Have you followed all of the SEO best practices, but just cannot seem to get those traffic increases you need? Have your link building efforts fallen short of producing any significant backlinks that actually help your site? If so, then you’re definitely not alone as the most effective link building strategies take creativity, experience, trial and error, luck and some patience.
Fortunately for you we are going to share how to get editorial links from authoritative websites to save you the time and money that you might waste trying tactics that have never worked.
Before we jump into the strategies we have used for getting valuable editorial links it’s important to understand what we consider to be an “authoritative website”.
An authoritative website is…
Another way to look at an authoritative website is to think of it as a person you trust to give you what you’re looking for.
Some popular examples of very authoritative websites are:
Something to keep in mind, despite the examples we used, is that authoritative websites do not have to be big news publications or government organizations. Authoritative sites can also be, and usually are, made up of niche focused sites authored by bloggers, local businesses and trade journalists.
So what makes a website authoritative?
The reason the examples above are found to be authoritative is that they pass a considerable amount of value to any website or blog that they link to.
And why would you want or need a link on these authoritative sites to your website?
Getting links from authoritative sites can be huge wins for the receiving website. Here are some reasons why:
A few of links from these types of websites can be far more valuable than a ton of low quality links.
Hopefully we’ve clearly explained what authoritative sites are so that we can now move on to defining editorial links as these types of links actually carry a couple meanings.
For the purpose of this post, editorial links are…
Editorial links can also be seen as links attained through reviews. We are not going to focus on these types of “editorial links” as they involve different strategies, some of which may be frowned upon by Google at some point as marketers are finding ways to game the acquisition of these links.
So how do links “happen naturally”?
Editorial links are preferred and valued so highly by so many marketers and authors as they tend to carry a lot of legitimacy and authority with them.
Typically when a website’s content is so good other websites will naturally link to it.
Here are some content characteristics that can naturally attract editorial links:
If you’ve ever created a piece of content and wanted to back up the data that you reference, often times you will (or at least should) cite some trusted resources to support your content. In doing this you’re naturally linking to another website, thus providing an editorial link.
These links are very common on authoritative sites as the writers and journalists putting together that content typically know and understand the importance of proper citation through placing editorial links where applicable.
Ok, enough of the explanations.
Let’s jump into how to actually get editorial links from authoritative websites.
If you need more clarification or want to know how these apply to your company, then please let us know by leaving your COMMENTS BELOW.
Editorial links can give your site authority and traffic that very few other types of links can. To get these links you have to make authors, journalists and editors want to link to you naturally. And sometimes you even have to “help” them want to link to you.
Here are some steps that we have found to be successful in attaining editorial links for our clients from authoritative websites.
Authoritative websites, especially news sites, love to report stories that are relevant to current trends and news stories. Knowing this, start your research with different news channels and trending tools to help you find ripe content opportunities that someone would want to reference.
Here is a list of some of the tools to spot trends:
Once you’ve narrowed down the trend or news story that you want to craft your request around, then the next thing you want to do is plan out your content. You don’t need to completely write, illustrate or chart out your pitch yet, but you do want to get a presentable mockup prepared to use in the upcoming outreach step.
Here are some ways (and tools) to create presentable drafts of your content idea:
Great content rarely produces great results on its own…until it’s promoted and distributed through the right channels. One of the best, and often times necessary ways, to help your content get the reach it needs is to go directly to the right sources. Finding these resources takes some leg work if you don’t have those relationships established already, but our steps below should get you started.
Here are some steps to find the right sources to contact and build relationships with:
Unless you’ve already established relationships and credibility with writers of authoritative websites or your content has already gone viral, then you will need to “sell” your content to the right sources. Everyone refers to this as “outreach”, but that’s really just a marketing term for selling your content – not for money, but selling the idea and attracting the interest.
Here are some outreach tips to get interest for your content:
Don’t always assume that your content proposition is going to be received with open arms by your target authorities. Every once in awhile you’re going to miss the mark and you need to either listen to feedback and adjust accordingly or scrap your idea and choose a different angle. Don’t spend another minute on your content and outreach efforts if you receive some obvious signals of disinterest.
Here are some signals of disinterest to respect before moving forward:
Congrats, you’ve got some bites on your pitch. Now you’ve got to make sure you deliver on everything to secure that placement and to build trust with your outreach partners. The key here is to make the next steps for them dead simple and avoid forcing them to need something else from you.
Here are some things to include to finalize placement:
After all of the research, outreach, rejection and hard work you’re going to experience from the previous steps, there’s nothing more fulfilling in link building than getting that editorial link from an authoritative website. Don’t pat yourself on the back just yet though as you’re job is not quite done. You want to make sure to complete the proper follow up work to secure your content / link placement and build upon the relationships you’ve established with other writers.
Here are some necessary follow up steps to close out the process:
As you can probably see at this point, getting an editorial link from an authoritative website is a lot of work. The payoff can be huge though as these types of links can bring a significant influx of traffic, improved organic placement and a long-lasting sense of authority for your website or blog.
Unless you’ve been creative and/or lucky enough to produce a highly viral piece of content, then even your best piece could always use promotion and distribution from other online authorities. And if you didn’t notice, there IS a secret that can help you find more success in this process…
The SECRET is to build real relationships for the best links
That’s right. Think about how you’re going to build and maintain real relationships with the online authorities you want and need links from to dramatically shorten this whole process.
With these relationships you will find yourself getting inquiries from other authorities to provide quotes, content, interviews and opinions.
If you’re just starting out, then getting to this point will take some work and we’d love to help.
So, whether you need a better understanding of this process, need a push in the right direction to get more editorial links or want to know how to build real relationships, then let’s talk!
Need help getting more editorial links from authoritative websites?
Additional Resources You Don’t Want to Miss
The process above is one that we’ve been fortunate to find success in, but is far from the only one that works. There are some fantastic resources that we highly recommend that you spend some time going through.
How to Get Natural and In-Content Editorial Links
5 Comments
Alan Grainger
April 17, 2013
Really good advice – the internet marketer’s “little black book” of contacts is just as valuable as any technical or copywriting skills. In many cases, coming up with your content idea and producing it is the easy part, getting it seen is the bit that requires the real time and effort.
Vinny La Barbera
April 17, 2013
Couldn’t agree with you more Alan.
There are tons of ways to produce great content, but someone who is able to build solid, mutually beneficial relationships with the right contacts is invaluable.
Thanks for reading and contributing your feedback.
chatvana
May 1, 2013
Vinny,
I was just reading an article that was talking about realtors wanting to charge for their listings. I thought that was particularly controversial and the next article i read is yours which talks about what sort of contents would authoritiative websites like.
BTW, i really like the flow of your article, great stuff.
Thanks./jay
Vinny La Barbera
May 1, 2013
That would make a fantastic article – especially in real estate as there are so many heated topics that the industry likes to discuss (e.g. MLS board fees and being able to showcase other agents listings on your site).
Thanks for the feedback. Keep me posted on any efforts to attract editorial links as I am always interested in learning from others and seeing what works / doesn’t work for other people.
Spook SEO
December 2, 2013
Hi Vinny,
This is a very informative guide. I actually do this and it really spiked up my progress charts. It’s fortunate that I’ve lot of friends who have authority sites so I didn’t really have a hard time doing the entire introduction thing and other stuffs. Now, I already have signature links on their site, the challenge would be to the authority sites that I’m not familiar with. Thanks for providing what I needed now.