When you are a blogger, building quality relationships with other bloggers is a lot more important that you think.
As my mentor, Jon Morrow, likes to say…
“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know online that matters”.
So, creating connections through blogger outreach should have a significant spot in your content marketing strategy.
The best part?
Outreach is an incredibly effective method for increasing your blog traffic. It is the prime way I bring new readers to my blog.
And here’s the deal.
It can be a first-rate approach for you, also.
Here are the three lessons you can benefit from today on blogger outreach
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Start By Forging Genuine Relationships.
Don’t befriend another blogger because they are famous. Instead, connect with them because you like their work, respect them, and believe that they can truly help you broaden your connections in a mutually advantageous manner.
Before you even ask another blogger to help you, make the first move. Find an appropriate posts of theirs to link to by subscribing to their blog. If you find a post that you particularly like, write your own post sharing your opinion about the same topic and provide a link to the other blogger’s post.
Remember, links to quality, relevant posts will help your readers and your ranking. It’s wrong to assume that linking will ruin your Google PageRank or traffic. On the contrary, your readers will surely love you for pointing them to other valuable articles through a quality external link.
Aside from linking to them, you can also help your future BBF (best blogger friend) by:
- Referring other people to their blog
- Nominating them for an award
- Recommending them for an interview or podcast
- And sharing their posts on social media (and via your email signature)
These actions will prove you really want to get to know them better, leading to the beginning of an excellent relationship.
2. Use Comments and Guest Posts to Help Other Bloggers and To Get Traffic
It’s not enough that you write great content. You need to promote that content to increase your exposure to new readers and to gain more subscribers.
Here are my favorite two ways to promote my posts.
Write Blog Comments
I wish I knew early in my blogging career about promoting your blog through blog commenting. I would have grown my blog faster by using this brilliant method of blogger outreach.
The key?
Choose blogs that are relevant to yours and leave helpful, funny, or even (somewhat) controversial comments to pique the interest of the audience of that blog.
These readers will likely be interested in your content too, since they found you after reading a blog relevant to yours in the first place.
To ensure that you will hook readers in following your comment over to your site, start by posting comments on as many similarly niched blogs as possible, creating at least 2 blog comments per day.
And remember, each of your comments must add information or raise a question about the topic being discussed. Don’t write a useless comment, like “Great post!”.
Guest Post Blogging
This is a popular practice in the blogging world, where you offer to write an article for another blogger.
The other blogger gets a free article, while you, the guest blogger, get more exposure. You can also gain traffic for your blog by including your link in the byline of your guest blog posts.
I also indulge in “reverse” guest blogging. That’s where you have other bloggers write a post for your blog.
This is great since it 1) gives you some time off and 2) helps during stressful times or even vacations. Plus, your audience gets a different point of view on a subject near and dear to their hearts.
3. Promote Your Killer Content
You can capitalize on your very best articles to further promote the post.
This is how I show my clients how to do blogger outreach:
- Inform other bloggers about your new post by email (but only after commenting on their posts for at least 3-4 weeks).
- Post your articles in your social media accounts and ask for retweets and reposts.
- Ask your friends to vote for your articles on social bookmarking sites.
- Create a round-up post where you ask influential bloggers the same question, like a group interview
I know, you are thinking, “I just can’t write an email asking an influential blogger to share my post!”
Yes, you can.
Just casually mention in your email that you just wrote an article that they might like and, if they do like it, would they mind sharing it. With a straight-forward message like that, the other blogger just might read your article and, if they like it, they won’t hesitate to share it.
But if they don’t, it means that you need to put in some more work into create compelling articles that will easily earn the links and shares of the other bloggers in your network.
Wrapping It Up
Taking part in blogger outreach is important if you want to grow your readership. Having blogger friends helps you get more traffic and subscribers.
It also helps you build authority in your niche, generating both income and amassing a huge following of super fans.
Now it’s over to you. Begin by commenting on other 2 popular blogs today. Heck, start right here and drop a comment on this post below.