it is a great business opportunity for someone in the middle between the outsource sites and very expensive SEO Experts.
I have often thought of how much a link is worth, compared it to the cost of link sellers that fill my box, and want to find a happy medium that I can control.
Thank you, sorry so long a post, this seems to be the tyupe of thing you may have already thought of!
Kevin
what does he mean build your platform first before doing some guest blogging? Can anyone share a link on this or a useful resource or an explanation ? It would be very welcomed :)
The way that you sign off at the end of each Whiteboard Friday makes finishing an episode feel so satisfying.
After watching this video I did some outreach emails & tweets. 3 days of work and my results.
15 Outreach emails and Tweets sent. Got 2 responses so far. I think it's pretty good for a start. I am also pushing the content via FB to target audience ( journalists, bloggers, influencers etc.) Likes 411, Comments 7, Shares 40. I think this combination should yield decent results if it's done right and follows the things Rand mentioned in the video.
I agree with Jeremy Wick!
I read all of your articles for 6 months. all are perfect. Thanks alot.
Hey, Rand. Thanks for the great advice. I hate outreach. This will give me some extra variation for my efforts.
Good one.Don't mind but I have some question about link building.Will I build nofollow link?Will it pass google page rank?
Major question is how to find dofollow back link resources?
You made me smile, Rand, on that comment about usual "outreach email advice" part. :) I can not agree more. And so glad finaly I hear someone is saying that, for change. :) Internet is really full of it.
I like your idea of "exchanging value". My experience has shown that the more I am willing to give the more I get in the end... without losing much. "Content is King", not really... "Valuable Content is King" and it is often a bartering chip. Good content is nice but better content allows me more opportunities to acquire links.
Great article! I have a question regarding regional targeting. I'm starting a website to market a small town in the Highlands of Scotland as a tourist destination, and my main keyword will be the name of the town. Will getting links from various websites of businesses in the same area help me? Although there will be various things like a museum, events, accommodation etc so it won't be super focused on an individual industry or product / service, more just focused on the area they're located.
Thanks,
Callum.
Hi Rand, Thank you for this video. I remember that you once said (I think more than a year ago) that you would link to people's content because, in the beginning of Seo Moz, you also hoped you could get a link.
Staying humble, authentic, building a relationship and providing value really is the way to go. If you can do this, you don't only get a lin, but also a friend who will read your content, share it and post comments ;).
Link outreach is more about Sales than it is about content marketing.
Think about it. You need a relevant pitch and you need to provide value to a prospect.
In fact, the last sales book I read gave me more insightful ideas on ways to build links than any content marketing article has.
Hi Rand,
Great WBF again. I totally recognize the frustration with linkbuilding but I strongly believe good linkbuilding will set us apart from the competition ones we get skilled in it. The “What’s in it for them” question is very powerful. Kind of gets back to the basis of books like “How to win friends and influence people”.
Keep up the great work!
Best regards,
Bob
PS. Collecting and publishing all the good and bad outreach you (and your clients) receive could be an great linkable asset for Moz. Like you said, there are plenty of people who talk about outreach templates, tips and tricks etc.
Level up your thinking: not only 10x content, but 10x outreach emails.
What I've realized: the industry your site is in matters a ton. When outreaching to design blogs, they've been much more receptive to visual assets. When outreaching to travel bloggers, they're much more jaded and since they want their blog itself to pay for their trips, the vast majority of them want payment or sponsored posts.
One big tip: follow the money. How do the people you're outreaching to get paid? Mommy bloggers and travel bloggers want to live off their blog and often charge for sponsored posts. What they're selling is the blog itself. Other types of bloggers like design or marketing are selling other services like consulting or their own products, so they don't need to get paid by the post, but more want to put out quality stuff that builds their credibility.
Hi Rand, I really enjoyed this WBF. I think even now that too many outreach emails are written in a selfish way e.g. "I want you to link to this". As you say, people are far more likely to respond positively if there's something in it for them or their readers. They need a reason. In the 'real world' it's akin to going up to someone and asking for their email address - if you don't give a reason why or offer value, 99% of people will refuse. However, if you say "You can enter our competition to win a sports car and all you have to do for a chance of winning is give us your email", then people will respond more positively.
Thanks for sharing your expertise.
Hi Rand,
Love the email advice, there are so many emails that sell, scale and spam it's difficult to see value in email....but it does work.
We print a lot of self published books, our marketing department will reach out to the author (who is generally Internet Intelligent) and offer Social Media mentions, Website Pictures and Blog posts about the book & author. Sometimes the author will provide much of the data, which is a Win-Win and they link to us naturally.
BOTTOM LINE: Providing value is absolutely the best way to earn a link.
