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Influencer Outreach: How to do it Effectively and its Importance in SEO

Hey Guys! Hope you are doing great. I always aim to keep you updated with useful information that aligns with your field of interest. Today, I am going to uncover the details on Influencer outreach and its importance in SEO and Digital Marketing.  This is the eleventh article covering a complete SEO series. You can also have a look at my previous article on Guest Posting. With the inception of internet technology, marketing strategies are not same as they were before. Without an online presence, you can't even think about growing and flourishing your business in the real world. Internet technology allows you to get rid of the hectic marketing strategies where you used to meet customers personally and convince them to buy your products. Things are changed now. You can approach targeted visitors online and convince them to buy from you if you come up with a lot of positive reviews and referrals pointing towards your products. Influencer Outreach is considered as a marketing strategy where you approach the influencers, build a relationship and inform them how your product or blog can bring value to their audience. Influencers are the people who have enough knowledge and skills in their field of interest and come up with a large number of audience. They have already built a reputation and got enough trust in their audience by providing flawless service.

• If you succeed in convincing the influencers by your content or services, they feel no hesitation sharing your work on their platforms.

You must have a look at a complete guide of SEO Tutorials where I have listed all articles pertaining to On Page and Off Page SEO.

What is Influencer Outreach

Influencer Outreach is termed as a process where you approach the influencer or bloggers that come up with high traffic and ask them to refer your products or content on their platforms. There are many factors making influencer outreach effective and useful, that not only allow you to bring your product in front of a number of people but also help in bringing more traffic to your blog.

Things to do Before you Approach Influencer

There are many things you'd be doing before you approach the influencer. If you really want influencers recommend you on their platform, then you must highlight the value of the product and how your content is going to benefit their visitors. Let's dive in and start exploring the things required before you outreach influencer.

1. Start with Keyword Research

Start keyword research if you intend to target a relevant audience as your field of interest and services. There is no need for creating a content that doesn't align with the needs and demands of the visitors. Before you create a content, you must do your homework in order to find the nature of audience you intend to target to.

• You can't choose any keyword and make a post around it. Doing this is the first rule to ruin your hard work and affect your reputation at large.
• The base of the business or blog built on the random keywords will be on shaky grounds. There is a lot to do before you are confident to put your words online.

The keyword research has been evolved over time. Earlier you would do keyword research and mention keywords multiple times in the article. This approach doesn't work anymore; as Google considers it as a keyword stuffing and you may face a penalty unless you are too lucky to get caught by the search engines and manipulate their algorithms.

• This is where keyword variation comes into play. Now, you have to use keyword variations to make Google aware your content is quite in line with the demands and needs of the visitors. You'll be producing a content not only keeping in view of the keyword research but you need to pay special heed what visitors actually mean when they type certain keyword.
• Using longtail keywords that come with low competition and more traffic give ultimate results than targeting keywords with high competition. Suppose, you are writing a post on Guest Posting, you can use an alternate keyword instead of guest posting in the article like guest blogging, write for us or blog contributors. This is the smart way to make your content aligned with the demands of the customers. And doing this practice multiple times will help search bots aware you are expert in your niche so they direct the visitors towards your content.

There are lots of free online tools available you can do your keyword research on. Following are the free tools you can do free keyword research.

a. Google Keyword Planner

This is a free tool used by most of the bloggers, especially who are in the early stages of their blogging journey. It comes up with limited features but it proves to be handy for most of the new bloggers.

b. Google Auto Suggest

Google works smartly and intelligently when it comes to finding the solution to the specific problem.

• As you type two-three words of your problem, Google immediately comes up with the relevant terms visitors are searching for.
• In this way, you can anticipate, what are the problems visitors are facing that are quite in line with your search. You can build your content around any of these similar problems with the chance of approaching on the top of search engines.

c. Google Searches Related To

Google has made our life easy by providing easy and flawless service where it tries its best to provide quick and most relevant content you look for.

• When you type certain keywords on the google and scroll the page all the way down, you'll see the other keywords that are relevant to the words you just typed.
• These keywords show that the query you are looking to get a solution for, already been searched for other similar keywords too. I have typed "how to start a blog" and come up with these keywords at the bottom of the page.

d. KeywordTool.io

This is another smart tool which is equally handy for keyword research, especially for new bloggers who can't afford to pay for the paid keyword research tools.

