Whether you’re just starting out as an SEO specialist or have already been working in the sphere for a while, you have definitely heard about outreach. It is a link building method that allows you to build quality links and get noticed by your potential audience. However, it is not as easy as it sounds. It requires a lot of research, preparation, and dedication to creating an effective outreach strategy that would help you achieve your goals as soon as possible.
To help you succeed in building an outreach plan that works, we’ve created a detailed guide that you can turn to whenever you need it.
Your guide to building an effective outreach strategy
Define your goals
Before you start reaching out to people, you need to define your goals in detail. How many backlinks do you need to get as a result? What are the outreach methods and tips that will help you get the links? Will it be guest blogging, product review, sponsored posts, blogger outreach, or simple link placements?
Figure out your goals before you start reaching out to people so you could clearly communicate to them what you need and make your link building strategy truly effective. Also, list down your KPIs and keep them in mind when you will be creating an outreach list and contacting people.
Find search requests based on which you will create an outreach list
You have defined the goals of your future activity and now you need to find relevant search requests. Think about the theme and try to extract as many relevant search requests as possible. By doing so you’ll get greater possibilities to achieving the objectives of your strategy.
First, create a table in Google Documents or any other place where you will put the names, platforms, and contacts of people you will be reaching out to later.
When you have extracted the search requests, the next step is identifying whether these platforms are relevant and credible. You can use tools like Ahrefs to help you with that.
Then, filter your list to the most suitable platforms and create an outreach list. You don’t have to prepare a separate table for that. All the necessary information can be gathered in the same file in neighbouring cells.
Create a contact list using an email finder for outreach
When you have a list of platforms you’d like to work with, you should do additional research to the right people and their contact information.
The difficulty is that most platforms don’t provide direct contacts of their employees and only have contact forms that you can fill in and hope that you’ve reached out to the right person.
However, thanks to SignalHire – an email finder for outreach, there’s an easier and a surefire way to find a person’s email address.
How to outreach using an email finder
For instance, you’d like to contact a writer on the company’s blog for guest blogging. You go to the blog and find a person’s name. If there’s no email address or other contact information, you have nothing left but to look for a person on social media like LinkedIn. But how do you extract their fresh and relevant contact details from a social profile?
To do that, create an account with SignalHire (or log in if you already have one), install the extension to your browser and start pulling out high quality contact information in a matter of seconds. Here’s how it works.
Find a person’s LinkedIn profile and open it in your browser. Then, click on the SignalHire icon in the upper right corner and you’ll see a pop-up with the “Reveal contact” button. The high-quality and latest contact information of the person will be provided to you as soon as you click the button. Now you can copy the email address and add it to your outreach list.
Prepare outreach email templates
Finding the relevant email address of a person is only half the battle. You should also work hard on your email copy. It is a very important step because based on the text of your email, a person will make up the first impression about you and your business. Thus, you should try to create an appealing but brief text taking into account the goals of your outreach campaign.
Watch out your tone of voice. When you’re first reaching out to a person, you should make sure that you introduce yourself and sound friendly so that a person gets a desire to establish contact with you. You should remember that your goal is not only to get a link placement but also to network and build trustworthy relations.
Although the copy of your email has to be concise and clear, you shouldn’t necessarily be straightforward with your request. Try to find another reason why you are reaching out to show how you can be useful to a person as well. For example, for guest blogging, you can find out an approaching holiday or occasion and offer to create thematic content for their company’s blog.
Finally, send out emails
The last but not the least important step is sending out emails. You should understand that outreach is a long process. Don’t panic if you don’t get answers within the first couple of days. People might start writing back to you in a week or two due to many conditions. Some might have a great workload. Others might be on vacation or taking a sick leave. Keep in mind the human factor and don’t stress out ahead of time.
Most importantly, don’t send out all the emails together even if your deadlines are burning. Try to personalize and customize as many emails as possible. Turning to a person by their name helps you win people’s trust and make sure your email does not end up in the spam folder. Moreover, a personalized approach increases your chances to get a reply faster than you have been expecting.
However, if you haven’t got answers within a week or two, it’s worth contacting a person one more time. Write a polite email saying that you were wondering if they have seen your email. Maybe, they would like to find out more details about your offer or share with you the updates. As we’ve already said, link building requires dedication and sometimes persistence to get what you need.
Summary
Link building is a complex process that requires an SEO specialist to have an array of skills. You need to be a great researcher, a skillful strategist, a writer, and even a negotiator so you could find common grounds with copywriters, bloggers, webmasters, and many other professionals.
However, practice makes perfect. With time you’ll learn to find out which outreach methods work best for your business. Moreover, you will get an understanding of how to build an effective outreach strategy that will bring great results and work in your company’s favor.
Source: pixabay.com
