A Simple Guide To Blogger Outreach

If you operate a business and you have a website, you’ll want to pay attention to this simple guide. Blogger outreach is a way to organically grow your business and establish relationships in the blogosphere. When executed correctly, a blogger outreach campaign can be far more effective than a Facebook or Google Ad campaign.

Put simply, the purpose of blogger outreach is to introduce your business to a new group of potential customers by guest posting on other blogs in your niche. You will be tapping into an established audience that trusts and respects the blog that you are guest posting on. When you post an article on someone else’s blog it is like the owner is inviting you to speak to their followers. You must provide solid and helpful information from a position of authority in your industry.

It’s important to keep in mind the reason the blog is letting you guest post. Their goal is to provide new content to their followers. They will usually be ok with you providing a link to your website and talking about your business. But you must provide value to them as well. They aren’t a charity offering free ad space on their blog.

How To Launch A Blogger Outreach Campaign

Your first goal will be to find a blog that is relevant to your business. For example, if you run an aftermarket car parts business, it probably won’t do you any good to guest post on a blog about the love and care of dogs. You also won’t want to try and post on a blog of a company that is in direct competition to you. Focus on blogs that are in the same industry or related industry. You also want to stick with blogs that have a high number of followers to maximize your exposure.

How To Find The Blogs In The First Place

Once you have narrowed down the types of blogs you want to look for, it’s time to actually find them. Start with Google. Search for blogs/online sites that are looking for or allow “guest posts”. There are tools that you can download that allow you to search by “footprint”. A footprint refers to how much online presence a website has. You want to focus on blogs that have a strong number of external links. This indicates the blog has a level of authority and status.

You can also search for blogs on Twitter and other social media. Do a Twitter search for “guest post,” “accepting guest posts,” or some other variation. You will instantly be able to find which blogs are actively searching for guest posts. It will take some time to sort through the options and weed out the small blogs or blogs that don’t connect with your business. Once you find several (5-10) blogs that you think are good candidates for your outreach campaign it’s time to start contacting them. You can also use tools like FollowerWonk to help you with your search for bloggers on Twitter.

How To Approach The Blogs Where You Want To Guest Post

Before sending them your pitch, take some time getting to know their blog. Read a bunch of their posts. Read the “about us” sections. Pay attention to the writing style of the blog. Is it friendly or professional? Is it mostly written in first-person? The purpose of commenting is to get used to the level of interaction between the blog’s readers and the blog’s owners. It’s also a good idea to comment over a period of several days or a couple weeks because your name will start to be recognized.

Once you are pretty comfortable with the blogs styles, how often they accept guest posts, how well the guest posts do, and who is guest posting, it’s time to approach the owner.

If at all possible, send the owner an email. Take your time drafting the email and make it in a letter form. Be personable and polite. Let the owner know who you are, what you do, and why you think your guest post would be valuable to them. Remember, it is NOT about you, it is about THEM. The entire time you are writing the pitch ask yourself the question “what’s it for them?” Remember that they did not approach you asking for a guest post. You are approaching them. Let them know what you will be writing about and why it is valuable to their readers.

Writing The Guest Post

Write your post in the same vein that most articles are written on the site. If they use lots of pictures, lists, and bullet points, you should do that too. If most articles are around 1000 words, yours should be too. You want your article to flow with the rest of the site and not stand out unnaturally.

Don’t advertise yourself in the post. Offer great content and valuable information. You can link to your site or talk about a certain product, but don’t write like a salesman. At the end of your post write a call to action that would prompt a comment, a click to your site, or some other desired action but you shouldn’t sell.

About Backlinks

One of the goals of guest posting is to get that blog to link to your site in future posts. This guide isn’t about how to build backlinks but it’s important to realize how important backlinks are to your website. A backlink is a link on another site that links to your site. When you have a diverse source of backlinks, your number of visitors will grow. Google and other search engines put a high value on backlinks. The thinking is that if a site is sending visitors away from their site and over to your site, you must have something of value to offer.

There are many other ways to build links which you should take advantage of in addition to blogger outreach and guest posting. Don’t get me wrong, blogger outreach is one of the best ways to build quality backlinks to your website, but you’ll also want to use other strategies in order to keep your backlink profile looking diverse and natural.

You can also outsource your blogger outreach to a high-quality service provider if you don’t have the time to do it yourself.

Final Thoughts On Guest Posting

Guest posting is a great way to do free advertising and to collaborate with other blogs and businesses within your industry or niche. If you can prove to other blogs that your posts are valuable to their readers, you will develop strong relationships that will allow for future growth for both parties. Don’t expect immediate results or sales with your first guest post. It will take time and you’ll learn some things along the way. Guest posting shouldn’t be your only marketing campaign but it should definitely be part of your overall strategy.