Top Tips for Outreach Success

Outreach strategies, or, to put it another way, reaching out to your targets and customers, are an essential part of SEO activity. With Google algorithm updates like Penguin and Panda changing the rules, many firms are looking to update their search engine marketing tactics and considering carefully their link building programmes in particular.

Link building has picked up something of a bad reputation, with unscrupulous marketers paying for links on sites that are not relevant or reputable. But done right, link building is still an acceptable and important SEO tactic. Today, it is an integral part of many outreach strategies as firms look to earn valuable links to reach and engage with their audiences.

The key to outreach success with link building lies in the quality, both of the content you are linking to and the website on which your link is placed. A handful of high quality links will do a lot more for your web data and conversion rates than many links on less relevant sites. And there is no fooling the Google bots – pay for lots of links on irrelevant or unknown pages and you could be penalised in the SERPs.

The starting point is to ensure whatever you are linking to is a great piece of content. It must be of high quality, relevant and with high sharing currency. You might do this in-house, or you could look to an exert copywriter to ensure the content hits all your aims. Then you have to get this page to the right people, and persuade them to link to it from their site. This means establishing a relationship with these people and working with them to provide content that is right for their site, and yours.

Sounds easy, right?! Here are our top tips.

• Focus on creating your own unique, original, content that is sharable and engages people. Your aim is not only to get the link out there, but to get readers to pass it on. Be different and offer value.
• Gaining outreach success is a continual process, so be sure to keep coming up with new content ideas. You can plan ahead a topical calendar of articles, but don’t forget to react to current industry trends and news too.
• Your content does not have to be plain old writing – be creative with videos and infographics etc.
• Utilise offers and competitions, but do so carefully. You must check Ts&Cs – your own and the site’s – before confirming anything.

And where should you aim to place your links?

• The press
  Getting into the mainstream media is no easy task, but with a good hook and a solid relationship with key people it can be done. Work with your local news organisations and trade publications to find out what you can offer them.
• Bloggers
  A great way to get in with bloggers is to ask them to review products or services, or enquire about writing a guest post for them. Popular bloggers can have thousands of flowers and massive scope for getting your content out there.
• Socialites
  As with bloggers, key people on social media can have huge reach. Get to know them and discuss how they can help you attract people to your content.