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How to Get Top Bloggers to Share Your Content and Boost Your Traffic.

Posted By Guest Blogger 4th of March 2015 General 0 Comments

This is a guest contribution from copywriter Robin Geuens.

Can I ask you a question?

When you published your first post, did you think youíd get lots of traffic? Did you think that everybody couldn’t wait to comment on a job well done? Did you?

I know I sure did.

But then reality kicked in.

In reality, you publish your first article and nobody reads it. Instead of receiving floods of traffic, you look around and realize your blog is located in a desert with not a single drop of traffic in sight.

The thing is, you’re not alone.

That desert is littered with abandoned blogging dreams. You’re surrounded by people who started out excited, but gave up because there was no one to appreciate their hard work.

Now Imagine this

Imagine what would happen to your motivation if you saw people sharing your articles and discussing what you said right off the bat.

Do you think you’d keep going?

I’m pretty sure you would. It would make things a lot more fun.

Most blogs die because people don’t know how to get that initial piece of feedback. They’re so busy writing, that they forget to do the one thing that matters most as a beginner:

Putting your content in front of people that can make a difference.

You see, when you create good content and you put it in front of the right people, it could get the initial burst of publicity it needs to become popular.

But reaching out to big bloggers can be pretty scary when you start out. You’re opening yourself up to being rejected by the people you admire.

Not fun.

So how do we overcome this?

Simple: you include them in the process.

When you include them, you both get something out of it. You help them position themselves as an authority, and they help you promote your post.

You help them, they help you. Networking 101.

Now, one thing I want to make clear before we get into the tactics is that you have to make sure it’s a win for both of you. Don’t just reach out to influencers because you need someone to promote your content. Make them look good, promote them, and they’ll gladly help you.

Also, don’t try to apply all these techniques all at once. Pick one and apply it. I’ll provide a cheatsheet at the end so you can look at the other techniques whenever you want to.

5 techniques you can apply right now

There are a couple of ways you can get influencers to share your content. The first and easiest one is:

1)Include them in a roundup

Roundups are great because they’re fairly easy to make and they’re really popular. You can make a roundup of the best bloggers, the best articles, or even the best quotes.

They’re great for a promotional point of view as well because they give you a ton of opportunities to reach out.

Here’s a good example: In his post, Robbie Richards made a list of 80 online marketing experts you should keep an eye on in 2015.

He put a lot of time and effort into making sure the reader and the expert got a lot out of it.

Roundup Example

A couple of things to note

  1. He added a link to their site.
  2. He picked three articles you should read.
  3. He added a link to their twitter accounts

All these things make it easier for readers to get to know these bloggers.

The next thing you do is contact every single expert on your list and let them know you included them in your roundup. You’ve got a really high chance of getting your content shared if you do.

Shared by influencers

2) Ask for a quote

Another way you can include influencers in your post is by asking them for a quote.

I love this technique because:

  • You’re building relationships with people you admire
  • You learn something
  • The credibility of your article goes through the roof
  • The experts get to position themselves as an authority and share their knowledge with a new audience

The key to making this technique work is to be very clear with what you want to ask. Asking a marketing expert “how do you become good at marketing?” isn’t going to cut it. It’s a vague question that will get you a vague (or no) answer.

A while ago I was writing a post about why people don’t trust landing pages. To make the article better, I asked experts what their best tip was. Here’s the email I sent them.

“Hi (blogger)

I know youíre busy so I’ll keep it brief.

I’m writing an article about 10 reasons why people don’t trust landing pages ( too much hype, pop-ups, cringe worthy stock images,…) and wanted to show my readers how the pros do it.

If you could give someone one tip to improve the trustworthiness of their landing pages, what would it be?

Of course, I’ll include a link to (blog).

Thanks in advance and have a nice day!
Robin”

One of the people I emailed was marketing legend Neil Patel. He got back to me within a day with some great advice.

Neil Patel Advice

Once the article was done I emailed him to check if I there was anything about his quote that he wanted to see changed (after all, it’s his advice).

Later that day he tweeted the article to his 110k+ followers on twitter, which resulted in a nice spike of traffic to my new blog.

Traffic results from one tweet

One important thing to note is that you need to have systems in place to convert that traffic into subscribers. I dropped the ball on that one and lost out on a couple of them. Lesson learned.

3) Apply an influencer’s advice and show them the results

The best way you can make an influencer look good is to take their advice, apply it, and show them the results (preferably good ones).

It’s a great feeling when someone takes your advice and has success with it.

