We all know how creative content is a vital part of the SEO industry, now more so than ever. We want to create fresh and new content which will appeal to readers, as well as Google’s algorithm. A lot of time is spent on content creation, but time is also spent researching which sites will be interested in publishing this content.
All niches and communities have influencers and thought leaders, so in order for content to be seen and shared, these people are essential to off-page strategy. As a significant amount of time is spent finding and contacting relevant bloggers and webmasters, it’s important to know why successful blogger outreach is a key element of off-page SEO strategy.
But why bloggers?
The vast majority of blogs interact with their readership and a good blog will have many regular followers and page views. They are a great way for people who have a shared interest to interact; from gardening to fashion, almost any subject will have people blogging about it. For SEO purposes a blogger’s influence is measured by various different tools, for example Google PageRank. This influence can be utilised as “link juice” which basically means that a website’s influence and authority will trickle to your site if they link to your page.
As a result of the recent Google algorithm changes, and as we are an ethical SEO agency, creative and natural link-worthy content is a big part of our strategy and blogs are a great way to share this content. Blogs are read regularly by real people, which is why Google favours them as they want their search results to be as human-friendly as possible. The influential bloggers in your niche are needed in order to share your great link-worthy content with your target audience. It is quality not quantity that counts so one link from a quality blog is worth a lot more than 100 spammy links from poor quality directories.
The influence of bloggers
The blogosphere encourages a community where you can discuss and share your thoughts and comment on content. This is why bloggers are influential as they showcase and create content that is going to provoke debate.
If we look at the blogosphere in a general sense we can see how bloggers can have a substantial influence on their respective industries. For example in 2011, BlogHer’s “Social Media Matters” study showed that 88% of active female blog readers in the U.S. trust the information they get from familiar blogs. The same study also showed that 20% of women wanted to find out more about a product that was promoted on a familiar blog compared to just 13% of women who wanted to find out more about a product when it was promoted by a celebrity.[1]
This study shows that in certain spheres, bloggers are even more influential than celebrities when it comes to their recommendations. This is just one example from the community of female bloggers, however it illustrates how blogging is influential in the real world as well as in the online world.
The only way is blogging?
We can see how blogger outreach is a great technique for sharing creative content, and achieving quality links. But blogs don’t just share great content; they help to inspire different ideas for content creation, especially as they will be talking about current trends within their niche. Checking influential blogs will also keep you up to date with the latest debates and discussions.
It’s important to note that whilst blogger outreach is an important part of off-page strategy, it has to work with other techniques in order to make sure a site is optimised ethically and efficiently and build a diverse link profile – but it is definitely a great way to share creative content.
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