Is blogger outreach dead?
-
Hi All,
I am a fairly new user of Moz Pro and so far so good! However, after identifying that my link metrics and domain authority have dropped behind my competitors I've started trying to acquire links quite aggressively. I'm currently finding bloggers on Socialix to write about my Firewood business in the UK and currently doing about 5 posts per week. However many are insisting upon including upon a disclaimer (e.g. "sponsored by Firewood Centre") and I had a few questions about best practices.
- Are the disclaimer rules different in the UK vs the US? There seems to be stricter policy in the US.
- In some cases I am providing free product, does this still mean that bloggers should include a disclaimer? The idea was to get original photography and proof of concept for the post.
- Is the non-follow link worthless? Again, another point argued by the bloggers.
- Is blogger outreach dead? Should I focus my efforts elsewhere?
Please share your best link acquisition tips here!
Thanks.
-
To deliver the 10x idea to a macro degree, it is approximately being higher page than you were and looking at others to learn about what you could do to be better.
-
While the UK's laws are different the US FTC laws and guidelines, Google doesn't change their rules or guidelines based on where a website or company is based. So, generally speaking if you are going to provide products or services in exchange for a blogger writing about your product or service they need to disclose their relationship with you.
Blogger outreach isn't dead--many are using it successfully, even with disclosures. What's important is that you not worry about whether or not the links you get are going to help your site's search engine rankings. Get links from bloggers who will send you traffic to your website and help you get more business. Then, when there's more traffic, more mentions of your brand, and more social media engagement with you, the search engine rankings will happen.
-
Hi Richard
Google has recently issued guidelines in relation to posts in return for products. They advise that bloggers should no follow links to the company that has given them a free product in return for a post and they should also disclose any such relationship. Here is a good write up on this - https://searchenginewatch.com/2016/03/11/google-issues-guidelines-on-bloggers-and-links-for-freebies/
Again no follow links are definitely not worthless as you must remember they can be a great source of referral traffic, If you get placed on a blog that has a lot of traffic and a highly engaged audience you can gain a lot of exposure from this in the form of referral traffic, social shares and even other links in some cases. Don't purely think of links value in terms of whether they can directly pass authority and help rankings.
If I were working on your project here are some tactics that I would follow:
I would look at identifying influencers in your niche and start to form a relationship with them. Then I would look to get them to write some relevant content on your site, with the aim of giving it exposure to their audience. This is a tactic that I have always found pays off, as it builds traffic and exposure for your site. Ultimately this will lead to lots of opportunities apart from having some good content created for your site that people will see.
I would also look at what your competition are up to that are ranking top for the keys terms you are after. What is there link profile like? What is the content that is ranking like? And what are the social likes and shares to their site and ranking content. This leads nicely into the skyscrapper technique - http://backlinko.com/skyscraper-technique. I would also then look at going a step further with your analysis and evaluate this content very deeply as Rand speaks about in his excellent White Board Friday last week - https://mza.seotoolninja.com/blog/category/whiteboard-friday
When you ask whether blogger outreach is dead I don't believe it is - it all just depends the angle you approach it from. I would look to create my own content that can be placed on their sites rather than the quick win of a free product for review. I would still look to get some product reviews but for the reason I mention above. Again I would also look to entice influencers, which quite often are bloggers, to place content on your site to build the authority of your site.
My final note as why I mentioned above, forgetting blogger outreach I would be creating link worthy content and I would be spending a significant amount of time (at least as long as it took to create if not more) to get it placed in different communities on social networks and other sites remembering this is for exposure and not for links. If you create great content that people want then they will share it and they will link to it - it just takes time and commitment (this is why I highlighted the skyscrapper technique above).
Hope this helps!
Matt
-
These are all great questions.
1. You should definitely provide a disclaimer and nofollow if you are providing products for free to the blogger. This is generally a requirement for compliance in the US and with Google's Webmaster Guidelines respectively.
2. The no-follow link isn't going to give you any real SEO value, but it could certainly give you valuable traffic if you are doing blogger outreach to the correct audience. To make blogger outreach valuable, you should be looking at your prospects for more than just a link. A good enough blog post could itself rank for valuable keywords!
Finally, you ask the question "is blogger outreach dead". It certainly is not, but there is more to it that just getting sponsored posts up. You need strong pitches that actually provide value to the audience of the blog you are doing outreach to. That being said, I find blogger outreach to be difficult, time-consuming, and and low ROI. Chances are, there are some more scalable link building opportunities out there.
- You could mine your competitors backlinks - for example, you should have a link on this page too.
- You could do a piece on fire safety, especially related to wood fireplaces, and resource page link building. - You could try building an audience by sponsoring lumberjack competitions
There are a tons of opportunities which might be easier pickings, at least at the beginning.
