Link Outreach Services Purposes and Advantages

SEO link building is an investment that can pay off big time in the long run. It’s cost-effective, repeatable, and personalized. But it can also be tedious if you don’t know where to start. Link outreach services can help you build the right link profiles for your business.

Link Outreach Services are a great way to get quality links for your website. However, they are time-consuming and expensive. Luckily, several companies out there will do the outreach for you. Keep reading for tips and strategies to help you make the most of your outreach efforts.

Link building is a Strategy to Get Links from Other Quality Websites

Link building is gaining links to your website from other websites. It is important for search engine optimization. Google measures backlinks as one of the most important factors in ranking a page. For example, a page that ranks on the first page of Google has an average of 3.8 times more backlinks than a page that ranks at the bottom.

The process of link building involves acquiring hyperlinks from quality websites. Links signal to Google that a website is an authoritative source and has high-quality content. While Google’s algorithms are complex, backlinks are still important in its search rankings. This is because sites with more links earn better rankings.

It’s a Time-Intensive Part of SEO

Link outreach is a key part of SEO strategy. It involves building relationships with websites and blogs to generate links. Link building is not about building a big list of contacts. Instead, the key is to target prospects that offer value in return for a link. This can be a product or service or even your personality.

Link outreach requires creativity and imagination. Standing out from the crowd in an online environment full of competitors is important. You may even want to consider unconventional methods to achieve your goals.

SEO Link Building is a Long-Term Investment

Link building is a crucial element of SEO and is an effective way to raise your domain authority. A higher domain authority means higher rankings, which in turn means more traffic. Not only that, but effective link building can also generate traffic through other channels, such as referral traffic. If you create strong links with high-quality publishers, you can expect to receive separate referral traffic on top of the traffic that you receive from search engines.

Link building can also help your business achieve its goals by promoting brand awareness. You can begin by building links with niche sources and build your way up to high-authority sites, such as Forbes or the Huffington Post. The goal is to create a consistent flow of referral traffic to your website, increasing the likelihood of conversions. This means more direct revenue for you.

It’s Cost-Effective

Link outreach services are a great way to generate links for your website. They work by exposing your website to more audiences and increasing your relevance. They also can generate more traffic and potential revenue for your website. As a result, you will be able to reach a larger audience and receive more links to your site in a shorter amount of time.

You can find several link outreach services that are cost-effective and easy to use. It offers four packages that you can choose from. The Standard package provides keyword alerts for one keyword, the Advanced package provides three keyword alerts, and the Premium package provides unlimited keyword alerts and support.

It’s Personal

Link outreach services can be a powerful tool to boost your website’s visibility. This process involves building relationships with various sources and creating engaging content. This strategy takes time, but it is very effective for gaining links. In addition to outreach, it can also be useful to your digital PR campaign.

Link-building outreach is all about quality rather than quantity. Targeting prospects that provide real value to your company is essential. Your outreach should explain exactly what you can offer them in return for a link.

It’s Repeatable

Link outreach services can help you improve your content’s visibility on the web and generate backlinks. Backlinks improve the visibility of your content on search engines. They are also helpful for promoting your site to the press. However, link building requires organization. A simple spreadsheet can help beginners and intermediate link builders, but this method becomes cumbersome when you have several campaigns to manage. Link outreach services can help you avoid this issue and increase the efficiency of your outreach efforts.

Link outreach services can help you attract your target audience with crowd marketing, which involves contacting bloggers and site owners to leave a review about your product or service. Commenting on blogs and websites improves your brand’s image and attracts new clients. In addition, this method is affordable and safe. The goal of outreach is to gain backlinks and establish an agreement with the blogger or site owner.

It’s Automated

The outreach process is one of the most effective ways to build links and generate referral traffic. Automation can automate up to 90% of the process, allowing for better productivity and more time for other tasks. Outreach software automates finding and checking websites for link opportunities, sending messages to website owners, and more. To begin using outreach software, you must activate a license and set up the program.