To do this, go to your favorite blog and look for any “how-to” content you can apply. Here are some examples from Problogger:

You could read that last article, apply it, and show Darren how applying his advice got you more comments. You could even turn it into a guest post.

Let me give you a real example. A couple of months ago I read a post by Brian Dean from backlinko. His article was about how to create content that gets a lot of traffic. I thought it was great so I tried it out.

When my article was done and I did everything Brian had explained, I sent him a quick email showing him the result. Hereís the email and his reply.

Email Brian Dean

4) Interview them

Interviews can be a good way to get your name out, but there can be a bit of a barrier to start doing it. Not everyone is comfortable interviewing people, let alone the people they look up to.

If you’re a little uncertain about it, I’d suggest starting out with just asking for advice like I talked about earlier. It’s a smaller, less intimidating form of interviewing.

A good example of someone who used interviews to build up his following is Andrew Warner from mixergy. He interviewed a ton of people, from marketing legend Seth Godin, to Tim Ferriss, to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

He’s become one of the most connected people on the internet. He learned a ton from talking to all these people and we get to learn with him.

A great way to get big names on your interview is to ask them right before they launch a new product or course. This gives them the chance to promote their new project and you get to ask them questions.

5) Reach out to people who liked similar content

Sometimes the simple and straightforward ways are the best. Just reaching out to people is one of those things. It might not be an exiting technique (it’s a bit boring to be honest), but it works.

Here’s how

Go to Buzzsumo and look for highly-shared articles around your topic. Make sure the articles are closely related to yours. Once you’ve found an article, look at who shared it.

For example, let’s say you created an article about landing page tips.

Finding sharers on Buzzsumo

Next thing you do is email or tweet the people who shared it and let them know that you’ve written an article they might like. You can send them something like this:

“Hey (name)

I noticed you tweeted about (name of the article).

I really like that article (thank you for sharing!). I actually created a more in-depth article about the same topic. I’d love to hear what you think of it. Here it is (link)

Again, thank you for sharing cool stuff

All the best

Robin”

I used this technique with my very first article. I sent about 30 emails and nine people shared it, which is not too shabby. Keep in mind that you’re emailing people out of the blue. Not everybody is going to respond or share your post.

What you should do next

The time where you could build a blog all by yourself is gone. You either have to find a way to work together with people bigger than you, or you’re going to have to spend a lot of time promoting your content.

I know all these techniques can be pretty overwhelming, so here’s what I want you to do

  1. Pick one technique you like and try it out.
  2. Let me know in the comments how it went.
  3. Keep this cheatsheet close so you can quickly check out the other techniques.

Good luck!

Robin Geuens is a copywriter who likes to help you write better emails, create better copy, and make awesome landing pages. You can find him at his blog, Conversionbase.

About Guest Blogger
This post was written by a guest contributor. Please see their details in the post above.
Comments
  1. Hi Robin,

    You did a wonderful job hitting on the benefits of connecting with blogging power brokers.

    My fave approach is rounding up a bunch of pros. My post going live tomorrow does such a thing ;) I find it easier to connect with influencers by simply helping them out. Promote them, expand their presence and comment on their blogs. I received a few tweet endorsements from a NY Times Best Selling Author by commenting on his blog for months and by also promoting him aggressively. Ditto with a few other high profile entrepreneurs from within my niche.

    Think of it this way; give to get. Give, promote, add value to some top blogger’s life and you better believe more than a few will return the kind act. Not really to reciprocate but to give someone a shout out for doing the stuff that the top blogger did to reach the top. Sometimes bloggers forget that we all had to take our time, and to connect with influencers, helping them out, to move up a bit in circles as far as being noticed. Your visibility will improve when you help other folks improve their visibility and top shelf bloggers fall into the category of being other folks ;)

    I’d add to connect with influencers through email too. Really build those personal, intimate bonds because until you work into the stratosphere of the top of the top most big dogs online check their emails regularly and go through virtually emails sent their way. If you can offer help, and assist, and ask for quotes, and do all that good stuff you’ll make an impact on these folks.

    Smart tips Robin.

    Keep up the inspired work!

    Ryan

  2. Great post, Robin! Thanks for sharing your experience, it’s truly impressive. I’ll definitely check one of your techniques (№1 and №2 attract me most) and let you know about the results (№3) :)

    • Please do :)
      Yeah those two techniques are really powerful. You really have to make sure there’s something in it for them as well. It helps build solid relationships.

      Glad you liked it.

