Product reviews and outreach for deep links
As I mentioned in a previous post on Link building for eCommerce, one of the methods I like to use to get deep links to my product level pages is product reviews. The idea is this – I send a well known industry blogger some of our products and they write a review with a link back to the product page. Everyone wins when using this tactic – I get a highly relevant link back to my product page and the reviewer gets great content for their site. Before we get to this stage however, there’s the inevitable link building leg work to be done.
This post explains the process I use to identify potential reviewers and the outreach email I send to get a positive response. It’s a time consuming process but I’ve seen a great success rate using these methods.
Finding the right bloggers to target
This is probably the most important part of the entire process. You’re looking to find an authoritative site which is highly relevant to your product and that the blogger would be interested in writing a review. Sticking something like blue widgets inurl:review in to Google will give you a good place to start. Turn on your SEOmoz toolbar SERP overlay to quickly give you an idea of site authority.
Once you’ve identified several potential blogs, the next part is to look carefully at the type of content the blogger has on their site. Do they seem like the kind of person who would be interested in your product? Does their bio or about page give you an idea of the kind of thing they like? You’ll quickly discover that your product isn’t suitable for all the bloggers on your list and you should be left with just a few targets.
Getting the outreach email right
Bear in mind that authoritative bloggers who write good content probably receive product review requests on a daily basis. You need to ensure that your email stands out and that it’s easy for the blogger to accept your request. The trick here is to show the benefit to the blogger of reviewing your product while giving them nothing to do in terms of research. Definitely don’t just give them a link to your product page and expect them to do the work. More than likely they won’t and your email will end up in the trash.
This is the outreach email I use (although I personalise it for every blogger). Keep as short and as friendly as possible.
Hi RECIPIENT’S NAME,
I work at YOURDOMAIN.CO.UK and thought I’d drop you a quick line to ask if you’d be interested in reviewing PRODUCT NAME on sale in our online shop as it may be of interest to your blog readers. ADD SOMETHING TO SHOW YOU HAVE READ THEIR BLOG AND WHY YOU THINK IT WOULD BE BENEFICIAL TO THEIR READERS.
ADD SOME DETAILS ABOUT THE PRODUCT AND WHY IT IS UNIQUE. Obviously, we wouldn’t expect you to the return the PRODUCT NAME.
I have attached a few images of the PRODUCT NAME for your interest.
If you think this is something that your readers would be interested in, please let me know and I will arrange to post out the PRODUCT NAME to you as soon as possible.
I look forward to hearing from you,
Using this technique has given me several high authority links with a very high success rate. I’d be interested in hearing what techniques others use to get product reviews.
Categories: Link building, SEO
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About Brendan - I'm a SEO based in Manchester, currently employed by the good folks at Confetti Celebrations.
I've been working in SEO for over 5 years now and occasionally dabble in the odd bit of eMarketing. I've spoken on SEO and eMarketing at Universities throughout north west England.
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