Link-building outreach is typically done manually at the beginning stages, but as the pipeline grows and the amount of content increases, the process becomes more complicated. Automating the process can help you save time and effort by eliminating the guesswork. In addition, it can help you get a better quality of link traffic.

spam advert

Scams and marketing spam

A collection of spammy adverts I’ve been served in the past few days.

I’m feeling a collective sigh of resignation about these.

So much waste, so many poor decisions, bad marketing and yet the $$$ spent and earned is high enough to continue to make it worthwhile scamming, spamming and misleading.

Is there a lesson to be learned?

What do you do?

spam advert

spam advert

spam advert memory app spam advert parcel delivery spam email about parcel delivery

LI Search filter, B2B marketing, LinkedIn Marketing,

Build your B2B audience on LinkedIn

Here’s a case study with a difference – it’s repeatable, copy-able and also very do-able. By you.

You’re a B2B organisation and seeking an audience for your products and services. I’m assuming you are interested in content marketing as one part of your marketing strategy – you wouldn’t be reading this article if you weren’t. And if you discovered it through online search, you’ll realise the power of search engine optimisation for B2B marketing.

Either way, welcome. Let’s get started.

Find your B2B audience

I helped several clients build an opted-in email marketing audience of thousands using LinkedIn as the start point. After building an audience and communicating (two-way) with them many became paying clients.

So what’s the step by step process to getting this going?

  1. Define your ideal customer persona
  2. Find individuals within LinkedIn who meet the criteria
  3. Test your messaging by manually connecting with them
  4. Refine messaging (if needed)
  5. Find LinkedIn Groups who serve this audience
  6. Join the group(s)
  7. Once in the group, you can direct message any member of the group without being a connection (you don’t have to pay LI for in-mail).
  8. Start your prospect acquisition campaign methodology using the messaging from 2 – 4 above.
  9. Migrate your audience off LI to a platform you control as soon as possible.

LI Search filter, B2B marketing, LinkedIn Marketing,

How did this work?

For my first client we built an audience of >800 contacts, assembled an amazing ‘voice of customer’ research database and were able to validate the brand’s go to market strategy as well as identify a core group of global influencers to work with.

For my second client, we tested a range of groups, refined the audience selection criteria and worked on two core messaging texts. The voice of customer research delivered key phrases which copywriters incorporated into campaigns. During this we discovered a missing block of content currently unfulfilled by any other brand – BONZA – a key positioning decision which led to creating in-person and virtual community building on Meetup which hadn’t been in the original plan.

The third used Sales Navigator – LinkedIn’s paid sales tool – to deepen the research phase into a much more targeted set of prospect accounts. This enabled us not to use the Groups tactic described above, and to change the focus of the first filter. This worked because the brand was mature and had a very tight minimum viable audience already defined.

Messaging is key

When you’re ready to work on these tactics, understand that finding the audience is really the easy part. Getting your message noticed, replied to and acted upon is where the ‘magic’ happens.

Having a skilled B2B copywriter on your team is essential –  invite me for a scoping discussion here.

M

We’re done – how to clean your list

I just got fed up. Sick and tired of paying money to a mailing list software company when I’m not utilising their services to the best.

So instead of berating myself for spending $$ which I didn’t need to – I finally took action.

Assess lists first

My account included four mailing lists – all set up for different audiences and different marketing communication tasks.

The mistake I’d made was not keeping these aligned with my business goals. When I ran an education-led B2B marketing agency, we used these lists to share articles, to fill seats at webinars and events and to sell our downloadable products.

Times change and that’s not the business I am in now.

Review what’s needed second

Today my business work is based on three things – being a consultant B2B marketer, business investing, and growing my Faster Masters Rowing sport education service.

My question to myself was “Which of these mailing lists serves my three purposes?”. And the answer was clear – only one of the lists. The remaining list sends the RSS feed of my blog out to subscribers whenever there’s a new article published.

