Relationship

The long-term trend for marketers is to get closer and closer with their customers. That’s why the marketing industry has been developing tools, insights, and ways to connect people at a deeper level. A relationship is a bond between two or more people that can be romantic, familial, platonic, or friendly. Relationships are the building blocks of society.

Relationships have replaced backlinks as the new backlink. With the Google Penguin update, black hat SEO has all but gone, and the SEO community has rediscovered old-school link-building strategies. And connection development may be at the top of the list. After all, a link from a related authority site is — and always has been — the most critical link. And the best method to gain a link from a high-quality site is to establish a genuine, non-transactional connection with the owner. Here’s how to do it.

Influencers should be identified

There are leaders in every sector. You should have no trouble acquiring a connection from them if you can get on their radar and provide them with something of value. But first, you’ll need to figure out who they are.

FollowerWonk

SEOMoz’s FollowerWonk is a valuable tool for calculating Twitter impact. But, importantly for our needs, top influencers in your field may be found in only a few minutes of research.

Go to https://followerwonk.com/ and login in using your SEOMoz credentials.

Click the “Search Twitter Bios” option after you’ve logged in.

Also, include a keyword that is relevant to your specialty.

Sort the results by “Social Authority.”

And make a spreadsheet with the folks you believe might be a good match.

Rep until you have a substantial list of some of your industry’s biggest names.

Topsy

Topsy is a search engine that ranks material depending on how many times it has been shared on social media. It’s also a fantastic tool for locating industry leaders. The most widely circulated material is usually from authority.

Go to http://topsy.com/ for more information. Enter a term that is relevant to your industry.

Choose “Last 30 Days” from the results sidebar.

Also, use Followerwonk to see if you can locate any new persons or places you weren’t aware of before.

Make a note of that individual in your spreadsheet.

Following on Twitter

Finally, have a look at who your influencers are following.

Go to one of your influencers’ Twitter accounts. Check to see if they follow a local group of individuals. This will provide you with the A-listers in your sector.

The Initial Contact

It’s time to get your name on their radar now that you’ve compiled your list of connections. Many individuals mistake “cold contacting” a website owner and asking for a link or a guest article. Using what’s known as “First Touch Contact” is a more subtle (and successful) method. All this implies is that you start contact without immediately asking for anything. Keep in mind that these aren’t one-time deals. You may need to communicate with them in a subtle but constant manner for weeks before imprinting yourself on their minds.

Commenting on a blog

Leaving a meaningful and informative remark on their blog is one of the most successful first touch strategies. Please make your contribution count: you’re publishing something on their property, so make it worthwhile. It would be best if you ideally were one of the first to leave a remark. Subscribe to your influencer’s RSS feeds to receive first dibs on fresh posts. I enjoy Google Reader because it organizes your favorite blogs and allows you to keep in contact with the individuals with whom you want to form connections.

Go to http://www.google.com/reader first. And use your Google account to log in:

To subscribe, click the “Subscribe” button.

And then key in the name of a website run by one of your influencers.

The reader will automatically display the most recent posts from the blogs you’ve subscribed to.

Once you’ve found one to which you believe you can offer value, go to the following blog post:

Also, write a thoughtful remark for the author.

The blogger will remember you if they see a statement like that!

Twitter

Another great location to interact with your influencers is Twitter. On the other hand, many individuals come on too strong and attempt to attract attention. Rather than answering every tweet, pick and select the ones you respond to.

The question, poll, and help tweets are the ones that leave the most significant “brain imprint.” This is because these are tweets in which the sender is actively seeking a reply. To put it another way, this is your chance to shine.

Here’s an example of a question tweet:

Respond honestly.

You’re also on their minds (at least for a second).

Google Plus is a social media platform that allows you

Google Plus is a fantastic way to connect with industry influencers. It’s also less busy than Twitter, so your message has a better chance of standing out. To begin, locate the individual with whom you want to communicate.

Add them to the rings you’ve created.

Also, leave a remark.

See how I was the only one who responded to the post? On Twitter or Facebook, it would never happen.

Email

An email is a terrific approach to build a direct connection with top bloggers in your area as long as it’s complementing, honest, and non-pushy. Remember, your only purpose at this stage is to get them to know who you are. And there’s no better way to accomplish it than to send them an email.

Here are some email templates that can help you stand out:

• The Email “I Love You, Man”

You’re just sending the blogger a note to express your gratitude for their work in this email.

• An email with the subject line “That Post Rocks!”

This email emphasizes a specific (ideally recent) piece of information that you thought was especially noteworthy.

• The Email That Says “I Don’t Get It.”

You’re merely contacting them with a legitimate query about something you’ve been thinking about.

Value-Added Follow-Up

It’s time to obtain your link after you’ve spent enough time and energy getting to know them. Asking for a link out of the blue won’t work – you need to offer them a reason to connect to you (remember Persuasion 101: “What’s In It For Me?”).

