Last week we explored the importance of a healthy backlink profile. This week we’re going to look at building healthy outreach relationships. But before we can do that, we had to take care of a few things. Running a detailed audit on your backlink profile helps you get an idea of the type of links your site already has. This is a vital step to any link earning campaign – you shouldn’t aim to earn new links before you know what you’re working with.
This is especially important if your backlink profile has a large amount of low-quality links. While you should always be looking for new and better linking opportunities, getting your backlink profile to a healthy state is vital. Remember, you shouldn’t just put a Band-Aid on a much bigger problem.
After spending time digging through your links and making efforts to remove any potentially harmful ones, you can move on to link earning! To earn links online, you need to become a jack of all trades. You’ll wear many hats and do lots of things at once. But, the links you’ll earn using good tactics will be well worth it.
Outreach
As a link earner, your focus shifts to maintaining good outreach processes. Outreach is an essential part of getting in front of your prospects. In the old days, many marketing firms used outreach as a way to flood prospects’ inboxes with linking offers and aggressively push content in exchange for links. Today, the process has changed quite a lot. We still need outreach, but the practice had become much more personal and much less invasive.
Instead of sending emails advertising link exchanges or offering money for links, good outreach teams focus on building relationships. Here, they must first identify influencers in their industry. These are people their customers follow, blogs they read, or experts they take cues from. Half of the battle for an outreach team is identifying viable prospects. A lot of time can be wasted going after the wrong audience.
Once good prospects are identified, it’s all about cultivating a great relationship. These relationships can start as a simple social connection, network meeting, or any other way of getting in front of the prospect. Then, hopefully, a conversation starts and continues! The most important thing to remember when performing outreach is that your efforts may not always result in a link, and that’s ok. Links are no longer the be-all and end-all of your internet marketing plan. Links alone do not indicate online success. The great relationship you built is sometimes enough.
Public Relations
Performing outreach isn’t enough. You also have to fit into the role of a public relations pro! If you don’t have an outreach professional on your team, you’ll probably have to do this yourself. The good news is adding a good PR (Public Relations) strategy to your marketing plan isn’t hard at all.
A strong PR strategy needs to focus on building and maintaining your brand image. This is really easy if you’re committed to delighting your customers and prospects. PR works hand in hand with outreach. When you send those first outreach emails, and even when you’re wrapping up your conversations, you must always keep the needs of your prospects in mind. PR pros know how to talk to people. You can take a page from their book by always striving to be excellent, and never pushing for a link.
If you keep your contact with prospects helpful and kind, they’ll be more inclined to give you what you’re asking for. Remember, prospects have the power to publish any emails you send them. So if your tactics are rude or pushy, don’t be surprised if you’re called out online. Before sending any messages or emails, always ask yourself if it would be a disaster if those messages were published online! This is really the last thing you want and it won’t happen if you commit to maintaining your brand image.
Rinse And Repeat
When you’re trying to earn links for your brand, you may not get as many as you had planned. Try not to get discouraged when this happens. Since link earning is so different from link building, it can take a bit to find a rhythm that works for you and your business needs.
Being really good at outreach and public relations doesn’t happen overnight. Many businesses have teams devoted to outreach and PR, where their soul focus is to build relationships and maintain the brand image. As a small business, it can be hard to find the time to focus on link earning, much less learn the best way to do it. That’s why starting small and committing to a plan is your best bet.
If your current process doesn’t work, you just have to try again! Aim to send better emails, give prospects more information, send out samples, and never ask for links outright. You’ll eventually find a process that works for your needs. Once you nail down a seamless process, earning links will be that much easier!
To earn links, you must listen to your audience and know your brand’s needs. Having a good understanding of what you want as well as what your prospects and customers want will help you make more educated decisions. Outreach and PR need to work together to create a great plan. Your interactions with prospects need to be gracious and giving, while upholding your awesome brand image. Good outreach may result in a link or a brand mention. Links have become a happy side effect of something much bigger. What’s bigger is the great connection you made and the relationship you’ve built for the future.