Check the finances third

I reviewed my subscription to the software house – they have the option to switch to buying credits rather than pay an all-you-can-use monthly tier fee. By checking the frequency of my RSS publication I was quickly able to see that this was more cost effective.

I altered the account status and purchased 10,000 email credits.

Align the lists fourth

Then I checked the lists – three had hardly been used since 2019 – hasn’t the world changed a lot since then? And so I downloaded all the subscribers, unsubs and cleaned contacts and saved them in my drive. Always good to have a back up of the back up eh?

Then returning to the mailing software, I checked all the users except one on each list and moved them to archive. I can retrieve them later if I need. But all three mailing lists now have a single subscriber.

I did this because the software house has switched its plans around and in the past you could have unlimited lists – now the lower tiers only allow one or two. And I don’t want to lose the benefit of multiple lists. I can always rename them if they get revived in future.

How to tell your audience you are unsubscribing them

Here’s the text of what I wrote.

If you received it, what did you think?

database hygiene, list unsubscribe, mailchimp downgrade,

Subject line for list housekeeping message

Subject: We’re done – thank you. I’m housekeeping my list and your email is being removed

HOUSEKEEPING

Hello [FNAME]

Times change – you will remember I told you my work focus altered. 

I’m working as a freelance B2B marketer, I’m an investor, and my Faster Masters Rowing education business is growing. This has meant that I write my blog less frequently.

It’s clear you are busy or your focus has also changed. 

My blog is emailed to you when I write a new article. I checked the newsletter open rates and you haven’t found time to read for a long while.

I’ve taken the decision to remove you from my mailing list. If you want to re-subscribe just head over to the Newsletter web page and sign up. Read past issues to remind you why you signed up.

Thanks for sticking with me – I value the time we spent together.

Best wishes for the future

Rebecca

Marketing Strategy

B2B Marketing for Beginners

Marketing is a challenging field. When designing their marketing plan, marketers must balance the need for creativity, financial constraints, and channel selections. 

Your audience, however, will ultimately determine how successful your marketing will be. Your promos and adverts will probably go unnoticed if you are not correctly targeting your buyer persona. If you’re not marketing at all, why bother? 

But the distinction between target audiences for corporations and consumers varies the greatest. While some businesses cater to single customers, others do so for businesses and groups.

Compared to marketing to individual customers, marketing to businesses is significantly different. B2B marketing, a whole distinct approach to marketing, was created for this reason.

B2B Marketing: What Is It?

Business-to-business marketing, or B2B marketing, is exactly what it sounds like. It involves promoting your good or service to another company. However, it’s crucial to remember that even if you are providing a good or service to other companies, you are dealing with a person who runs that company. Therefore, it is appropriate to think of B2B marketing as focusing on the people who make decisions about purchases for their company.

Steps to B2B Marketing

Marketing is audience-dependent. Even though B2B and B2C marketing are different, there are differences among B2B marketing materials. 

This section will discuss numerous B2B marketing techniques you may use to target a particular business audience. Make sure you comprehend the B2B buyer’s journey before we continue. Keep in mind how each phase may influence your marketing tactics and how you put them into practice. 

You should follow a few stages while developing your B2B marketing strategies before moving on to implementation.

Conduct a Study of the Competitors

Conduct a competitive analysis to examine the market and discover what other companies are marketing to your target market. When examining competitors, keep an eye out for the following: 

  • Competitor product offers 
  • Competitor pay-per-click strategy and outcomes
  • Competitor marketing materials and social media presence 

By understanding these factors, you can identify your competitors’ SWOT analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Establish Your Brand’s Positioning First

You must be completely aware of your brand positioning to develop a successful plan. This assertion captures the who, what, when, and how of your brand identity or how consumers see your company. 

You’ll be prepared for the following phase once you create a brand positioning statement that your staff and potential customers can support. 

