When I started ZenSpill, I told myself that I am going to stay away from talking about SEO, but now and then I come across a topic I really want to talk about that is related to SEO. We all know how important getting quality links are for gaining Search Engine visibility and the most basic way to gain those links are by writing guest posts on authority sites in your niche. The awesome thing about guest posts is that they not only help your rankings but also help build your brand name and send direct traffic. But like all great things in life, guest posting is a bit hard to, especially if you are just starting out.
Subject line
Let’s start with the subject line. I think that for most people this is the most difficult part of the entire process. I find that the best way to get the attention of a blogger is by mentioning something very particular about his or her blog.
You don’t have to stalk them or anything but just have a headline like, “about your post ‘title of the post’” or “about ‘blog title‘” or “content suggestion for ‘blog title “.
This tends to get the blogger’s attention because he or she is at least a little curious as to what this email has to say about their particular post or even the blog in general. Also shows that you are not a spammer and didn’t just email like a hundred webmasters with the same email template.
Here are a few examples:
About your post 101 SEO tips
Content suggestion for ZenSpill.com
Crafting the masterpiece
Get to the point. Keep it simple. People, especially bloggers are very busy people and don’t have time to read your carefully crafted one thousand word email that you spend a week writing. I know it’s sad, but it’s the truth. I personally get somewhere around 400 emails everyday and I know for a fact, that bigger fish like Neil Patel, Rand Fishken and Guy Kawasaki get well over a thousand emails a day.
So be nice and stick to the point:
- who are you?
- what do you want?
- closing statement
1. Being nice
Yes, this is a section too. Talk about some of their work and if you have actually been following them for a while, mention that. A little flattery goes a long way. Well, genuine flattery does, so don’t be fake because it will be really easy to spot and it will just cause you to sound like you don’t care. Talk about something related to the author that you can’t just find on their homepage or on their about us page. A particular post you liked, some work of theirs or something they are known for.
This entire section shouldn’t be more than a few sentences if even that.
I stumbled on to your post on increasing your Adsense revenue and I thought it was very informative. I especially liked the point you made about how creating an L shape with the Ads can increase CTR .
I was reading your post on monetizing your blog without losing readers and I really liked the point you made about using Elance or Freelancer.
2. Who are you?
This is really quite simple. What is your name? and what is your significance?
Source: http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/File:Tyrion_Lannister.jpg
My name is Tyrion Lannister and I am one of the Lannisters.
My name is Pendragon and I work for Halla.
My name is Mark Trueman and I blog at zenspill.com
My name is Walter White and I am the head cook at Los Pollos Hermanos.
Make sure that you link to your site here so that they can easily follow it and see what you and your blog/company is all about.
3. What do you want?
Well, this may seem obvious to you but make sure that the other person understands as well.
In one or two sentences, explain to them what you want as well as what they have to gain from this. The second part is very important. You may get bloggers to respond to you from the first part alone but this response rate will increase by quite a bit if you do the second part right. For example, if you are writing this email to ask for a review of your product make sure you casually mention that they get it for free. Bloggers are people too and they would very much like to gain something from this.
I would love it if you could take a look at ‘my software tool’. I think that a review would be a perfect fit for your blog. If you are interested, I would be more than happy to send you a free copy of this tool.
4. Closing statement
Give them a definite course of action to take.
If this sounds good, please let me know, and I can send you a few post ideas.
Please let me know if you like this post idea and I can get started right away.
Please let me know if this topic sounds good, if not, I can write about other related topics.
The result
Here is what it all looks like put together:
Subject: About your post 101 ways to increase your Adsense revenue
Hi Will Smith,
My name is Mark Trueman and I am the webmaster at ZenSpill.com. I stumbled on to your post on increasing your Adsense revenue and I thought it was very informative. I especially liked the point you made about how creating an L shape with the Ads can increase CTR. If you are interested I would love to write a post about “forgotten Adsense tools” that I think your audience would really like.
Please let me know if you like this post idea or would like me to write about something else and I can get started right away. Thanks!
Sincerely,
Mark Trueman
3 Simple tips
Proof of awesome
- If you have gotten yourself guest posts on some of the big names in your industry, then it is sometimes good to link to those guest posts of yours in the email to show them that you create quality content. Two are three is good though, like always you do not want to make this email too long.
Style
- Do not just clump it all into one fat paragraph, breaking it into 2 or 3 paragraphs makes it easier to read and more appealing.
- Use full name in the beginning. If you say Hi webmaster or Hi blogger, it immediately tells them that you didn’t even take the time to learn their name.
Don’t spam
- This accomplishes nothing, other than slowly making your name, blog or company synonymous with spam. Give them a few days to respond and if they still have not responded by then, chances are they are not going to, so you forget about them and move on. Now, it’s a different story if you emailed them many months ago when your blog or website was just a seedling and now it’s grown to be a huge Oak tree and you want to email them to see if they would consider working with you now. Just don’t email them every few days or weeks because that will create a bad relationship and accomplish nothing.
- Don’t mass email people. It’s very obvious and bloggers will just dismiss you. Take your time to make it personal.
Bonus Tip: Pick on someone your own size
Let’s be logical here, how much traffic would you really get if a first class blogger reviewed your product or let you guest post? A lot right? But is it really going to be more than getting 7 or 8 second class bloggers to cover you? Probably not. So stop emailing so many first class bloggers that will just ignore you because there is a very small chance that this will even yield anything. Go after bloggers that are as big as you are because you will have a much higher response rate and get much more visibility this way.
What methods do you use to write successful outreach emails?
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