Joe
Hi Rand,
very nice & thorough introducion, but your tactics will only work if the content you wanna propagate is what a substantial number of users would link & share. For commercial websites like classifieds & real estate portals or business directories you used to have the chance to seed backlinks in website directories, social bookmark sites and other creepy locations, but after the advent of the Penguin update this no longer works. The only possibility is to integrate "real" content like blogposts tightly into your portal side by side with all the nasty things you are earning money with (but which hardly anybody would link to).
Best wishes from Germany ^^
I'm super glad that you brought up links in embedded content as an option. As part of a side project I've recently implemented a widget that folks can embed on their own sites in order to promote micro communities for comments and discussions.
The issue I've been struggling with is whether this sort of implementation is harmful to SEO. Can and does Google penalize for this sort of thing? If 10,000 domains embed a widget that links back to your home site, how is that evaluated?
Can someone answer this question? I want to build a widget and have folks embed it on their site. The widget will be in an iframe and I'm wondering how much link equity a link inside an iframe will produce for my site
Nice Video Rand, Link Outreach is Indeed Very Hard for Some Niche :( ... Also, Its Actually Hard To Create Content in Some of the Business Categories !
Do you have any other examples of "embedded content" besides a calculator. Can you point me to some examples.
A map showing the location of the news item / real estate object / whatever.
Links in embeddable content? I know it was Back To The Future day this week but did you set your time co-ordinates for 2011? It used to be all the rage before Matt Cutts called it out, way before Guest Blogging was also done so.
If it still works for people, then that's great, but really if you're working on corporate websites are people still really going to be recommending that? Some of the stuff recommended here might be ok for churn-and-burn SEO but it's kind of risky if you're after longevity of tactics.
I don't think Rand was highlighting links embedded in widgets or embedding links for the sake of getting links. The philosophy is to make linking to your content easy. So if you have an infographic on your site and want people to be able to use it, an embedded link to show the source of the infographic can do that. Plus, with HTML5, you could embed helpful links within an interactive infographic or video.
Excellent advice! I think personalization paired with creating a conversation is key to getting great results from an outreach campaign. You've got to be willing to put in the time, which as an SEO can be difficult.
Great fresh Whiteboard Friday - exchange of values.
Clearly you point out how quality of articles and emails will result in a higher success rate for all.
When I work with potential clients, I take the tedious time to write personal emails addressing their problems; you cannot do that in an email blast. I was working with a client and I told her to email each potential buyer individually who had an abandoned shopping cart on her e-commerce site instead of sending a blast email reminding them they forgot to make a purchase. Her success rate tripled. She mentioned their products, provided more details on the products they were purchasing, asked if they had any questions they could call her and did not offer a discount coupon.
Speaking from experience, when I receive generic blasts I start getting annoyed and used my wife's referral to clean up my inbox. Now, my email box is clutter free; probably one of the best ways to clean your inbox :)
Taking the time for unique content research or when emailing prospective customers/clients is the way to develop the necessary connection with readers or a potential client/customer, respectively.
Hey Rand
Thanks, it was great piece of advice!
What I had done so far while outreaching for link, was through developing a term of relation with people or community by means of advising or sharing some external piece of content related to industry that they would love and than afterward I talk about link out reach. Even when my job gets done, i still keep my relationship and share external stuff for a better bonding.
Any body can tell why my website is dropping from bing and yahoo SERPs but It was on the first SERPs on bing and yahoo.Now it is not on bing and yahoo but it is on the first page of google and baidu.My keyword isbest online dictionary.Please help me
nothing from what is tolking here is not real . just bla, bla, bla . how can you explain this fact : this site www.restaurants-near-me.com have #2 on google for very very competitive kw "restaurants near me" , with just few bad quality baclinks , from 2 domain , spaming backlinks , the site have DA 20 and PA10. CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN WHY THIS SITE ARE RANKING #2 ON GOOGLE ?
Thank you Rand, i think link building Simple so hard to understand, the link has great value when give the others great value.
Great vid! Really useful, thanks! ^^
Thank you Rand
Great Speech!
It's been a LONG time since I commented! This is the way I do link building
1) Target industries that have the audience I'm trying to reach.
2) Get my data miners in the Philippines to generate 1000+ contacts in a CSV with Company Name, Email, Domain, Contact Name
3) Simultaneously, get the content writers to come up with "X" number of topics for 3 months out.
4) Write content that targets the prospect's audience
5) Blast out 1000 email all at once. (must pass Briteverify's email validation)
This is very time consuming. It's not scalable because we have to carry a conversation with 15-20 people. THEN we follow up with people who did not respond asking if they got the original email. We don't take shortcuts like using PBNs.
Maybe I should write a post about this.
I'm pretty sure data miners and email blasts are exactly what Rand is preaching against.
Bit spammy.
Yup...!! @MOZTeam block the spam accounts.
That is simply horrific advice for anyone that even remotely cares about taking pride in what they do...