Link building by inviting bloggers
-
Hi everyone,
I'm relatively new to SEO, and I have a question on a link building strategy for a holiday resort I am working on.
The resort has a paintball arena and zorbing facilities at their premises. I want to use this in the link building strategy and the owners have agreed to have an open day for bloggers.
Basically the resort will invite 20 local bloggers for a day to their resort. They get to play paintball, zorbing and get to see the resort in exchange for an honest write up about their day at the resort.
I am looking at asking the bloggers to write about the event twice (Once before, and once after they visit the resort) with a minimum of 4 links to the website.
I want to know how I can identify the top bloggers? What factors should I consider while making a list of 20 bloggers, and how do I measure these factors?
Also, is this a good strategy for link building? And please feel free to add anything else you think I am missing out on, or will help in the link building.
Cheers!
Arjun
-
Good luck Arjun, would love to hear how it all goes!
-
Thanks EGOL.. Point noted.. Not everyone may turn up if at all. Will let you know how this goes after the event. Cheers!
-
Thanks ASR! Yes, will follow your advice and keep it natural - and not put too much pressure on them or focus on links.. Thank you!
-
hmmm......
I don't know how carefully you have thought about this.
**I want to know how I can identify the top bloggers? **
It does not sound like you are very familiar with the bloggers in your area. Maybe you should get to know them well before you count on them to attend something and blog about it twice.
Are there 20 bloggers in your area? Have you ever been on their websites?
If you invite 20 bloggers will they attend? Some might be busy on your open day... some might not like paintball... some might be too old for paintball... some might... you get the idea?
So if you identify 20 bloggers you might get 2 who will show up and that will not produce the kickass blogger gathering that you are planning. If you invite 20 and only 2 show up they are going to write on their blog that nobody cares about your paintball and zorbing.
If you expect to get 20 bloggers you should invite at least 100 and entice them with free food, free beer, gift of paintball guns, free swag and $100 gasoline cards.
-
Agreed on all points - Just encourage the bloggers to do the right thing, and they'll link to you plenty. They don't like being bossed around, and they know what to do (and what you're looking for) anyway.
-
Hi,
First up, good idea but I would be a bit careful about asking bloggers to post 4 links. Bloggers hate being told what to do from my experience. I would just ask them to link through to the resort without putting too much pressure on them.
The idea is very sound but I would be a bit more careful, I have seen bloggers come out and post about "X place" wants us to blog for links and put out a lot of bad press.
However, otherwise I would use opensite explorer to have a look at the blogs you are interested in and rank them against each other, this is what I do and it's quick and easy. Remember your link profile should look nice and natural, so don't try and get too tricky.
Also today's small blog might be the next big thing tomorrow, so there is no harm in getting a smaller blog to link through.
Great idea - just be careful in the execution, bloggers can turn on you very quickly!
A
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is hiring bloggers to review my products while back linking to my website bad for SEO?
For many months I have been following this strategy of hiring high domain authority bloggers to review my products and link back to my website. For a month or two my rankings improved but now I suddenly lost rankings. Can Google penalize me for hiring bloggers to review my products? Bloggers do mention in the blog that the product was requested for editorial review. Any tips will be helpful. Regards
Link Building | | DebashishB
Deb0 -
At What Point Are We Doing Too Much Link Building?
Hello Mozzers! This is a question that has been gnawing at the back of my mind as I learn more and more about link building. Historically, we have offered scaling package sizes with larger numbers of backlinks hand-built each month. We do this so our packages are very tangible for our clients. Our packages range from 15-100 backlinks each month. As I learn more about how to build links PROPERLY I am finding it next to impossible to keep up. I feel like we are definitely going the wrong direction in that regard. What are some of your thoughts on this? Thank you in advance for your valuable advice and support, Moz community!
Link Building | | ChoChauRice0 -
Link Building Recommendations Please
Hi - I am responsible for a small but growing number of websites for companies that serve the elderly population. I need help with link building for these websites and I'm looking for suggestions on finding one or two professionals to whom I can outsource that work. 1. Can you recommend anyone for this need, someone I can contact who you know to be qualified and professional? 2. Can you give me an idea of what such services should cost? Thanks!
Link Building | | tcolling0 -
Building links to reviews: Movies, Restaurants, etc
My site has lots of reviews: Movies, TV, Music, Restaurants, etc. I'm looking for sites that take critic reviews and link back to the critic's site. We're already on Metacritic.com and Rottentomatoes.com, which seems to be the two biggies for movies & tv. But I'm sure there are more out there. Also, I'd love to find sites for restaurant reviews (specifically in the Boston area). Are there any lists out there of sites like these? I'm NOT looking for UGC sites that allow user reviews. I'm looking for sites that accept professional critic reviews, preferably via some sort of automated feed. Thanks Mozzers!
Link Building | | BostonWright0 -
Link Building - Where to start and how long to see results
Been working a lot on on-page seo and it mistifies me to observe that when i get A's constantly for search terms for on page but im not on the first 10 pages of Google compared to a competitor on page 1 with on page reports of C, D and even E! So, a lot of hard work "on page" does not equal to a lot of hard work which is obviously link building. my domain and page authority is only 18 and 27 whereas the main competitors are 50's and 60's. Is "link building" or lack of it my main issue? Here is the site http://www.govisitthelakes.com Very new to link building 😞 Anyone know a good place to start? Ive been working through open site explorer and starting to get some of my competitors links. How long to see results from link building to improve domain and page authority? or is it just "how long is a piece of string" and be patient. Thanks Ouji
Link Building | | oujipickle0 -
Recommendations for a good outsourced link building partner
Merry Christmas everyone. You shouldn't really be reading this question on Christmas Eve but as you're here... ...I'm looking to outsource most of my link building to a good partner. Can anyone recommend a person or company that they have used in the past who has delivered good results. I have used oDesk in the past and paid peanuts and got appropriate results in return. Poor quality links that everyone else was going after and that disappeared after a few days or weeks. I am very dubious of using these automated link creation sites the web is littered with, and most of them are dodgy link farms or worse. Ideally I would provide a set of keywords each month and the partner would spend their time working on links based around these terms and the content on our site(s). Your comments, suggestions and ideas are all very welcome. Have a fun Christmas everyone Scott.
Link Building | | eseyo20 -
Link building outsource advice
I have been limping along doing link building myself for several months now. Creating relationships, asking for links, writing some articles and press. So far, decent results, but I need to take it to another level. I used SubmitEdge's 400 manual directory submission product, but still not seeing many links coming from it. So, I would like to hire an onshore SEO to help me with link building. After getting several quotes from reputable companies, I found the process very frustrating. I know this business is not about guarentees, but they all want $600-$1000 per month for a fairly open ended service. All they tell me is that they will submit to directories, social media sites, shopping sites, and some niche sites. No guarentees of how many (or what quality) of links I'll get, or even how much time they even plan to spend. Any suggestions on what I should expect? and any suggestion companies?
Link Building | | paddlej1 -
What percentage of my links should be directory links
I feel a lot of my link building might be a bit heavy on the directory links side. Should I limit the percentage amount of links as a part of my overall link profile? If yes what percentage of links is ok to be directory links?
Link Building | | iSenseWebSolutions0