Expert Tips on Using Outreach to Boost Your Link-Building Efforts

The link-building technique is the backbone of SEO. It is important to increase the authority and visibility of your website in search results. The real challenge, still, is to get those valuable backlinks. 

The next step is link-building outreach, which is a systematic approach to relevant websites to get the links you want.   

Our comprehensive guide helps you understand outreach strategies and how to maximize the results of your link-building efforts. 

Do you want to perform better in search engines? Alright, let’s get started.

What Exactly Is Link-Building Outreach? 

Before we enter into our specific strategies, let’s discuss outreach in general.

“Outreach” generally refers to performing research before approaching an alternate person or business to ask for a link to your content.

Reaching out to other reputable websites helps to get traffic and backlinks, which will improve your SEO and increase the visibility of your website and blog posts.

It requires time and effort to do research to identify the top link-building outreach opportunities. Writing a strong outreach email or letter requires talent, and it can be a numbers game to gain a response.

If you want outreach to look at your content, your email has to be well-written, concise, and use grammar correctly.

Even after receiving the outreach email, the content must be unique in and of itself to attract attention. Otherwise, the person you’re reaching out to won’t think it’s worthwhile.

Well, enough about that. Let’s talk about the steps and strategies for link-building outreach now.

Techniques to Create Valuable Links

1. The Skyscraper Technique

The skyscraper technique is a strategy where you select the best content on your topic, create a better variant, contact the original linkers, and ask them to re-link to your enhanced version.

This approach works because you’re not creating anything new. You are improving on what’s already working. Also, you are providing information to those who are interested in your topic.

Here are three easy steps to follow when using the skyscraper technique:

1. Search for a Popular Post Related to Your Topic 

To get started, look for content that has already received a lot of links from other websites.  Analyzing your competitors’ backlinks is a good technique for doing this.

• Improve That Content in a Better Version

In the second step, create a better version of the original content. This means providing more than the original content in terms of value, depth, insights, examples, images, and current information. 

This depends on the format and type of content. But these general tips will help you improve your content:

1. Create content that is more comprehensive and detailed
2. Make content more relevant and up-to-date.
3. Create content that is more engaging and convenient for users
4. Make it more helpful and actionable

The aim is to create content so super that it makes the original content look outdated, incomplete, and boring.

• Reach the Right People to Promote Your Content 

The final step is to promote your content on the websites that link to the original post. These are your perfect link-building chances. They showed interest in your topic and were ready to provide links to related content.

     2. Outreach using Link Roundup 

Website owners or bloggers curate and publish a weekly or monthly roundup piece that provides a selection of excellent articles, blog posts, or resources from different websites within a topic that is part of the Link Roundup outreach strategy.

The Link Roundup method is an outreach strategy used to acquire backlinks by submitting relevant content to websites that regularly publish curated lists or roundups of valuable resources within a specific industry or niche.

Here’s how it typically works:

1. Research: Identify websites in your industry or niche that regularly publish link roundups or resource lists. These could include blogs, newsletters, or online publications.
2. Create High-Quality Content: Develop informative, engaging, and share-worthy content that adds value to your target audience. This could be blog posts, guides, infographics, or case studies.
3. Outreach: Reach out to the owners or editors of the websites you’ve identified. Introduce yourself and your content, explaining how it aligns with their roundup themes or topics. Offer your content as a valuable addition to their next roundup.
4. Follow-up: If you don’t receive a response initially, follow up politely to remind them of your content and its relevance to their audience.
5. Monitor and Track: Keep track of your outreach efforts and monitor the websites you’ve contacted. If your content gets included in a roundup, celebrate your success and continue building relationships with these publishers.

3. Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is writing content and posting it on other people’s blogs or websites in return for a backlink to your own.

Here is how you can start –

• Find Relevant Blogs in Your Industry

First, try to find well-known or successful blogs in your industry that allow guest posts. Otherwise, your SEO outreach efforts can be useless. 

To find these blogs, try using different search terms. like these – 

“Guest Author” + [industry keyword]

“Guest post” + [industry keyword]

• Make a Guest Post Request

The next step will be to reach out to these blogs in a friendly way. Not everyone is interested in guest posting. Is the post already written? That would be helpful. so they can review it while they think about your pitch.

• Add Links to Your Content

Creating the guest post is the final step, if you haven’t yet. Just like you are writing for your website, your guest posts should be interesting, helpful, and accurate. 

Next, ensure that the article has an anchor text link relating to your article. Depending on the prospect you approach at present, ensure you follow their guidelines.

4. Mention Outreach

Mention outreach is a link-building strategy that involves reaching out to website owners or content creators to request a mention or citation of your brand, product, or content within their existing content. This approach aims to gain exposure, and credibility, and potentially acquire valuable backlinks.

Examples of mention outreach include:

1. Requesting inclusion in a roundup post or listicle related to your industry or niche.
2. Asking for a mention or citation in a blog post or article where your expertise or product could add value to the discussion.
3. Seeking opportunities to be featured in a case study, success story, or interview on another website.
4. Requesting inclusion in a resource page or curated list of tools, services, or resources relevant to your field.
5. Pitching your brand or content for inclusion in a newsletter, podcast, or social media post by influencers or industry experts.

In each case, the goal is to establish mutually beneficial relationships and gain visibility by being mentioned or cited in relevant online content.

5. The Moving Man Technique 

The moving man method involves reaching out to websites that link to out-of-date content and asking them to kindly link to you. It entails using website changes—like company closings, rebranding, or relocation—to get backlinks. 

Here’s how it works:

1. Monitor Changes: Keep an eye on industry-related websites, news sources, and directories for announcements of businesses moving, rebranding, or ceasing operations.
2. Identify Opportunities: When you spot a relevant change, consider if your website or content could provide value to the affected site’s audience.
3. Craft Outreach: Reach out to the website owner or webmaster with a personalized email. Express your condolences or congratulations on their change, and offer your content or resources as a replacement or addition to any outdated or broken links.
4. Provide Value: Highlight how your content can fill the gap left by the outdated or removed resource. Emphasize the relevance and quality of your content to their audience.
5. Follow-Up: If you don’t receive a response initially, consider sending a follow-up email to increase your chances of success.

The Outreach Process for Link Building

Whichever outreach strategy you choose—from the many approaches and steps we covered earlier—you will follow a similar outline.

Basically, the process is:

1. Find a topic for your blog post after doing some research. 
2. Research websites related to your topic.
3. Take note of these target websites and enter the author’s details and corporate information into an Excel or Google Sheet that you will use to track the progress of this specific “campaign,”.
4. Find the contact details on every website. 
5. Write your blog article and post it. 
6. For every outreach category, create an initial email. 
7. Reach out to your contacts with the formatted emails. 
8. Make note of any replies in your tracking sheet. 
9. You should also directly contact your contacts on social media if they are not responding to your emails.

By using these strategies and following the best procedures, you will increase your website’s credibility and online exposure. This will open the door for successful link-building efforts. Contact us to build your link-building outreach strategy today!