Determine Who Your Target Market Is

Find the people truly in need of the goods or services your business offers. You may utilize that knowledge to develop customer personas and comprehend the purchasing process, which is a helpful tool for any marketing.

Research Potential Marketing Channels

Your competition study will show you the various marketing channels your rivals successfully employ and the ones they haven’t used.

You can diversify your B2B marketing portfolio and connect with the firms you need to once the earlier steps in developing your B2B marketing strategy have been finished. Investigate channels, methods, and technologies to maximize your leads and customer funnel based on your customer segmentation and competitive analyses. 

software demo, trial software, try before buy software, b2b marketing mix

Do you demo software?

At first glance this may seem a somewhat naïve question – why wouldn’t you want to see how software works before buying?

If you work in B2B marketing for software brands, you will know how few people actually demo software. So is offering a demo still a valid part of the marketing mix?

This article was prompted by a survey I did which asked the question illustrated below. Did you request a demo from sales. And it made me realise that I had not done that for some time.

software demo, trial software, try before buy software, b2b marketing mix

A survey asking about demos for software

Should marketers stop doing demos?

The quick answer is… it depends.

Your customer journey determines where and how a demonstration of the functionality of the software is appropriate. And if you haven’t reviewed your customer journey recently, I recommend doing this.

Customers change – behaviours alter and marketers need to stay up to date with current trends.

What replaces a demo?

Lots of B2B Marketing collateral is designed to answer questions and showcase software features. Prospective customers may find that they get all the answers they need from your videos, or blog posts. Have you found any recent customers who bought without a demo? Go and interview them about why and how their purchase decision was made.

Listeners to the State of Demand Gen podcast will be no stranger to the concept that forcing customers into a “pipeline” whose course is determined by the brand, rather than the prospect, is a surefire killer of sales leads.

The thesis that you let the prospect push themselves along their discovery pathway at a speed that is appropriate for them, is the best way to close more business. This thesis does depend on you having a strong brand presence in the target audience’s “line of sight”. And for that to happen, your brand needs to have already been active in marketing both above-the-line and below-the-line for some time in all the channels which could be relevant to your audience.

This isn’t an impossibility to achieve within a few months but as we all know, SEO rewards incumbent brands more than newcomers and so sometimes innovative (and manual) approaches are needed to start brand building with a new audience. Contact me for a case study of brand building for a startup.

Talk to me

No, I’m not breaking the rule of letting the customer set the pace by pushing for you to get in touch with me! When you are ready you’ll reach out.

In the meantime, consider the following aspects of B2B software marketing – and if you aren’t fully confident you have got them covered, or know how to produce, manage and measure them, then maybe pick up the phone to me.

  • Brand positioning – who is this software for?
  • Why it’s different from competitors
  • Benefits of using the software
  • Type of customer who uses or needs the software
  • Answers to all the frequently asked questions
  • Examples of happy customers
  • A range of ways to get in touch with the company
  • Social media outreach to places customers hang out
  • Dark social ways to share information with your friends about the software
  • A diverse range of above the line brand building campaigns
  • A diverse range of below the line direct marketing campaigns
  • Ambassadors, influencers and happy customers who talk about using the software

And why did I find writing that list so cathartic? I’m doing a training course on B2B marketing for SMEs and this will form the core of what I’ll be teaching. Sign up for Small Business Marketing 2022 – Foundations and Best Practice if you want to join in September.

 

Paris 2024 blocked tweet

When the Olympics can’t use good English

I love the Olympics – it’s been my “thing” since Sydney and I have travelled to watch most of the Games since that time.

And I follow a lot of sport on social media as well – so when I saw Paris 2024 had a Twitter account, I started to follow them too. It’s two years out from the Games now and I love the gradual build up of excitement, plus the news about how the preparations are going.

But Paris 2024 has got really irritating.

Tweeting to your audience

I do know that you should speak to your audience where they are hanging out. And so Twitter is a good choice for Olympic fans like me.

