A Comprehensive Guide to Outreach Link Building for Businesses

In this day and age where most people are online, having a solid online presence is crucial for business owners. After all, if it’s easy for consumers to find you online, you’re more likely to attract new customers and increase your revenue. It is for this reason that some businesses invest in outreach link building. 

But what is this offsite SEO strategy exactly? And how does it differ from traditional link building?

Link Building and Outreach Explained

Link building and outreach are two digital marketing strategies you can use to establish authority and build credibility within your industry. Similar to onsite SEO, both of them require time and effort. It could also take some time before you see substantial results. 

As the name implies, link building is the process in which you convince other websites to link to yours. The more backlinks you obtain, the bigger your chance of appearing prominently on google search results. However, when it comes to link building, quality always trumps quantity. This means a couple of backlinks from authority sites carry more weight than multiple links from a blog no one has heard of. 

On the other hand, outreach refers to one of the strategies in which link building is carried out. There are several ways you can reach out to third-party websites and convince them to link to yours. They include: 

• Email outreach – involves emailing people and asking them to link to your site.
• Influencer outreach – involves contacting famous bloggers, websites, and communities and offering to write for them in exchange for something (e.g. a link to your site or social media pages)
• Guest blogging – the process of publishing content on a third-party site to earn quality backlinks
• Social media outreach – involves building relationships with relevant social media accounts to promote your content and strengthen its impact.

How Outreach Link Building Contributes to SEO

As explained earlier, link quality and quantity are necessary to ensure an excellent search ranking. However, the biggest hurdle for businesses, particularly the new ones, is that only a few people have heard of them. Even if they create quality content regularly and promote it actively online, they will still require the assistance of the big names in their niche or industry to generate more referral traffic and increase their search ranking. 

For this reason, you should consider using outreach to convince other sites to link to yours. Here’s how it can strengthen your link building campaign:

1. Expose your content to a bigger audience

Whether you’re writing for an established website or asking influential members of your industry to promote your content, reaching out to them allows you to benefit immensely from their online authority and popularity. It enables you to attract a new audience for your content, helping you drive more referral traffic to your website.

2. Gain instant credibility

Having an authority site promote your content or web pages can improve your online reputation and credibility. When people see that a trusted figure supports your brand, they are more likely to follow you. Not only will this help expand your audience base, but it can also help increase your search ranking.

How to Build a Solid Outreach Strategy

As with other link building tactics, you must plan and implement your outreach campaign carefully to obtain the best possible results. Here are some pointers to help you get started:

Choose the websites/individuals you’ll reach out to

Note that you cannot ask just about anyone to link to your site and/or promote your content. You must ensure they are relevant to your business and link building purposes. Therefore, the first thing you need to do is research the top authority sites, figures, or influencers in your niche. Find the who’s who of your industry and determine how they can potentially help you.

As much as possible, start with your high-level targets. If they respond favourably, they can contribute significantly to your link building campaign. Furthermore, they can serve as social proof when you later reach out to smaller websites.

 Craft a good outreach message

Always remember that you’re contacting a real person, not a machine who’ll respond to your email based on a random algorithm. Therefore, you should craft an excellent outreach message to create a great first impression. 

Likely, the blogger, journalist, or site owner you want to contact has received dozens of similar outreach messages. To ensure they won’t mistake you for a spammer or just someone trying to gain internet clout through them, here are a few tips you should consider:

a. Explain why they should care about you

If you’ve been working on your web content for quite some time, then you probably already know what makes it potentially interesting in the eyes of a third-party publisher. Be genuine and authentic when explaining your content’s good points.

b. Tell the publisher precisely what you want them to do

As with your customers and web visitors, you shouldn’t be afraid to tell the bloggers/influencers what you want them to do. Sometimes, your outreach goal may not just be about gaining a backlink. It may also involve third-party publishers:

• Sharing your content on social media
• Embedding your content
• Publishing your guest post
• Writing a piece about your content and sending you a backlink

c. Personalise your message

Don’t forget to add a personal touch to your outreach message. This will help ensure its recipient won’t immediately delete or flag it as spam. As mentioned earlier, content creators and influencers with large followings receive many outreach emails regularly. Taking the time and effort to make yours unique can help increase your chance of receiving a favourable response. 

To personalise your message, you can:

• Address your recipient by name
• Use a compelling subject line
• Indicate your location if needed
• Express your knowledge of their work
• Use a genuine email address and proper email signature
• Include information in the email signature line that would help boost your reputation

Make sure to follow up

If you don’t receive a response the first time, see that you follow up on all your outreach link building efforts. Not only will this help you obtain the results you want, but it also proves that you’re a real person and not just automated software sending messages to several people at once.

Craft a Good Outreach Strategy Today

When implemented correctly, outreach can give your link building efforts a significant boost. Besides helping you build online authority and credibility, it can also help you generate more referral traffic. Consider the pointers discussed above to make the most of this offsite SEO strategy. 

At Springhill Marketing, we can provide you with the expertise you require to build a successful link building campaign. Get in touch with our SEO team today, and we’ll create a bespoke strategy for your business.