Blogger outreach is the process of initiating contact with bloggers within the target industry for link negotiation, with the desired goal of getting an inbound link to your site. This can either be done through organic passive linkbuilding, offering a useful product which they link to the site on their own free will, or through offering incentives such as free products as part of link negotiation.
Steps of blogger outreach
- Define what you are spreading the word about, such as an entire site or specific product page
- Define what you wish to achieve through your outreach programme, which combined with what you are promoting describes your value proposition.
- Determine what you will offer in exchange for a link, such as a free product or bespoke article.
- Establish how much you are willing to spend in total on your outreach campaign such as the cost of free products or staff costs associated with producing content.
- Find influential sites within your target market, such as bloggers and known social media influencers.
- Do a background study on your prospects to determine what they require from a partnership and what other sites have previously received a link from them.
- Contact the party you want a link from and propose what you will provide in return.
- If the partner accepts then work with them to ensure that they are happy with the content/product provided as an incentive and that the link provided in return directs users to the appropriate landing page.
- Maintaining and improve the relationship with the partner over time, for instance by examining whether they have further sites which could also be used for links which may be significantly easier than identifying and negotiating with a new prospect. Maintaining a working relationship is also important for ensuring the link is not taken down.