• An amazing thing about this tool is that you can look for the keyword relevance in any country. Better is ranking for the google.com. However, if your business is country oriented you can target the specific country of your choice like googl.com.in (India), google.com.pk(Pakistan).
• One drawback of using these tools is that they don't show the search volume of the specific keyword. Things are not going to work if you don't know how many times the specific keyword has been searched on the google.

e. Serp Keyword Research Tool

If free tools don't meet your requirements and you want to get the exact results, then you must use this tool called Serp where it also shows how many times specific keyword gets searched on google.

f. SEMrush Tool

If you can't do keyword research properly, the chance of your blog getting appeared on the top of a search engine is rare. Among all the above-mentioned tools, SEMrush stands the best. Good news is that it comes with both edition i.e. free and paid. You can use free edition for limited research and paid edition allows you to do more searches per day.

• Whenever you type a certain keyword, it will show the search volume of that word immediately. If you are running a business, this tool is really worth the cost. If you'd be using this tool perfectly, you don't have to rely on other tools. This tool will meet your demands quite well.

Tip: If you are going to start your blog from scratch, then start with longtail keywords that come with low competition and high traffic. In the start, it doesn't matter how many keywords you target and how many times certain keywords would appear in the article.

• It is okay to keep the keyword density around 1% and keyword variation appears once in the article. Avoid keyword stuffing and put keywords in the context where they sound natural and truly resonate with the tone of the article.

2. Quality Content

Congrats! You've done your research so far. Now you are ready to build a post around certain keywords. Poorly written content can scare the hell out of your visitors. Doing keyword research would be of no use if you can't produce quality content that fulfills the needs of the visitors.

• Producing quality content means, crafting the content around the focus keyword with the intention of touching one main problem with the number of solutions.
• Use short and sweet sentences in your article in order to avoid grammatical errors. Edit and proofread your work before putting it online.

3. Who is your Target Audience

Make sure, who your audience is. You can't make a general post for a larger audience and hope to jump up in the top searches. You must be sure, who your audience is, what they do, what they truly need and their field of interest.

• Mention in the article, how your work can benefit the customers and why they should prefer your content and products over others;  where big fish are already there to soak you up in the first place.

4. Who to Approach

You can't pick any influencer and ask for a referral. How would someone refer you if their field of interest doesn't resonate with your products or content?

• Do your homework and filter the influencers that are relevant to your field and come with the same audience of relevant interest. Approaching everyone that comes in your way is not the right way to make influence outreach successful. Instead of approaching a number of influencers, it is better to reach a few influencers that fall under your niche and field of interest.

How to Approach Influencer

When you have done your homework, this is the time to approach the influencer. This can be done in multiple ways. Not every method is equally beneficially for everyone. What seems beneficial to you, stick to it.

1. Break the Ice

Marketing is not about selling your product only, but how you maintain the relationship with other speaks a lot about you. Before you reach the influencer right away, start with building a relationship. Easy and quick way to do it is by following and taking an active part in the discussions on their blogs.

• After reading a couple of blog posts, comment on them and show how their work helped you in solving your problems. This way you will get noticed before their eyes, showing your interest is quite in line with their field of interest. And you give more value to building a relationship instead of achieving financial goals.

2. Shoot an Email

Once you are done appearing in front of the influencer's eyes, next thing is to approach them personally. Now is the right time to shoot an email. The words you pick in the email and how you address the influencer set a tone for getting recommended by the influencer.

• Don't get too rude or friendly in the email. Start with greetings them with their names. Don't get too friendly to write emoji or exclamation mark after the completion of the sentence. You can use emoji or other expressions once you get familiar with each other.
• Before you mention the reference they used in the article, make sure, you haven't just scanned the article or jumped through the words and headings, but you read it entirely.
• Some influencers are difficult to reach and don't appear too often. They have a virtual assistant who handles the things on their behalf. In this case, you can approach the writers who write for them. If you are approaching the writers, avoid addressing the influencer for greetings, instead, you can greet the writers by their names and ask for referrals for your products or content.

3. Follow Up Email

Influencers are busy people and don't respond to every email that comes their way. It doesn't mean they ignore you or they are not going to refer you. Follow up email from your side can work wonders. This will show your passion and interest, how you are deeply interested to get recommended by the influencer.

• Still, if you don't get response or recommendation, it doesn't mean you stop building a relationship with the influencer. Try to engage yourself with the influence and take an active part in the discussions initiated by the influencers on their platforms.

4. Guest Posting

Guest post is the post you write for someone else's blog and you get the backlink in return. This is a great way to outreach the influencers where you offer free content to them and ask for the backlink. This is a win-win situation and benefits both the writer and publisher.

• When you guest post, make sure to pick the topic that is missed on influencer's platform. Writing a post that is already posted online makes no sense.

