{"id":1352,"date":"2019-01-01T08:30:55","date_gmt":"2019-01-01T14:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kmbrian.com\/?p=1352"},"modified":"2020-12-04T18:43:47","modified_gmt":"2020-12-05T00:43:47","slug":"step-step-process-link-building-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kmbrian.com\/blog\/step-step-process-link-building-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"The Step-By-Step Process For Link Building in 2019 (Hint: It\u2019s All About Relationships)"},"content":{"rendered":"
In my experience, there is no consistently effective and scalable way to promote content or earn white-hat links that doesn\u2019t rely heavily on email outreach<\/a>.<\/p>\n The reason for this is threefold:<\/p>\n With that in mind, it stands to reason that if you\u2019re a content marketer, it pays to get really, really good at cold email outreach.<\/p>\n In this article, I\u2019ll show you the process I use to: This is a process I\u2019ve honed and perfected into a repeatable set of steps that has worked across a huge range of industries, from sales and marketing to cybersecurity and big data.<\/p>\n It\u2019s based on the concept that the easiest and most effective way to earn long-term value from content marketing is by building and nurturing relationships with other content creators in your space, and that cold email is the basis upon which you build those relationships.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll follow the research and outreach process I used for an article we wrote for Pandadoc<\/a>, a leading document management company. The article was \u2018top sales blogs all sales managers need to follow<\/a>\u2019, which:<\/p>\n Sound good? Great. Let\u2019s get started.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re starting your content promotion after you\u2019ve published your article, you\u2019re way too late.<\/p>\n Promotion is a lot easier when you\u2019ve connected with your targets during the writing process and have them at least somewhat invested in your piece before it\u2019s live.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t do this, you end up doing a lot of \u2018I saw you wrote about X, I wrote something similar, but it\u2019s really really good!<\/em> I thought you might want to check it out! Here\u2019s the link.\u2019 type outreach…<\/p>\n \u2026 This outreach doesn\u2019t work. The people you\u2019re reaching out to don\u2019t know you, and won\u2019t waste their time reading an article they have no reason to believe will be any good.<\/p>\n On top of that, most of the people worth connecting with get these types of emails constantly, and it\u2019s tough to stand out of their inbox with a message like that.<\/p>\n The other reason your promotion should start before you publish is because the whole process — from research, to pre-outreach, to writing, to promotion — should serve a specific goal that you\u2019re trying to accomplish with your article.<\/p>\n I generally create content for the following reasons:<\/p>\n How to do number 2 is a topic for another article. The first one, however, is what I\u2019ll work through in this article.<\/p>\n Sidenote:<\/em> There are more reasons to write content than this (for your own customers, to showcase your product, to go viral (bleh), to be a downloadable content upgrade, to establish yourself as a thought-leader), but for most people, those should all be secondary to building a foundation of organic traffic.<\/p>\n Additionally, the two don\u2019t have to be mutually exclusive. An article you write to build relationships can also be keyword-focused, but generally, I give one more weight than the other.<\/p>\n Finally, I am not saying that this is the only way to create promotable content that provides a long-term value. It\u2019s just the best and most repeatable way I\u2019ve found to use content to start conversations with valuable people and build meaningful relationships.<\/p>\n Rather than write a high-level piece that covers half a dozen tactics, I\u2019m going to dive deep into one and show you exactly how to execute it, step-by-step.<\/p>\n No, not necessarily, but yes, sort of.<\/p>\n Keep in mind that the goal of your outreach is to start conversations with content-creators in your industry with the aim of starting a relationship.<\/p>\n With that in mind, the goal of your first connection should be to:<\/p>\n Regardless of your opinion of \u201ctop blogs\u201d or \u201ctop tools\u201d posts, I\u2019ve found that they\u2019re effective in accomplishing those three goals.<\/p>\n It gives you an opportunity to flatter the recipient (\u201cYou\u2019re so great, we\u2019re including you on our list!\u201d), give them an easy ask, and provide obvious value (a link).