For an international sporting event, held in France, I’m going to guess that English will probably be the second most used language for fans – possibly the first if a lot of folks travel from outside France to watch. And so why, oh why does @Paris2024 not have a native English speaker on their team to do the translations?

In following their tweets they were mostly in French – I speak passable schoolgirl French and so could understand much of what was being said. But then English language tweets started coming out on the account. When one announced a “club” where I could register for advanced ticket information, I was quick to act.

The experience fell flat.

Customer transparency

Naturally I clicked through to register for the Club – but the landing page was beautifully designed (love the font) but lacking in two aspects of English communication

  • The “anticipatory” introduction text above the registration form was poorly written
  • The privacy opt in notices were unclear

Being a bit keen, I rewrote the introduction text and tweeted it back to @Paris2024 to illustrate how it could be improved. They blocked me. FFS that’s just childish and frankly, from a super fan like me, going to really put my back up.

I’ve reproduced the tweets lower down just so you can see whether I did a good job of improving the copy.

Secondly the privacy notices which are probably ore important from a marketing communications point of view were unclear.

I signed up for the “club” and so hope to get information about buying tickets. But what do all these acronyms mean? What if I do not tick either box? Will I get any emails about how to buy tickets? What marketing messages am I missing if I don’t check the box? And who are these partner organisations?

If I’d been copywriting this page I would have written out the names of the organisations in full IOC – International Olympic Committee –  and used similar language in both check box messages so it’s clearer to the user what they get or do not get when selecting each one.  I am guessing the second statement is for the Paralympics. Can you see the inconsistency in messaging?

Paris Olympics, fan communications,

Ambiguous email opt in statement from Olympics Paris 2024

Sport Fan Engagement Strategies

Sports fans are a committed bunch – it takes a lot to put us off your brand. And engagement with fans makes community building in public spaces a great way to sell tickets.

Paris 2024 missed a trick here.

If I was in charge of social media for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games I would do 3 things

  1. Build a fans list on each social media platform and seek to get email engagement with them too.
  2. Segment the list by country, sports of interest and start newsletter messaging for them
  3. Create separate profiles for different languages – Spanish, English, German, French for starters…. It can be confusing to get multi-language updates on one profile.

And they should also get some hashtags going… and when tweeting about Rowing in Great Britain, tag the team (@BritishRowing), write in English as well as French, and choose a photo to illustrate the tweet which actually has a British athlete in it.

Paris 2024, Olympics,

The first tweet announcing the club for receiving email updates 

Paris 2024 Olympics, Poor copywriting,

Others agreed that the English could be improved 

Copywriting, Paris 2024

My improved copy for Paris 2024 landing page 

Paris 2024 blocked tweet

And I got blocked for my troubles. 

British Rowing, Paris 2024, Twitter best practice

I love rowing and this thread about the history ended with a photo which didn’t include any British athletes. Nor did they tag @BritishRowing

Alex Haney Photographer, Restaurant marketing tipps,

Ways to increase interest in your restaurant

How To Increase Interest In Your Restaurant

If you’re currently running your own restaurant establishment and want to increase the level of interest you’re getting in your business, then take a look at the following post. We’ll be listing some top tips on how to make your restaurant stand out more to the public and increase your revenue. Subjects we will cover include marketing, making changes to your menu, and how location affects your business. Keep reading to find out more.

Offer Deals And Incentives 

One way to help gain more customers is to offer discounts and incentives. For example, you could run a buy-one-get-one-free offer on drinks and cocktails, or discounted meals on certain nights of the week. This will help to create a buzz around your restaurant as you’ll be offering something unique. Marketing the deals and incentives you have on offer will help to generate interest in your business and widen the audience of potential customers. If you want more of an idea of what deals and incentives will appeal to customers best, then consider running a survey through your website or social media pages. This way customers will be able to help you decide by suggesting what would appeal to them the most.

