SEO experts keep their fingers crossed before each Google update. They know it is to change the SEO game rules.
Nonetheless, certain things continue to be significant. What things? Natural links with high authority.
Penguin update There are specific ways, for sure. SEO outreach is one of them.
You may wonder whether it is still effective in 2021. Well, I use it for my inbound link campaign, and I would say SEO can bring great results.
The key is the networking concept I will cover here.
Classic Link Outreach: Why Use it?
Before switching to the topic of networking, think about why you should apply outreach for your SEO backlinks strategy. For me, it has the following advantages:
- Little time to get a link. My experience shows that you can get a link in a short time with this method. It usually takes me a week to post a sponsored link, meaning I can see a positive impact on my page ranking sooner.
- Portfolio creation. How can outreach contribute except for giving niche relevant backlinks? It helps create a portfolio of posts produced by you, an Outreach Specialist, or your company. It contributes to your trusted reputation. Respected donors will not link to untrusted pages while your portfolio shows that you are worth cooperating with.
Yet, SEO outreach is not perfect. The most significant issues I have encountered so far refer to:
- Expensive placement. Fresh and trusted domain donors that I would describe as "good" will cost you $150 per link or even more. So, yes, it may be expensive to publish a guest post with your backlinks looking like organic links.
- Time-consuming research and negotiation. Even with link building outreach tools, discovering the proper domain and negotiating on publication need time and effort. Apart from specific requirements, sometimes, the guest post deals just fall through. Yes, certain web admins can disappear without a trace leaving you sad and alone with the content written for them.
- Low outreach conversion rate. What do I suggest? The ratio of the number of editors ready for cooperation to the number of emails sent to them is pretty low. The apparent reason is that respondents ignore or do not open emails.
Needless to say, you can try to attract natural links or use crowd marketing. However, for the first event to happen, you will wait forever. The second method may not be enough for getting the link juice. Thus, playing a long game with link outreach may be the option.
Having worked with SEO outreach for several years, I believe that the outreach link building strategy works well if only applied with networking principles.
How to Get a Backlink? Can Authority Boost Your Page Ranking?
The first option is to cooperate with the same domains from your donor database. You can use them for different projects within the same niche.
Such cooperation makes life easier; you may get discounts or special conditions for future guest posts. For instance, you can ask to insert a branded anchor text or naked link text. However, if you work on one project or product, this technique may not work.
The second option for making SEO outreach effective is networking and building long-term relationships with authors. I want to describe this model in more detail.
The SEO community is aware of the growing importance of posts' expertise. Google has focused on it since 2018. After the
Google Update September 2019, Ever since, everyone knows that any post should follow
Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness How to Determine SEO Link Authority and Find a Reputable Author?
There are many ways for finding an author with expertise to start cooperation and get the link to your product that would contribute to your ranking.
Yet, I use the method involving Ahrefs Content Explorer and keyword search. It allows me to see the authors of the articles in SERPs TOP.
Let me show how this technique works:
- Go to
Ahrefs Content Explorer
and look for the publications by keywords you are interested in.
2. With it, get the list of posts’ authors that are in SERPs TOP for the particular keywords.
3. Next, to ensure the authority of the specific writers, analyze their LinkedIn profiles or find their other articles.
4. When you are analyzing the profile, you should focus on working experience, education, facts, and skills. Let's take an example. This author seems to fit the profile of an expert.
5. Next, I usually use the
chrome extension email finder6. To facilitate the process, you can apply some link building outreach tools or simply outreach automation software, like
Lemlist7. Then, everything depends on your pitches and skills in communication.
At the same time, my experience tells me that an individual approach to each author and blogger is much more efficient. Before all, you work with real people. That's why before emailing them, read their articles. If they are really good, write some comments. It is what I meant in the beginning - networking and building relationships.
Conclusion: Get SEO Link Authority via Networking
Link Building is a secondary goal. First, you connect with authors and start valuable acquaintances, entering new circles. In turn, they help you advance your link building. The reason is simple. The link in the work of the reputable blogger brings more than just link juice. It increases the prospects of your inbound links being seen by readers and, lastly, Googlebot.