  3. Hello Robin,
    Great post indeed. You mention here some effective tips that will really help to get more share by top bloggers.
    Thanks for the great sharing.

  4. Thanks for having me! I hope you found the article useful.

    • Traffic is the most imp. factor for any blog. Even few expert says more traffic is equal to more ranking. I really like the idea to Share Your Content and Boost Your Traffic. Keep writing..

  5. I will surely apply this all techniques to make top blogger to share my content. first technique of including them in roundup is a very good technique.

    Thanks

  6. great article. Thanks so much for sharing. I am from singapore btw ^^

  7. Great tip! In #2 you mention having systems in place to take advantage of the incoming traffic spike. Any tips or chance you can elaborate on this?

    -Chris

    • Well I didn’t use a post-specific bonus back then. A post-specific bonus is a small gift you give people in exchange for their email address. Search ‘content upgrades’ in google to find out more.

      They work really well because they are way more relevant than regular opt-in gifts. Most blogs have one gift, usually in the form of an ebook. The problem is that it’s not always relevant to what people are reading.

      If you offer post-specific bonuses, however, your offer is always going to be relevant because it’s tailored to the post they are reading.

      Hope this helps

  8. Hey Robin,
    You mention some effective techniques on how to get top blogger to share my content.
    Going to implement your tips on my blogs.
    Thanks for this post.
    Hope you have a great weekend.

  9. I don’t care much about who is sharing my articles and who is not. I just focus on providing quality and informative content. If the article is really good and informative then even it will reach to top bloggers and they may share it too.

    • The techniques I described in my post just enhance the chances of your post being shared. I agree with you that creating quality content should be your goal.

      But I also think promotion is just as important. There are so many posts published each day that your content will just get ignored if you don’t promote it properly.

      Thanks for the comment.

  10. Thanks Robin… Great!
    I think this time for me to improve content marketing
    For along time, I work alone
    And, now, I need work together with my relation
    Good luck

  11. Hello Mr. Robin!

    It’s look like that you have already made a powerful research on that issue! Yes, today, many bloggers are using these techniques to promote their blog by creating a few “Top Blogger Friendly Contents”. Most of the time beginners prefer to create ‘Interview type’ contents to get Top Bloggers attention (as it’s comparatively easy to create).

    But, most of these types of blog posts are not getting enough social shares through the top bloggers. It’s because of-

    No.1) Posts are very similar (a lot of similar posts) and nothing special for the big bloggers Everyone wants to attract big bloggers!

    No.2) The posts are designed to attract big bloggers, not for the common people. If a post is less valuable to the common people then, big bloggers will not share the post to their followers because, they are only sharing those contents which are valuable to their users.

  12. Robin, it’s very intimidating for new bloggers to reach out. Heck, even for seasoned bloggers, it’s tough!

    Thanks for sharing these great tips today. I know you’re going to help a ton of people bite the bullet and send out that Tweet or email that they’ve always wanted to send!

    • Yeah it is intimidating. Most big bloggers are really friendly, though. They know what it’s like to start from scratch and having to work your way up.

      The worst that can happen is that they don’t reply.

  13. A very good post. Thank you for this.

    There are some other ways too. Like, finding any error or broken link in “Top Bloggers” site and email them about it.

    Publishing updated version of any of their post and email them with the link.

    And also you can do anything creative and interesting to attract the attention of Top bloggers, like you can create an animation about how they are helping people in blogging or internet marketing. You can write a comic book about Top bloggers activities. If the work is really good they will like it and most probably they’ll share it.

    :)

  14. These are wonderful ideas for increasing traffic. Your thoughts on article marketing using sites such as ezinearticles?

    • Sites like ezine articles are just middlemen. You put articles on it and (hopefully) someone else finds them and publishes them. If they don’t, you’re not going to get much traffic (I know, I’ve tried).

      So I wouldn’t really bother with article directories too much. You’ll have a much better chance of getting noticed when you just go straight to the people who can make a difference.

  15. Robin its a awesome post . Great its the real method of marketing thanks

  16. Catalin Zorzini says: 03/05/2015 at 7:30 pm

    Hi Robin,

    Amazing writeup thanks a lot for all your detailed tips!

    Quick question: what plugin are you using for the neat subscription form at the bottom of the WELCOME PROBLOGGER READER page?

  17. Great post there sir, Thanks a bunch.. its not always an easy task getting people to share your post. you gave such insightful ideas.

