Earn Links from Influencers with 3 Simple Tactics

How to Earn Links From Influencers

Have you ever wondered how people get noticed by their idols? By influencers that normal people can only look up to from afar? Well, wonder no more. Here’s a little secret strategy that I myself used when I was just starting out and it’s worked out well for me so far.

Links are undeniably one of the main components of an SEO strategy. It does not matter if it is an external or internal one – your link building campaign is as important as your site’s generated content. The majority of successful SEO campaigns have three kinds of links in use. 2 out of these 3 can be attained by having your content catered to influencers or authoritative websites.

Today, I will be enumerating some tactics that will help you generate the content that you need to have digital influencers and other authoritative sites link to your site or pages. This will also help you gain the attention and boost that you need to reach your goals. Let’s get started.

How to Earn Links From Influencers-1

The Three Types of Links

As an SEO practitioner for many years, I sometimes like to create ‘stories’ or ‘characters’ that I associate with some elements of SEO. In this case, for the three types of links that you can rely on for your content, I sometimes envision them as the Powerpuff Girls.

As I have mentioned before, there are three types of links that can help your SEO campaign succeed. These campaigns are used to help webmasters and SEO specialists earn the rankings that they want. For most SEO practitioners, they try to grow their Domain Authority or to rank some keywords for their pages. Additionally, the three types of links that most campaigns need are as follows:

  1. Links from Extensive and High Domain Authority Sites

This type of link could point to any part of your site, and it would be perfectly fine. Here’s an example: You would want Rappler to link to your site for the purposes of having the influence and authority of a link that came from their authoritative domain. Hopefully, you would have numerous links coming from very high domain authority sites.

For me, these links are like Bubbles. They’re sweet and what you see is what you get. I know that this is an oversimplification but sometimes that’s what you need to remember the important stuff.

  1. Links to Pages with Highly Valued Keywords

This will greatly help your campaign if there is also a specific anchor text that is the same with your page’s keyword. It will help boost your individual page’s rankings by having a link that says “mobile accessories” from an external page to your individual page that targets the keyword “mobile accessories”.

These links for me are like Blossom. They’re the leaders among leaders (influencers, in this case) and they are really reliable.

  1. Links from Related Authoritative Domains

Whenever you have this type of link, it will provide Google and the other search engines the knowledge of what your website is all about. These links will tell Google that your website belongs to this specific area of influence, and you are topically related to the words and phrases that this area of influence dabbles in. So, you want Unbox.ph to link to your site if you are trying to rank for the most recent mobile gadgets and other mobile-related objects.

Obviously, these links would be Buttercup. They’re tough but they’re a solid foundation that you can always rely on. Anyway, that’s enough of that and let’s move on to the really good stuff.

For today, we’ll only be talking about numbers 1 and 3. These two types of links generally target the industry influencers which may include a large number of people. This number would normally include bloggers, journalists, content marketers, event speakers, and leading authorities of a variety of fields. One thing that connects all these people is that they are all constantly producing content for their respective fields. They are actually not that different from us. They also want to produce the best content that they have, and they need other people to fill in the gaps of their efforts, and that is where you come in. Whenever you notice that these influencers are looking to fill in that gaps of their campaigns, you can take advantage of this and earn some links from them.

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Tactics You Can Use

  1. Statistics and Data

This may be one of the most powerful tools that can aid you in generating your influencer-targeted content. Whenever you create or collate data and statistics, it can be deemed as unique because you are the only person that has collected that specific group of data. No one else can create and collect this specific set because you can be considered as its one and only editorial administrator. Every person that is publishing content on a regular basis needs this because they can use it to support their arguments, challenge someone else’s claims, and assert something about their field of expertise.

  • Why it can help you
    • Remember the gap that we’ve talked about above? Well, you can use statistics and data to fill it. Whenever the influencers need some statistics that they can use to support their content, the data you have collected might be of some use for them. Normally, the numbers and data that you have incorporated in your content are easy to cite, so you can freely tell the influencers to easily cite the data that you have collected.
  • Remember:
    • The most important thing to take note of is that you have to be visible or searchable whenever they need these statistics. This entails that you should rank for hard to discover keywords such as “statistics”, “graphs”, “charts”, and much more.

This will be challenging, to say the least, because there are only a small number of people that look for these type of gap-filling data. That is why you have to be smart when you are producing a title because it has to be easily searchable. One way you that can ease your title production is through putting yourself into the shoes of the influencers, and start by asking yourself “What would I search for if I was them?”.

  1. Visuals

This is helpful because it can fill the gaps that influencers have. If you are a blogger or content marketer, you will need visual content to retain the focus of your audience. Oftentimes, it is easier to just get someone else’s image and to simply cite it in your published content. More often than not, influencers do not have the sufficient time to create their own image which opens new opportunities for you.

  • Why it can help you
    • As mentioned, most of the content generating people do not have time for creating an image which is why they opt to look for pre-made images and cite them. So, when you create an image that they think can be incorporated into their content, then you will fill the influencer’s gaps in content, and earn a link from them.
  • Remember:
    • To be successful in this endeavor, you have to be visible in different image search websites that influencers often use. These sites are as follows:
      • Google Images – the most obvious choice for people
      • Pinterest – Second only to Google images
      • Slideshare – you can make your visuals into some kind of slide format and upload it here. The great thing about this site is that it reproduces some slides to become visuals and posts it in Google images.
      • Flickr – another image search website that a large number of people still use. The great thing about Flickr is that it gives people a Creative Commons search license, and people can use this to require those who get their photo to attribute a link to their respective sites. The Creative Commons license can also allow you to get on other image search websites that require the license – which would mean a larger reach.
  1. Controversial Opinions

The last thing that can help you generate influencer-targeted content is to talk about controversial opinions about prevailing beliefs. An example might be “Mobile phones with keypads will be obsolete by 2020 because of reason X”.

  • Why it can help you
    • This works really well in the current social setting because most modern journalists or content generators have this prevailing idea that they should create some sort of conflict, and choose a side regarding the current issue. In most areas of influence, this occurrence often leaves a gap in the content published by influencers. By proposing an opposing idea to the conventional belief, you will be able to fill that current gap.
  • Remember:
    • To be successful in using this tactic, you should rank for mid to long tail keywords in the SERPs. Obviously, this will be challenging, but it is undeniable that this will be an effective “clickbait” that can help in earning a LOT of links.
    • Another important point is to make a habit out of comment marketing in social media platforms. This is to make your brand a known name for your controversial opinions – so that people could endorse you to influencers whenever they look for someone that produces the content that you have.

Key Takeaway

Your SEO campaign will be a hard road to traverse, but being smart and hardworking with it will be the key point in being successful in this endeavor. Always remember that link building is an integral part of an SEO campaign – no matter how hard it is.

Using the tactics that I have mentioned, I do hope that you can use them to achieve your SEO goals. Reaching out to influencers can definitely help you satisfy two out of the three kinds of links that can make your SEO campaign successful.

P.S.

We’ll be hosting the SEO Summit 2017 – an annual event that gathers SEO specialists, enthusiasts, bloggers, business owners, and much more. The speakers of the event will be talking about how people can use SEO to grow their businesses to greater heights. You can learn more by clicking here. 

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Sean Si

About Sean

is a Filipino motivational speaker and a Leadership Speaker in the Philippines. He is the head honcho and editor-in-chief of SEO Hacker. He does SEO Services for companies in the Philippines and Abroad. Connect with him at Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. Check out his new project, Aquascape Philippines.