Ground Marketing is all about making connections and building relationships so you can have a mutual exchange of value.
A guest posts on someone’s blog with high-quality helpful content and in exchange the author gets a backlink to their website. One person gets great content for their blog to help their users have a better and more helpful website experience. The other gets a backlink that acts as a vote of confidence which can help improve your Google ranking.
In a few steps, you will learn how to find, vet, and reach out to local blogs in different niches so you can get backlinks as well.
Step 1: Finding Local Niche Blogs
Why local?
Not only will your chances of success improve greatly from approaching small local blogs but this will also help with your local SEO. This will help your Google My Business listing rank higher when people type something like “dentist near me”.
You are going to use a special type of search in Google to find these blogs
Search for: “Blog” + “city name” + “niche”
You will replace the city name with your city name and the niche with a topic like a parent or family.
It will look like “Blog” + “Houston” + “parenting”
In the search results, you will see potential blogs. You will need to click on the actual blog and see if there are a good fit for you.
You can try swapping out different niches: parenting, children, kids, family, health, wellness, and baby.
If you are focused on cosmetic work you can try searching using a niche like beauty or wedding.
You can also try other local city names to see what other blogs show up.
Step 2: Vetting the Blogs
Now that you have a long list of potential blogs we need to look for some that are a good fit for you.
If you find one that looks good. Skim through a few of the articles to get an idea of the length and style of content. When you write a guest post you want it to feel like it belongs with the other articles.
Some of the blogs might also ask for payment for you to guest post. This might be worth it and you should decide this on a case-by-case basis.
Step 3: Reaching Out To The Website.
If you have difficulty finding someone to reach out to just scroll down to the footer of the page. There is typically a link to the contact information there.
This is when the ground marketing mindset really helps. You want to build a relationship with the person you are contacting and not just demand a backlink in the first sentence.
Below is the actual text from an email I sent to a parenting blog.
Hello, my name is Dr. Benjamin Burkitt I am a local dentist and owner of We Care Dental Care. I happened to come across your blog a noticed it had some great content but there was very little dental information.
I was wondering if you would be interested in having me guest post and article for your blog. Here are two topic ideas I was thinking would be good for your blog.
What should your child expect at their first dental appointment?
10 ways of dealing with dental anxiety in children?
Please let me know which of the two article ideas you like best.
All I ask for in return is a backlink to my website.
Thank you
Dr. Burkitt
I made sure to send this email from my office email address to help build confidence that I am an actual dentist and not some spammer.
After a few short emails, we were able to build a relationship. She even asked her clients what topics they wanted to have covered and gave me a list of future blog ideas she would be willing to post on her site.
Step 4: Writing The Blog
A blog post like this should not be a sales page. It should be informative and answer a specific question that someone might type into google.
Such as “how can a dentist get more backlinks to their website?” A search like that could turn up a helpful article about guest blog posting for backlinks.
Someone could type in “what to do if my child is scared of the dentist?” or “How to replace a tooth?”
As you are writing just pretend you are explaining a dental topic to a patient. You are not writing to another dentist so a very technical and jargon-filled article might be very accurate it will not be fully understood by the average reader.
Step 5: The Backlink
Some websites will only give you a backlink to your home or bio page. Others will allow you to put a link to where ever you want.
I like to visualize the potential patient journey through my content as going up a staircase one step at a time. With each step they go, I am getting them closer and closer to calling and making an appointment.
You can use this concept to guide the patient to the destination you think will be the most helpful.
Did you write an article about dental anxiety you can make the link to the sedation page
Did you write an article about what happens after an extraction? Then make your backlink go to a page about dental implants.
You want to try and connect the problem they are having with a solution you can provide.
Step 6: Verify the article is posted and maximizing exposure with social media
You want to make sure the website owner actually posted your article and that your link works. You don’t need to be very pushy just make sure they email you after the article is live.
One trick you can use is to tell them you want to know when the article is up so you can share it on your social media. This gives them an incentive to get the article up because you will give them some free exposure.
Step 7: Follow up
Now that you have built a relationship with the blogger or website own you might have additional opportunities. This could include future blog posts or event that the blogger is hosting.
Don’t limit yourself.
Step 8: Bonus (even more backlinks tactics)
There is another great way to get a backlink… Local Sponsorship Opportunities! This takes very little time to set up and will have a similar affect as to guest posting.
If you would like to know how to find 100 local sponsorship opportunities in less than 5 minutes Then click the link HERE.
Written by: Dr. Benjamin Heyerdahl Fowler-Burkitt