    Thanks again and look forward to connecting more with you.
    ~Godwill

  18. Most importantly, it’s all about creating quality content in building solid relationships with your site visitors from search engines and social networks. Getting your content in front of many eyeballs and not only boost traffic, but, also increase continuous sales for years to come. That is, you play your cards right.

  19. Hi Robin,

    Great post, I loved the ways you explained. I’m a die hard fan of Neil Patel. When ever my mind tend to ask a question, Ill drop it to Neil.. After a day, I Would definitely see a reply from Neil with great suggestion/excellent answer.

    Round up: I exactly don’t know about that, I want to try it out.

    I just checked the link that you’ve mentioned by Robbie Richards.. Ufffff, I’m amazed.

    Thank you so much for the tips
    Siva

  20. Robin,thumbs up for these tips.Thank you vert much.I will definitely try them out to see how it goes.Really well explained,big help for beginner blogers.

  21. Wow, this is like next level advice. Especially that roundup idea. Would probably drive me crazy to finally interact with some of my internet idols. Seems impossible but your advice makes it sound plausible.

    Thank you for all of these tips!

  22. A very good post. Thank you for this.

    There are some other ways too. Like, finding any error or broken link in “Top Bloggers” site and email them about it.

    And also you can do anything creative and interesting to attract the attention of Top bloggers, like you can create an animation about how they are helping people in blogging or internet marketing. You can write a comic book about Top bloggers activities. If the work is really good they will like it and most probably they’ll share it.

  23. WOW. Never thought that these types of methods can also increase your online presence. Thank you for sharing.

  24. Wonderful Ideas, I have tried one of your idea with 99designs in my article & it worked, they like my article on twitter & facebook. I am really happy someone actually went through & read what I said…

  25. I read about few before but never thought of investing in time for the same because I hardly believed in these. Reading here the details and how these work I am quite convinced with this and would be using it from now on. A great thanx to you for your wonderful piece of writing which actually leave a mark and make me do better & better.

  26. These are some great tips & I tried one of these by writing article on my blog about 99Designs.com & they like it via twitter & facebook. I just joined your community & I am sure I am gonna learn so much…

  27. this is really impressive post Robin, m sure that if a beginner blogger follow those points then he can be on the list of top bloggers soon,

  28. WOW. Talk about actionable items that will work. I was blown away by #3 and #4. Exactly what I was looking for today, and I didn’t even know I was looking for it. I’ve guest posted just once for LifeOptimizer. Recently I realized I need to do some guest blogs on major sites related to my IncZen site. I was wondering how to go about it. Pat Flynn has a great post on his site about how to approach it. I remember reading here on Darren’s site about it multiple times.

    The biggest problem is approaching blogging’s superstars and getting their attention before you ask them to allow you to guest post on their sites. These tips give you an ‘in’ that is about as soft as it could be.

    You gave us 5, I’ll give you another one…

    Make it a point to mention the blogger you’re hoping to guest post for, in some of your blog articles. When you write your initial query letter to ask to be considered for a guest post – let them know 2-3 articles (with links) where you mentioned their name (in a positive light, of course!).

    This is not nearly as good as the tips above, but I wanted to add something to help! And shhh, here’s something else… in the second question of the article is a typo – it says ‘youíd.’

    Cheers Robin!

  29. When we write contents then it is must that we have traffic on it otherwise there is no use of blogging. These tricks help me a lot to bring genuine traffic on my website bog.
    Thanks Sir

  30. I think doing expert roundup’s is the surefire way to get more traffic, links and even shares from influencers.

    But getting a quote and answer from experts is really hard especially if you’re new to online world. So make sure to first focus on building relationships with other bloggers in your niche to start making connections.

    Great share indeed.

  31. Well done. These are great tips. No every one wants to increase site traffic but people not know how boost the traffic on the sites.

  32. The only traffic I get is from my 130k followers on instgaram I’m still new to this !

  33. Hi Robin,
    I wanted to thank you for the fascinating article.
    Waiting for more interesting articles from you
    Thanks again,
    godi

  34. Hello there
    I would love to know why are you removed my posts . I’m just like everyone else who writes a comment here.
    Thank you,
    Gody

  35. Hi Robin,

    I’m impressed. I liked the way you involved the psychology of giving value to leverage the purpose. Outstanding… I’m looking forward to reading further guest posts here as well as on your blog.

    Thanks

  36. salek ahmed says: 05/06/2015 at 4:09 am

    That is an excellent post for me ever. Just great !!!!!

  37. I am going to be going the interview route after reading this. I know lots of people in my niche. Thanks for the good post man.

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