<\/p>\n This is what we did for the Pandadoc piece on top sales blogs, and it worked to the tune of a 60% response\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>rate.<\/p>\n Remember, your goal isn\u2019t to knock people\u2019s socks off with the best piece of content ever made; it\u2019s to start a conversation, provide value, and establish the fact that you\u2019re reliable.<\/p>\n The first question to ask yourself is \u2018which group of people would I benefit most from having a relationship with?\u2019<\/p>\n If your goal is to build organic traffic, the answer to that is \u2018people who manage the blogs of high-domain authority sites in my space\u2019.<\/p>\n There are a million ways to find these blogs, so I won\u2019t dive into it here, but I want to give you one useful process that usually gets me about 90% of the way there:<\/p>\n 1. Google around for lists that have already been made and grab domains from those lists I like this because it uncovers a lot of blogs that aren\u2019t at the top of everyone\u2019s lists, but are still super relevant.<\/p>\n For instance, I hadn\u2019t heard of \u2018superoffice.com\u2019, but looking at their blog<\/a>, they cover a lot of the same topics we do, which makes them a great target for our outreach.<\/p>\n I generally shoot for 35 – 50 domains depending on the industry. For the sales blogs article, we started with about 90, but that\u2019s a particularly active blog niche, and you probably won\u2019t have that many unless you\u2019re in a space like that.<\/p>\n The next step is to take all the domains and copy them into Ahrefs \u2018batch analysis\u2019 (under the \u2018more\u2019 dropdown menu). This will give you domain ratings for each blog you\u2019re targeting.<\/p>\n The fastest way to get the domain ratings into your spreadsheet is to export it and then copy the DR column and paste it into the doc you\u2019re using.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s an idea of what that list will look like:<\/p>\n Unless some of the blogs on your list are particularly small or new, there\u2019s no reason not to reach out to all of them, but naturally, you\u2019ll want to focus on the ones with higher domain ratings, since links from them will be more valuable.<\/p>\n Ordering them by domain rating will give a clear idea of which blogs to spend more time on and which ones you can afford to not connect with.<\/p>\n Now that you have your list of targets, you need to find a contact to connect with.<\/p>\n This step is more important than the copy you use to reach out to them. If you aren\u2019t emailing the right person, you\u2019ll never get a response. Asking to be connected to the right person in your third follow-up never works, so don\u2019t use that as a crutch.<\/p>\n For us, the \u201cright person\u201d is the one who manages the content. There are two ways to find this person:<\/p>\n The first one is easy; go to their blog and see if one person publishes all their content. Then, check out that person on LinkedIn to make sure they still work there and really are the right person, and add them to your list.<\/p>\n But that will only work about 40% of the time. Often, there won\u2019t be any author listed on blog posts, or there will be multiple authors that each publish equally.<\/p>\n In these cases, head to the LinkedIn company page and click \u2018see all # employees on LinkedIn\u2019.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll come to a list of employees at that company. You\u2019re looking for someone with \u2018content\u2019, \u2018editor\u2019, \u2018community\u2019, etc. in their job title.<\/p>\n Oftentimes, they\u2019ll be more than one person with a title that seems like a good fit. Click through to any profile that looks promising and scroll to their \u2018experience\u2019 section. Most of the time, you\u2019ll find one person that talks about managing the content on the blog.<\/p>\n If you have two people that look like an equally good fit, add them both to your list and pick one to reach out to first. That way, if they don\u2019t respond, you have a backup.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t half-ass this step; take as much time as you need to feel confident about almost all of your contacts. It\u2019s absolutely essential to the success of your outreach.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re done, your spreadsheet should look like this:<\/p>\n Now, all you need to do is find their email address. The best tool at a reasonable price that I\u2019ve found for finding email addresses is Voila Norbert<\/a>.<\/p>\n All you need is csv with the person\u2019s full name in one column, and the URL of their website in another column. Upload that to Voila Norbert and, voila<\/em>, it\u2019ll spit out email addresses at about 90% accuracy.