5. Social Media

This is another platform to approach the influencer. Some influencers are more active on their social media platforms than answering the emails. Follow same things as you do in shooting an email before you send the direct message.

• Approaching through social media is little different than reaching through email. The words you use for the direct message must be precise and sound to the point. Again, don't forget to greet them with their names. Highlight the main features of your product and they can solve the particular problem of their audience.

6. Giveaway

Giveaway is the gift you give to the influencer in exchange for getting a referral from them. This is one of the best ways to get the attention of the influencer.

• When you start your business from scratch, you can give a gift to the audience your influencer shares your content with.
• Everyone loves gifts especially when they resonate with their field of interest. Or you can give a major discount to the early birds. This will help you appear in front of the number of people.

Role of Influencer Outreach in SEO and Digital Marketing

Influencers are the people who have a lot of followers. When you approach the influencer, you knock the door with the hope of appearing on a large number of audience with relevant interest as yours. If you solely depend on your blog, especially that you start from scratch, your chances of growing and flourishing in your business would be rare and it takes more time to make a reputation and gain the trust of the visitors.

• Approaching the influencers right way and getting endorsed by them would require less hard work and cost than required for all the other marketing strategies combined.

Influencer outreach has a wide impact on your overall SEO. When your blog is recommended by the influencer, Google counts it as a vote where the number of votes does matter but who votes you indicates the ultimate value of your blog. When the number of influencers recommends you, your blog with come up with the higher chance of appearing on the top of search results.

Final Thought

Influencer marketing and businesses go side by side. Before you reach the influencer, make sure your content is worth sharing that comes up with relevant keywords, gives value and helps solve the problems of the visitors. Target influencers who are relevant to your industry, so they feel no hesitation sharing your content on their platforms. Focus on building a long-term relationship instead of just meeting financial goals. This will help to build your reputation at the start. Don't panic if you don't get recommended by the influencer you approached. Still, you can maintain healthy relationships and contact back again in case you feel influencer has given a green signal. That's all for today. I hope you have found this article useful. In the next post, we discuss SMO and how it, if done a right way, can be a good fit for your blog growth. If you are unsure or have any question you can ask me in the comment section below. I'd love to help you in any way I can. What are your thoughts and experience about influencer outreach?

Guest Blogging: How It is Used and Effect Your SEO?

Hey Guys! I always strive to keep you updated with useful information that helps you solve your relevant problems. Today, I'm going to unlock the details on the Guest Blogging: How it is used and effect your SEO? This is the tenth article on complete SEO series. You can also have a look at my previous article on Forum Posting. Guest blogging, also known as guest posting, is not a new concept. It is defined as writing a blog post for someone else's blog to get a backlink and organic traffic in return. This approach is very helpful, specially for new bloggers who want to show their online presence in limited time. Guest blogging helps in building a relationship with fellow bloggers in your niche where you can show your skills and knowledge by helping them write a blog post that specifically deals with the problems their audience is facing. It is a win-win situation where you write a free blog post for other bloggers and get a high-quality backlink in return. Just bear with me for a few minutes as I'll try to cover each and everything related to guest blogging, and why you should add it in your SEO working strategies. Let's dive in.

What is Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is known as writing a blog post for someone else's blog for free and you get a backlink and organic traffic in return. This brings equal value to both i.e. publisher and blogger. The bloggers who guest your post get a free content that is missing on their sites and you get a free backlink in return. This is not as easy as it seems. There are many factors taken into account before you guest post for anyone. You cannot pick any random blog and guest post on it. Not all bloggers allow you to guest post on them and those who allow come with some strict rules and regulation that you must follow before you guest post for them. Before we move further, you must be clear about guest blogging in case you are feeling skeptical if guest posting is still effective as it was before? After seeing the spike in guest posting, Google's former head of web spam came with a bold announcement in 2014 declaring: Matt's statement targeted the bloggers who do guest blogging just for the sake of backlink instead of giving value or the relevant information to visitors that resonates with their questions and queries. Also, his statement doesn't underestimate the value of guest blogging as long as you are doing it by following proper protocols that don't violate the Google's algorithms for generating backlinks.

• While you do guest posting, providing value with your knowledge and expertise must be your first priority. If you do guest posting just for getting a backlink, it won't help in the long run and Google will take no time in marking your content as spammy and irrelevant that fails to fulfill the needs and demands of the visitors.

You can check the complete guide of SEO Tutorial where I have listed all articles related to On Page and Off Page SEO, so you don't need to wrestle your mind for relevant data and find all information in one place.