Invest In Marketing And Advertising 

Well, we would say this wouldn’t we – but an ongoing programme of promotions and brand awareness is critical for long term restaurant marketing success. When it comes to generating more interest and increasing the number of customers you get, marketing and advertising are key tools to use. Whilst initially spending more money on marketing and advertisements may come at a cost, you should see it as a long-term investment in your business. As marketing can help you to target more customers and generate more business, ultimately it can end up making you more money. Good marketing strategies to use for restaurant advertisement include having active and engaging social media pages, a high-quality website, and advertising on other websites. And don’t forget Google My Business – keeping your listing up to date with new photos and post announcements weekly is really important for local marketing.

Change Up Your Menu 

Part of the reason you may be seeing less interest in your restaurant is that customers have grown tired of your menu options or there aren’t enough options available. Changing up your menu can help to solve this problem and generate more interest from customers. You don’t necessarily have to make grand changes to your menu. Simply adapting the dishes you have on offer can make a big difference to the interest you get from customers. Try using high-quality ingredients such as locally sourced meats and organic vegetables. You can use this as a selling point for your menu as your customers will know they are receiving good quality food. If you’ve been running the same dishes from your menu for a while, making changes and being more innovative with your menu options can help create more interest. When you make menu changes make sure you advertise this so that your customers are aware. For example, posting images and content on your website and social media. 

Redecorate Your Premises 

It’s important to remember that the food your restaurant is serving isn’t the only factor that can affect the customer’s opinion of your establishment. Even if you’re serving great food, customers can be put off from coming back to your restaurant if you don’t create an overall high-quality dining experience. The way your restaurant is decorated could be off-putting for customers and make them less likely to enjoy their experience whilst being served. Especially in this day and age where people like to post about their experiences on social media, having an aesthetically appealing restaurant can help generate more interest. If you renovate your restaurant and make it a good photo opportunity, you can quickly begin trending on social media as customers post about your restaurant. This makes it more desirable to attend, meaning more customers and higher revenue.

Change Locations 

The location of your restaurant business could also be leading to a lack of interest from customers. When it comes to choosing where to eat, many people need a venue to be conveniently located for a number of reasons. For example, customers might require ease of access and parking facilities. It could also be due to how you’re located in regard to other businesses. Some customers might be looking to go out for drinks before or after their meal.

 If you’re in a more secluded location, this can make it inconvenient for potential customers so they may look elsewhere. If you feel your location may be holding your business back, then consider moving to a different location that could offer more benefits for your restaurant. Try and look for premises that are within your budget, but also offer you aspects that can help to boost your business. For example, premises that are located near to other points of interest or businesses but not too close to direct competition. Premises that are highly visible and that will have plenty of nearby footfall are also good options. 

affiliate marketing, clickbank,, saas marketing,

SaaS affiliate marketing

If you are marketing a SaaS product you should totally consider two types of marketing

  1. Channel partners
  2. Affiliate sales

There’s a difference although they can overlap.

A channel partner is a business who has a similar customer base but is selling something different but complementary to yours. They are motivated to sell your SaaS because it enhances their product or service.

Affiliate sales are from businesses who have a similar customer base but is in need of an upsell, a new income stream, or a “way in” to a new customer. And so they promote your SaaS alongside their own business. Frequently these are firms with a good audience or mailing list which they want to monetise.

Affiliate services

There are many businesses offering to run the affiliate sales for you – most handle creating unique URLs and tracking conversions for your affiliate partners. They should also handle the payouts to your affiliates.
Here are several for you to research.
  • https://www.tune.com/
  • https://www.shareasale.com/info/pricing-merchants/
  • https://www.awin.com/gb
  • https://www.digistore24.com/
And here’s a How to create an affiliate program guide written by an affiliate marketing platform – Clickbank. A tad self-serving but useful as a checklist.
I attended Traffic And Conversion Summit 2021 and Thomas McMahon of Clickbank did a useful talk on how to recruit affiliates and build a landing page for them. My notes include screen grabs of his talk.
Enjoy.