- You could mine your competitors backlinks - for example, you should have a link on this page too.
-
I was looking for an answer to this same question. I came across this article by Neil Patel http://neilpatel.com/2014/12/30/how-to-build-high-quality-backlinks-in-a-scalable-way/
There are many actionable tips in this article from competitor research and using social signals to identify good back link sources.
Then I found this article in the Moz newsletter it on search engine land. http://searchengineland.com/learn-competitors-without-copying-223192
It discusses competitor research of back links but not copying their profiles.
I am no expert on link building but these articles are good resources to start.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
DMOZ gone!! The king is dead. Long live the king.
So it appears AOL have pulled the plug on DMOZ. The reason why? - I suspect a financial decision somewhere along the road but personally I think it still had something to offer. I realise there are mirrored versions of it online still (for how long - and for what reason - not much link juice in that) but to pull the plug on one of the oldest and most trusted directories is, well, rather final. Amongst the rubble that litters the web - the endless paid entry directories and the self proclaimed ultimate listing portals I at least felt there was someone else out there (human) validating my submissions - even if it took some time to find my newest sites online. We all know that links need to be adequately sourced but it was a resource I always began with on the quest in achieving ranking greatness. Which begs the question - was it still as popular in the last couple of years or have I been chasing my own tail?
Link Building | | rufo
Will it be replaced? Or have even human edited directories had their day? I'd be interested to hear what others think. RIP DMOZ0 -
Community Discussion: How is Your Brand Scaling Effective Email Outreach?
Recently, I wrote a Moz post on what I think comprises effective online marketing outreach via email: Why You Should Steal My Daughter's Playbook for Effective Email Outreach Though I'm by no means an outreach expert, it's a topic I do feel qualified to talk about, owing to having worked with numerous PR/Outreach folks, seeing what works and what does not, and because of my experience working for and with Fortune 25s in a sales, outreach capacity. I'm wondering... What's the biggest challenge you've faced with regard to outreach? How are you addressing it? What's the No. 1 tactic you've used to attain success in email outreach? RS
Link Building | | ronell-smith3 -
Dead/Broken links on old blogs
Hi We are currently trying to update our blog page on our website but quickly realized there are numerous dead or broken 404 links after clicking on anchor text from past blog posts. Our blog is set up in WordPress and we recently installed an SEO plug in with it. Some of these anchor texts don't actually need links and I want to unlink them, is there a simple way to do this on WordPress? Other anchor text I would like to "301 redirect" to another page. Can i do this on WordPress or is this something my SEO plugin should be able to fix? Answers are much appreciated! Thanks
Link Building | | SapphireCo0 -
Do you have PA and DA minimums for link building outreach?
Hi all! I'm putting together a list of sites I want to attack for link building. I'm looking at my competitors while also seeking specific sites I know would work well to link to us. My question is, since this is very time-consuming, do you have a minimum PA and/or DA that you require in order to perform manual link-building outreach. For example, if a site has a DA below X and PA below X, what would X have to be for you to not consider it worth your time. I'm just trying to gauge where my efforts will be best spent and trying to get some benchmarks. Thanks!
Link Building | | Kibin0 -
Does link from a blog in Blogger.com helps in SEO ?
Do you guys think that adding good quality blogs to blogger.com and then getting a link from those blogs will help ?
Link Building | | Personnel_Concept0 -
Website Hit by Penguin Update Rising Back From The Dead?
I have a website that had been hit quite hard by the Google Penguin update, losing about 75% of its traffic. The website dropped to positions 300 - 400 for it's most significant keywords. The website had some unnatural links but not that much, maybe about 10 to 20 unnatural links and I've had them all removed about a month ago by the SEO company (submitcomfort.com). Another issue with this website is that it was hacked in early 2012 and hackers used a writeable directory to store porn stuff (my website has absolutely nothing to do with porn!). That said, the website acquired lots of backlinks from porn and warez websites. But today I noticed that impressions are now up by 23% and clicks are up by 54% according to Google Webmaster Tools and it's now ranking in positions 30 to 50 for it's main keywords. So my question is: was that a penalty that's just been lift off? How can it come back from the dead like this? I'm investigating before reinvesting time and money in this website because I'm not sure if this is temporary. Thank you
Link Building | | sbrault740 -
Multiple links to dead pages
I have just taken over a client and have been shocked to see a lot of wasted 'link juice' from hundreds of websites linking to old/dead pages within my client's domain. My question is - what is the best method to re-capture that juice given that it is impractical to change the links at source. Thanks.
Link Building | | driansmith0 -
What is the best wording you have seen in an outreach email?
We all get them and most of them are rubbish, very few of them have taken the effort to find out who they are emailing. So making it personal and doing some research first is essential but what about the wording of the email... can you share examples you like & that have had more success for you than others?
Link Building | | tonyatfat0