Case Study: Challenges of PR Blogger Outreach & Link Building

A blogger outreach case study revealed a surprising degree of commercialism among bloggers. The findings show that PR may face difficulty obtaining backlinks by contributing posts to bloggers.

In his blogger outreach campaign, Alex Jones, a PR pro with Hallam Internet in Nottingham, England, pitched what he believed was interesting and relevant content to UK home, lifestyle and parenting bloggers, specifically “15 Practical Home Security Tips for Summer.” Using a media data base, he identified 299 bloggers and webmasters to contact.

He prioritized 60 of the most relevant blogs and contacted them personally before contacting the rest in stages. In his emails, he stressed the editorial value of the content and did not mention a budget.

Bloggers: Show Me the Money

He received 106 responses. Most either asked if he had a budget or stated their fee upfront. Six bloggers said they thought the content was not a good fit for their blogs. Only two accepted the post for its editorial value, but they did not include a backlink.

Few bloggers asked to see a copy of the post before placing a price on it. “For most bloggers, this was a straightforward business transaction,” Jones says. “Bloggers are now so aware of the commercial possibilities of working with brands that they’ll seemingly accept any content, so long as it’s reasonably relevant.”

The results clearly show that bloggers happily accept money for follow links on their sites, regardless of Google’s clampdown on bloggers who install backlinks for money or gifts without disclosures. Either bloggers accept payments discretely or are unaware of the possible penalties.

In the past, building links with bloggers called for being personable, building relationships and offer useful content. These days, it seems the only requirement is budget, Jones concludes. The days of exchanging free products for links are numbered.

“I also understand that bloggers will have spent years building up their blog. It’s a full time job for many, but it’s important to recognize the difference between advertising and the desire to offer quality content,” Jones said.

Blogs of companies may be an exception to the trend toward payment to publish guest blogs. At Glean.info, for instance, we value excellent content and publish thoughtful and well-written guest posts without charge on public relations, marketing and social media topics. We publish about one out of five submissions and, in most cases, we edit the post to meet our editorial standards and to assure educational value. We include a link back to the author’s website. Many other companies have similar guest post policies.

Problems for PR

If the case study reflects the blogosphere in general, PR could have a problem. PR relies on relationship building, targeting and creating superior content. PR may either need to acquire a slush fund or revamp how its measures its blogger outreach campaigns.

The case study results also reflect poorly on bloggers. “Nofollow or not, I don’t think hosting gazillions of paid-for guest posts is a brilliant long-term strategy for bloggers (or media sites more broadly),” writes Chris Lake, co-founder of Empirical Proof, for Search Engine Watch. “The editorial quality bar should be kept as high as possible to maintain identity and audience trust.”

Ironically, Google’s effort to squash paid and pseudo-paid backlinks may make it harder for PR to be effective at link building, Lake warns. The demand for discrete link buying, which is more difficult to police, could increase.

Recommendations for PR Blogger Outreach Efforts

Jones recommends that PR:

• Target blogs carefully using metrics like Page Rank, domain authority, amount of posts per week, average comments per post, and number of social followers
• Be patient and persevere. A thick skin is needed to survive large numbers of non-responses and impolite answers.
• Remain personable. Start a relationship by giving, not taking.
• Continue to offer relevant, useful content to blogs.

Focusing your pitches on corporate blogs that are in the same general niche as your organization, but not directly competitive, may produce better results than pitching exclusively to independent bloggers. Guest writing for trade journals probably works best of all.

Bottom Line: A blogger-outreach case study reveals a bloggers’ surprising demand for payments in return for backlinks. If indicative of the wider blogosphere, the results could mean trouble for PR-based link-building strategies.

What’s your experience? Do bloggers typically demand payments for guest posts and backlinks? Please comment below.