This is a guest post by Cory Collins from PageOnePower.com
Anyone who’s spent anytime blogging can readily relate to tales of bad SEO. Blog comments that hardly seem to be English, guest post request spam, and a constant stream of content solely designed to build backlinks.
And it’s unfortunate. Because I believe link building, done properly, is more about personal human interaction than anything to do with a search engine—crazy, right? Let me explain.
First you need to understand the reason most people start a blog, is because they’re passionate about something. They want to share their passion with the world. But, maintaining a blog is a lot of work. Often for little or no money.
So, some blogs start looking for content contribution from outside sources, such as guest posts. Or maybe they are just looking to build more of a community. Either way, they want their blog to stay passionate, on point, and high quality. Generically written, bland, vanilla posts written only for a backlink is the last thing they want.
But link building is a difficult process. Because of this, people are tempted to cut corners continually. Many hope that it’s a number game, thinking that if they send out enough emails, write enough articles, or comment on enough blogs they’ll be able to get a link somewhere. But this isn’t how quality backlinks are made.
But how do you build quality backlinks then? Is it worth the time? My answer is yes, it is definitely worth the time, but the only way to build quality backlinks is through hard work and personalizing the process, in order to build relationships with blog owners.
Outreach Success
The first—and most obvious—way in which personalizing your link building strategies will help is in your outreach success. Believe me when I say blog owners, especially of highly successful blogs, receive an overwhelming amount of emails per day pertaining to SEO and link building. So it’s only natural that they end up ignoring a large percentage of those, especially if they lack any kind of personalization or professionalism.
So, when reaching out to a potential blog owner for link building opportunities—including guest posting, product review/giveaway, or general contacting—make sure to:
- Introduce yourself
- Remark upon their blog – they’ve worked hard on it, so show them you’ve actually looked at it!
- Explain why you’re contacting them, succinctly
- Thank them for their time and include a call to action (hope to hear from you soon, please let me know if you’d be interested in a product giveaway, etc.)
- Proof read for any possible grammar/spelling mistakes
But most of all, don’t use this to create a new template! Every email you send out should be personalized. After reading a hundred template emails blog owners quickly get a sense for which emails were actually written and which ones are just generic outreach. And believe me, it makes a difference.
Guest Posting – More Views
Making your article personalized to the blog improves it in the following ways:
- It better matches the blog’s tone, content, and overall theme and is therefore more likely to get promoted and viewed.
- Makes the post a lot more readable. Think about the difference between including a personal touch—such as previous experience, a sense of humor, or even just your personality— compared to just another generic one off link building article.
- Makes the article easier to write—no one enjoys a generic article, including the writer, since writing it is often boring and mundane. So spice it up and include a little personalization!
- Increases the likelihood of being asked to post again by the blog owner, making it easier to build links in the future.
There’s simply no comparison when it comes to writing a generic post solely for the link at the end as opposed to writing an enjoyable, educational, fun piece that is custom tailored for a specific blog. You can’t build great links without first building relationships.
Increased Link Building Opportunities
At the end of the day, the real reason all link building exercises should be a personalized, human to human interaction, is because it increases your further link building opportunities. How you say? Well, by helping you build real relationships with blog owners!
When you reach out to a blog owner, looking to have an actual conversation and truly contribute to their blog, they’re often grateful. And this gratefulness leads to:
- Another chance to contribute in the future
- Increased network within the blogging community
- Possible increased social presence – the blogger shows their gratitude by going above and beyond in promoting your article
- Possible new link building opportunities—maybe they recommend you to another blog owner, have another blog themselves, or invite you to contribute in different ways (sponsored post, giveaway, etc.)
Even if you don’t get anything extra out of it, the feeling of actually contributing should be enough. And, if you continually practice solid, honest, personalized link building activities, blog owners will notice, and appreciate.
So quit with the template mass emails.
Because let’s be honest: even if you get links out of it, it’s a losing strategy.
Agree with your points Collins. I always try to personally interact with bloggers via comments. And I think thats the way we have to follow…
Making real connections with blog owners is a definite necessity. I’ve seen how much more interested they are in having you return for more posts and it certainly makes the whole process more enjoyable when you’re collaborating with someone and not just another bit of cyberspace.
I like the idea of how Google has made the playing field of SEO to be level for both big giants and small webmasters, by discarding most of the link building techniques people were using to manipulate Google..
Keep sharing the good work.
Regards,
Its easy to build links for the website. but its not easy to build links according to google policies and updates. Google modify its seo related updates regularly thats why we got heavy loss. As I have lost all my rank.
When contacting a person of influence, such as a successful blogger, it only makes sense to make that initial contact memorable. Mention a feature of their blog that appeals to them. Certainly, if you are trying to start a relationship, you want your contact to stand out from all the others. You never get a second chance to make a first impression.
That relationship can open the door to other relationships with other key bloggers. Once you have a quality blog, a key blogger can help you take it to the next level.
So, it only makes sense to think about that key blogger, rather than charge ahead like a bull. What are they especially proud of? What is there hot button?
A genuinely positive, friendly, “I want to learn from your expertise” attitude, backed by a bit of research, will go far. Simple flattery will not.
Link building can be one of the most frustrating parts of doing an online business. You think you are doing things the right way and then Google slaps you out of the ballpark. With a new slap on the way, it is imperative you personalize you linking and don’t try and take the easy way with massive bad links.
Some great tips here, Cory. Thanks! The generic outreach emails you mention are the worst. They waste time for both the sender and the recipient.
Link Building, it is sooooo boring! Yes I have to admit it has done great things for my blog but it is very boring! Funnily enough its what I am doing right now! Thanks keep up the good work & all the best from Dubai!!
I think link building will be a fun if you do it properly. As a blogger you need to visit many blogs for resources of your article there you can get engage in comments with others to increase knowledge about the topic of article you are willing to write.
The core of this article is all about natural backlink. It’s a backlink that comes without the usage of blasting tools. The amount may less than using backlinking service/tool but there is no doubt about its quality.