Post by a Guest

One of the simplest methods to obtain a link is to write a high-quality guest article. In truth, a guest post is a perfect match: your blogger target is looking for high-quality material… You’ll also need a hyperlink. Offering a guest article won’t come off as transactional or desperate since they already know you. Check to discover whether your target accepts guest articles to ensure you don’t get shot down.

First, seek guest post rules or an area where you may write for us:

Whether you can’t locate one, use these search terms to discover if the blogger has ever accepted guest posts:

• “guest post” at targetblog.com
• site:targetblog.com “This post was authored by”
• “guest author” on site:targetblog.com

Some even offer a category for guest postings, like in the example below:

So now all that’s left is to write something and send it along.

Increasing the popularity of popular content

Because “good enough” is never enough, most leading bloggers are also leaders. They are always trying to raise the value of their material. You may occasionally get a link in exchange for your assistance if you can improve their material beyond what it currently is.

A blogger constructed a spreadsheet to follow Pat Flynn’s backlinking tactics, as one example… and was rewarded with the following link:

Consider how you can do the same.

To begin, go to the blog and check if there is a “most popular posts” section on the sidebar.

Consider how you can offer value with a:

• It’s difficult to say “no” to an interactive tool.
• Therefore, the guide has been updated.
• Video
• The checklist that may be downloaded
• Personalized design (like an infographic)

Refreshing Old Content

The majority of well-known bloggers are pretty busy. And little things like updating old postings — even popular ones — might slip between the cracks. They could reward you with a link if you can discover a means to update their existing material swiftly. There’s no way around it: you’ll have to browse over their prior postings and see if there’s anything you can add to them.

To begin, look up the blog’s copyright date to see when it was founded:

Then go to Google and type “site:” into the search box.

Sort the results so that just the site’s oldest pages are shown.

Start the date in December of the year the site was launched and go back a year or two.

Now read through the findings and see if anything needs to be updated. Look for entries with many links or that cover themes that are changing quickly (SEO, Pinterest).

Here’s a post that meets the criteria: it has a lot of outbound links and is about Twitter (a platform that changes all the time).

To check for broken links, run the page using Screaming Frog SEO Spider (you can get the tool here: http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/).

In Screaming Frog, paste the URL.

Select “External” from the drop-down menu.

Sort by status code as well.

There seem to be quite a few broken connections!

Timeouts for connections are included (usually dead sites)

Also, 404s (missing pages).

At first glance, this may seem to be broken link construction, but it is a whole distinct method. Instead of informing him of the broken links and proposing that he add a link to your site, you’re going to locate substitute articles for all of them:

Consider how happy he’ll be that you spared him so much time and effort! Remember not to request a link. If he connects to you, that’s fantastic. If not, that’s OK as well. Now that you’re in his good graces, he’ll click to you when you can provide something useful again.

BuzzStream may help you save time and money.

BuzzStream is a fantastic paid service that makes it a little simpler to identify and monitor your online interactions.

Sign up for a free trial at https://app.buzzstream.com/create account (credit card required):

To install the Buzzmarker toolbar in your browser, go to:

Then, add the following to your site’s URL:

There are a zillion ways to utilize this tool, but I’ll show you a few of the most effective.

Find and collect contact information quickly and easily

You’ve discovered a website from which you’d like to get a connection. Great. What’s the best way to contact that individual now? The Buzzmarker tool locates and captures your contact information.

Navigate to any of the following pages:

Then, on your bookmarks toolbar, press the Buzzmarker button.

Any contact emails or URLs of contact forms on the site will be immediately found by the tool:

You may also scrape whois data for places that don’t have the transparent contact information:

It also adds the following contact information to the form:

Stages of Relationship Management

It’s difficult (if not impossible) to recall who you’ve contacted when you’re performing outreach to hundreds of sites. However, you can simply keep track of what you want to get out of each connection with BuzzStream… and how far along you are.

Return to the site where you wish to receive a link and press the Buzzmarker button again.

Fill in the facts about the place and your objectives this time.

Select a stage in your relationship.

Add a task as well.

Now scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “save.”

You’ll see that the site has been added to your “websites” list when you log into your BuzzStream dashboard:

If anything changes, alter the relationship stage by clicking on the entry.

Prospecting

Prospecting is a shotgun technique to find gems that would otherwise go unnoticed. This application searches Google results for the keywords you type in and discovers contact information and social media profiles for you automatically.

At the top of your BuzzStream account section, click “Websites”:

Then choose “Prospecting” from the drop-down menu:

Next, enter keywords that are specific to your niche. In general, the most powerful (and complex) locations to obtain links rank on the first page for competitive keywords.

“Save” should be selected.

The program will take some time to search and provide results. To see your findings, go to the “Prospecting” tab and choose the profile you made previously.

If you come across a site that seems to be a suitable link candidate, click the “Like” button.

It will also be added to your list of prospects.

While this kind of broad search term might be helpful for prospecting, they are more likely to reveal your competitors (that may be reluctant to link to you).

To locate more specialized pages and sites, you may use various sophisticated search phrases inside the tool, such as:

• keyword + allintitle:resources
• “keyword” + “write for us.”
• “guest author” + keyword
• “suggest resource” + keyword

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