Right Way for Guest Blogging

Gone are days, when you could manipulate the search bots by techniques that were truly used for bringing your content to the top of search engines while ignoring visitors' needs and demands entirely. Google's algorithms have been evolved since then and come with a more effective approach where they value the data that resonates with the demands of the visitors and help them keep coming back every now and then. Following are the tips and techniques, which if done in a right way, can help you gain more traffic and page ranking by guest blogging.

1. Pick Relevant and High Authority Sites

Getting on the top of search engines is same as building a business in real time. What you do and prefer in business? In order to make your business successful, you need to deliver quality while keeping the visitors' needs and demands intact. And more referrals and positive feedback you get from the visitors and business owners in your relevant field, the more you come up with the chance of growing and flourishing in your business. Same is true for blogging. You can't anticipate growth without the involvement of a high-quality domain.

• If you want to do guest posting and make aware the audience with your online presence, you must pick the relevant and high authority sites. When you choose quality websites with high traffic, you come with a higher chance of appearing in front of more visitors that are truly interested in your services.

• Suppose, if your blog is about technology, you must choose technology blog for guest posting. If you pick psychology or news blog for guest posting, it will bring little or no value to your blog. In case visitors click on your blog following the blog that doesn't fall in your niche, they won't convert, as their interests don't match with the services and content you are offering.

2. Keep an Eye if your Content is Reviewed

Not every site has the same value when it comes to guest posting. Some sites, who are open to guest posting, follow strict rules and take proper measures for you to allow a guest post on them. If you think the site you select to write for, accepts your content right away without reviewing or analyzing it, indicates danger.

• It is observed most of the sites open for guest posting, receive a number of guest posts and they don't give a green single to every post fall in their way. And if they start accepting every other post it shows there is something wrong that may affect your blog reputation later. Avoid these sites that accept your post without analyzing or testing your post before publishing on their sites.

3. Use of Anchor Text

Anchor text is the text you use for posting your link in the article. This text appears on the post and houses hyperlink in it. It is important that the anchor text of every guest post comes with the same text and points towards your site. Still, it is not a hard and fast rule, you can use different text in the anchor text when you guest post for different websites.

• Putting same anchor text in every guest post gives less value as compared to if it is put in the post that resonates with context and sounds fit for the sentence structure. It is better to create natural and diverse anchor texts for generating backlinks.

4. Don't Do Article Spinning Frequently

You can do article spinning to make your data ready for publishing on multiple forums. It is a good and easy approach but doesn't prove to be effective every time. Creating original content articulated with new ideas comes with more value and brings more traffic to your blog.

• Still, if you are interested to produce the same content anyway, you can do it without spinning the article, while keeping the main concept same and changing the words of the article. Change headings, subheadings in order to make your new content stand out from other blog posts you wrote before.

5. Link Placement

Many bloggers feel confused when it comes to placing the link in the guest post right way.

• There is no ultimate rule to place a link in the guest post. You can pick any link placement in the article that gives you a result. Some bloggers place the link within the article, where it sounds natural and flows with the context of the body - the best approach indeed.
• Some bloggers add author box at the end of the article that highlights the background of the author and the company he works for. Both ways are equally good and come with the ultimate results. It is better if you ask a publisher to add both i.e. link within the article and author box at the end of the article.

How to Search for Sites, Open to Guest Posting

There are many ways to search for quality sites when it comes to guest posting. Some are very effective and help in bringing more traffic and boosting page authority of your site. Following are some ideal ways to search blogs for guest posting.

1. Top [Niche] Blog List

Everyone needs a quick and easy solution for guest posting. In order to do so, you can write "Top [Niche] blog lists" in the google search. Suppose, you can write Top Business Blog Lists. This will open up a list of top ranking blog on business. Some will be open for guest posting. You can connect the blog owners and shoot them an email that you want to guest post for their blogs. In order to make your guest post effective and easily acceptable, you must pick a topic that is missing on their blog and you can write a post around it with a relevant solution to the problem.

• Guest posts that start with questions, how to, or a number of ways to do something, or deal with a specific problem come with a higher chance of getting accepted.

2. Search with Words that Convey Same Meaning

You can search for blogs open for guest posting by using different words that convey same meaning like guest posting and guest blogging highlights the same meaning. Similarly, submit a guest post or write for us, gives almost same impression. You can do following searches for filtering relevant blogs that resonate with your field of interest. Keyword + "Write for us" Keyword + "Submit guest post" Keyword + "Guest blogging" "Publish guest article" + keyword + blog Post written + "Name of the Writer"

3. Keep an Eye on Bloggers or Companies who Guest Blog Frequently

Another way to enhance your guest blogging opportunities is to approach people or companies who actively take part in guest blogging. Some people or companies, who are newly introduced to business, use social media as their prior approach for marketing. You can follow their social media platform and build a relationship by connecting them.