<\/p>\n They offer 50 free leads<\/a> so you can give them a shot before you pay. No-brainer.<\/p>\n Your spreadsheet should now look like this:<\/p>\n Now, let\u2019s get to the outreach.<\/p>\n Remember our goals for this article:<\/p>\n Everything in your emails should be in service to these two goals. Let\u2019s dive into how to do it.<\/p>\n You\u2019re looking to do three things in your first email:<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what our\u2019s looked like for our Pandadoc top sales blogs outreach:<\/p>\n This should be no more than 2 sentences on 1 line. Make sure to link to your blog or your website so they can check you out and see that you\u2019re legit.<\/p>\n There are four elements that make this ask effective.<\/p>\n The first is that it\u2019s easy for the recipient to comply with.<\/strong><\/p>\n Asking them for a quote on their favorite link building tactic<\/a> requires some amount of thinking and effort. Asking them to just describe their blog is easy; in fact, they probably have a 2 – 3 sentence boilerplate on their blog or somewhere else that they can just paste in here.<\/p>\n The second is that it gives them concrete value beyond \u2018exposure\u2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n Since you\u2019re probably not writing this piece for Forbes, a mention on your blog probably won\u2019t drive a lot of traffic. But a link to a piece of content they\u2019re promoting? That\u2019s a different story.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what point #2 here is accomplishing. There\u2019s a pretty good chance the person you\u2019re reaching out to is actively trying to build links to a piece of content. Point #2 gives them a chance to do that.<\/p>\n The third is an easy way to show you\u2019ve done some research.<\/strong><\/p>\n Go to Buzzsumo and find one of their most shared articles that looks pretty good (sometimes their most shared stuff is a roundup or one that\u2019s clearly just not very good and happened to go a little viral). Link to it there and mention that you\u2019ll use it if they don\u2019t have another one in mind that would be a better fit (this also reduces the barrier to a response).<\/p>\n Finally, it gets them actively participating<\/strong>, and gives them a reason to respond in a meaningful way with content that will end up in the article.<\/p>\n Just telling someone you\u2019re going to mention them doesn\u2019t get them invested<\/em>, and you need them invested to get them to share it out when it\u2019s published and engage with you afterward.<\/p>\n Also, a nice secondary benefit of all this is that you don\u2019t even have to do most of the writing for the article. Saves you time or money if you usually outsource your writing.<\/p>\n This is all really easy to do with Mailshake, but there are a few pro-tips that you need to know to make it work.<\/p>\n Here is what your csv sheet should look like when you\u2019re uploading:<\/p>\n There are three small things here that I think make a difference that I want to highlight.<\/p>\n We stylize Mailshake as one word, lowercase \u2018s\u2019. It\u2019s like this everywhere on our blog and our website. If someone reached out to me asking to contribute to \u2018MailShake\u2019 or \u2018Mail Shake\u2019, I would know they didn\u2019t do their research and would relegate them to the trash.<\/p>\n\n
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Step 1: Research
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What\u2019s your goal with this piece of content?<\/h3>\n
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Does it have to be a listicle?
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Finding people worth connecting with<\/h3>\n
\n2. Go to Ahrefs site explorer, drop each domain in, and click \u2018competing domains\u2019 on the left menu<\/p>\n3. Click through to each of these domains and check their blog to see if they\u2019re active and as relevant as Ahrefs says they are. This should only take about 2 minutes per URL, tops.<\/p>\n
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Finding contacts<\/h3>\n
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Step 2: Pre-Outreach<\/h2>\n
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Your first email<\/h3>\n
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1. Introduce yourself\/your blog<\/h5>\n
2 & 3. Make a low-friction, value-adding ask that gets them involved, and show you\u2019ve done your research<\/h5>\n
CSV and Text Replacement structure<\/strong><\/h5>\n
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Stylizing the blog or product name<\/h5>\n