Craft blogs, maintained by crafters, like yourself, is probably the easiest sites for you to get links from. Please note, I didn't say easy or 100% guaranteed, but
easier, compared to other sites! It is still a hard work getting links to your pages, so don't expect to gain a lot of links in a short time. It's not recommended anyway!
So this week's assignment will
focus of identifying relevant connections in the blogging community and
establishing new relationships. As with any new relationship, it takes some time to develop it. So don't rush! Take your time, keep reading articles that we'll share on forum and focus on one thing at a time.
So what's relevant connections? If you sell sea glass jewelry - other jewelry designers selling sea glass jewelry are actually very relevant to you, other jewelry designers are also relevant to you, fashion designers that blog a lot about jewelry (including sea glass) and especially those that feature jewelry designers are relevant as well.
Start by doing the replacement for your Keywords on Google and see which sites come up at the top. Use various long-tail Keywords - those with 2-3 words that have some replacement volumes (We did this in previous Bootcamp, so hopefully you still have your list of good Keywords handy!). Check those sites and start creating a spreadsheet of those blogs and crafters' sites that you like. Make a note what you like about them and ideas of how you could feature them in your blog and how they could feature you. This is just some ground work, so you don't need to act on any of those ideas just yet!
Imagine your customers looking for sea glass jewelry (or whatever your product is). Think if they'd like that site is well. Does it offer tips, tutorials, decorating ideas, trivia and fun content that could be of interest to your buyers (and not only to other jewelry designers!). Check how many comments their posts get and what those comments are about. Do they all sound like they were left by sellers? or buyers?
Use not only Google, but also your social media sites to discover worthwhile blogs and bloggers.
Add as many interesting blogs that you find this week with your notes in the spreadsheet. You won't get far in your relationship-building efforts, if you just ask for things right away. Actually, the best way to get someone's attention is to give them some!
So be generous! Leave good comments on blogs you like, tweet, pin and share people's stories on your sites (blogs) - all keeping in mind that you only want to share Great (Amazing etc.) Content! You are not going to lose anything by spreading a word about something great.
Don't make this about getting links. Just get yourself out there and let others know who you are and what you do.
At the end of the week,
please report how many new (Great!) relevant blogs you found and
how many new connections you've made.
Here is another good article for you to read to keep you busy (in case this assignment is not enough
) -
How To Create A Sustainable Link Plan.
That's all for now. Please keep reporting throughout the week about your experiences and don't forget to ask questions. I love them, honestly!
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