• You can try this search "person name" or "company name" "guest post" and look for the opportunity for guest posting. Blogging is all about how you deal with other fellow bloggers in your niche and maintain healthy relationships with them.

Prior Considerations Before you Guest Post for Other Sites

There are some prior considerations before you guest post for the specific site. You will get a result if you move with consistency, making sure you don't miss anything important required to make your guest blogging successful.

Traffic

Some online tools are very effective for checking domain authority and organic traffic. SEMrush is very useful when it comes to checking blog traffic.

• It is recommended to guest post for the blogs that come with a lot of traffic. Writing for blogs that have low traffic will give you no value and your hard work may get wasted.
• Checking the comments under specific blog post is another way to anticipate the nature and authority of the blog; if the comments are more than 40, it means the blog will help you get a lot of organic traffic.

Domain Authority

Domain authority is very important for a site you intend to write for. Sites with high domain authority help you rank faster on the search engine and builds a reputation in the eyes of search bots i.e. if your data is recommended by quality sites, conveys the meaning you must be worthy in your relevant niche.

• Moz's Open Site Explorer is very useful for finding the domain authority of any website. In fact, domain authority is the keyword introduced by Moz itself.

Number of Backlinks

Ahref is another tool used for checking how many backlinks website is associated with. This tool allows you to do limited searches unless you buy premium package.

• If you guest post for the blog that comes with a high number of quality backlinks, you will have a higher chance of creating reputation and authority of your blog.

Domain Name and Domain History

Not all websites come with same reputation and domain authority. It is advised to check the domain name and its history before you ask for guest posting. Some domains are truly made for the purpose of guest posting, where they can sell links, avoid guest posting for them.

• Before you pick the site for guest posting, it is important to check the domain history at first place. The older the domain, the more the possibility of high ranking and domain authority. Also, analyze the domain name sharply. Good domains come with a suitable domain name that matches with the blog niche or at least contains a focus keyword in it.

Guest Posting for Brand

It feels so exciting when it comes to writing for a brand. But, what is the point of writing for a brand that is entirely different from your blog niche? No doubt, brands come with a lot of traffic, this doesn't mean you write for every brand that comes in your way.

• First of all, it is very difficult to get accepted by a brand, in case you do, the audience won't convert, because their field of interest would be entirely different than your services. Avoid writing for brands and wasting your precious time unless they truly fall under your blog niche and field of interest.

Guest Posting vs Sponsored Post

Guest posting and sponsored post convey almost same meaning with one exception i.e you need to pay for a sponsored post in order to get a backlink. This is a regular practice most of the bloggers do, especially who start blogging as a business and can spend a lot of money on marketing. This is acceptable for bloggers who can afford but doesn't prove to be effective for those who start blogging as a passion and unable to spend money in the start.

• If you are interested in sponsored post anyway, make sure the backlink profile you build must come from multiple sites instead of focusing on one site only. This will help your profile grow and get quick repute in the eye of search engines.

Conclusion

• If you ask, does guest posting effect SEO and help in blog ranking for the search engines? The simple answer is YES.
• It is an old technique but equally effective especially when you are in the early stages of your blogging journey. Make sure, you pay special heed on your link building when you guest post for someone. Avoid picking one site for guest posting multiple times. Google prefer those sites that come with backlinks from multiple sites that help in making the profile diverse in nature.
• Pick high domain authority sites that resonate with your blog niche for guest posting. Traffic is an important factor when it comes to guest posting. Choose sites that have reasonable traffic so your content comes in front of more audience that gives more exposure to your online presence.
• It is important to choose anchor text for your link that matches with the context of the body and sounds natural in the article. It is okay to put different anchor text for the same post when you guest post for different sites.
• Before you write a guest post, make sure, what your targeted audience wants and then build a post around it. And take an active part in discussions, answer the queries of the visitors and engage them so they keep coming back for what you have to offer. This will help you grow as a brand and come out as an authority in your niche.

That's all for today. I hope you have found this post helpful. In the next article, we cover Influencer Outreach and how it helps boost your blog authority and page ranking. If you are unsure or have any question related to guest posting, drop me a comment below. I'd love to help you according to the best of my expertise. Feel free to keep us updated with your feedback and suggestions. And what is your experience you have got doing guest posting? Thanks for reading the article. Stay Tuned!