Inbound Marketing and SEO Blog

Reverse Outreach Through Twitter [Real Examples]

by Peter Attia on June 19, 2013

I know I’ve been on an outreach kick lately, but I’ve been having much fun with it. I wanted to go over a topic I don’t often see mentioned, which is finding opportunities that come to you first. Basically, when someone mentions your brand on their own volition and taking advantage of it. I refer to this as reverse outreach, because they’ve made the first attempt. These are great opportunities, because the prospect in question already has interest in your company or product.

Twitter Reverse Outreach Process

Ok, so I’ll jump right into what I’m talking about. Here is an opening mention I caught on my Twitter feed:

This thread quickly got a couple of responses.

Not only is this a mention of my company, but also a mention of competitors. I wanted to respond as quickly as possible so my competitors didn’t get a chance. Obviously they’re concerned by the cost and health factors, so I focused on these in my response.

One thing I regret, is undermining the competitors in the response. I by no means want to get on the bad graces of competitors. However, the competitors never responded to the entire thread, which makes us look far more caring.

The quick response gave me time to dive deeper into the profiles of everyone in the conversation. They all ran blogs and one of them ran a fairly successful blog. The person with the more successful blog also happened to respond positively.

So obviously, they’re still worried about the pricing. Since I’m a huge advocate for product reviews and they ran a decent blog, I jumped at the opportunity.

And I got a great response.

This spurred a great response from others who saw the conversation. People love seeing companies stay active in the social community. The end result was me getting a review of our product and a happy closing response.

The entire conversation with everyone involved was about 25-30 tweets long, but the above is the gist of what’s important. Because they already had interest in my company and I actively made an effort to show we appreciate them, I know I’m going to get a solid review. That’s why I consider these opportunities far more important than a standard outreach review.

Twitter Outreach Example #2

This is another example of a quick and easy one that worked out well. This was a person who reached out and ran both a solid blog and Youtube channel. To be honest, I’m still a little new to working with Youtube reviews, but since diving into it, it has driven a massive amount of traffic for us.

Conclusion

Always be on the lookout. There are outreach opportunities other than sending out several emails to bloggers and waiting for a response.

I know I’ve mentioned it a couple times above, but people Love seeing companies stay active on their social profiles. Make a conscious effort to respond to questions on Facebook and Twitter especially, because they Will be seen by several other users.

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Outreach through Facebook and Twitter [Real Examples]

by Peter Attia on May 22, 2013

If you’re trying to get on a big blog with several writers, the best way to pitch your idea is to contact authors directly. It’s damn near impossible to get a response if you pitch to the blogs standard email. The issue with this, is that their profiles typically don’t have their email address. You usually get their social profiles and then have to do a little research to see if you can dig up their email.

Basic ways to find emails through social profiles:

Check their twitter profile for a link to their personal site/blog
Google their name and pray
Do an about me search, for example: “site:about.me peter attia”
Check their Google+ profile and see if you can find their email from another contributing site

As excited as I get when I find a hidden email, sometimes I just can’t. I avoid it as much as possible, but occasionally the only way to reach out is through one of their social accounts.

Here are a couple of examples for you guys that have worked out for me.

Facebook Outreach

I haven’t crunched any specific numbers, but out of the two social networks, Facebook seems to have the higher response rate IF you pay the extra fee to send the message.

Incase you haven’t noticed it (as it’s kind of hidden), here’s a quick snapshot of how to send the message straight to a persons inbox, as if you were connected as friends on Facebook.

Then you’ll see this:

It’s only a dollar and completely worth it for higher profile contacts.

Note: I recommend using your personal account for this type of outreach, as it may come off as a little invasive from a company profile.

Most Facebook responses come from mobile devices, so you should be quick and to the point.

Facebook Example:

Twitter Outreach

Twitter outreach can be frustrating. Normally, I use twitter to make a quick connection with someone before I send them an email. However, sometimes I just can’t find an email and it’s my only point of contact.

Twitter’s 140 character limit makes it difficult to work with. Because of this, I usually ask for an email and continue the conversation through there.

Twitter Example:

Once you get someone’s email it’s drastically easier and more straightforward to discuss with them. In the example above, I ended up making an agreement with their coworker who they referred and not the original contact itself.

Important Note:
The first time I started doing this type of outreach, I wasn’t thinking about the fact that people would look at my profile and twitter feed before replying. I had someone get pretty irate with me, because they could see my last 8 tweets were all outreach tweets. To combat this, make sure you schedule your tweets out so you have some regular stuff in between your out reach tweets.

Things to consider

With email, if you don’t get a response from someone, it’s ok to wait a few days and follow up. Social profiles are a little different. They’re faster paced, often used through mobile, and easily missed. Because of this, I usually follow up a single day after, if I don’t get a second response. I typically won’t follow up if they ignore my first response, however, unlike email outreach.

You’re contacting peoples personal social profiles it’s a little more invasive and something to be weary of. Use a personal account (with your actual face, not a cartoon) to make a better connection. This will have better results than them seeing a company logo.

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Pros and Cons of Frameworks and Boilerplates in WordPress Theme Development

by Marshall Owen on April 30, 2013

If you’ve spent much time developing WordPress sites, you’ve likely encountered a staggering number of choices for where to begin. Different developers have different styles and preferences. I know some folks who like to just grab Twenty x (-Ten, -Eleven, -Twelve…) and chop it up. Others prefer “boilerplate” starter themes (like Blankslate, Underscores). Lots of developers love using a framework (like Thesis, Genesis, Hybrid Core) as a parent theme upon which to build. Some people like to literally start from scratch and write every single template file by hand. All are valid choices, and all have pros and cons. I won’t give a sweeping endorsement of any particular choice, nor will I get into anything technical here, but I’d like to share a few reflections from my experience with these methods of developing for WordPress.

What’s Your Goal?

Okay, so this should be beyond obvious, but during initial planning stages, you really need to determine your intended user experience (and target market), what functionality is needed to provide that experience, and what features or sections the site should entail. Will you have a blog? Are you displaying a list of products for sale? How about an extensive multimedia area with audio and video? How much social interaction should the user have on the site?

Once you’ve really narrowed down what you do want out of the project, you can start thinking about what you don’t want. Does your e-commerce store really require an RSS feed? Do you actually need a portfolio display template on a tech spec site? I like to streamline my code and focus on just what’s needed, which brings me to my next point.

Eliminate Cruft

cruft /krəft/
noun
Excess; in computing: superfluous or dysfunctional files, code, or elements.

Cruft Street I love the word cruft. It’s one of those words that, spoken out loud, sounds like what it means. One of the things I’ve come to realize from creating child themes is that along with the flexibility of quickly developing with one-size-fits-all frameworks comes a lot of code that you aren’t going to use at all for your particular project. So what? That’s not the worst thing ever. But depending on the framework, you’re sometimes talking about thousands of lines of code in functions, styles, and scripts that don’t need to be parsed.

There are loads of “blank” starter themes and boilerplates that include zero styling and just the minimum functionality needed to display the loop and proper markup, leaving you free to build out only the features you absolutely need. I sometimes prefer this route, especially if I just really don’t need a lot of the stuff that comes with it, and I can easily hand-code my own widget areas, post types, page templates, and so on to fit exactly what the project calls for.

Power and Flexibility

transformers On the other hand, you could certainly argue that the power and flexibility of a framework system is more than worth any of the “excess” code. We’ve all said “if I only had more time, I could ___.” In terms of project management, that means to me that frequently, efficiency and quick delivery are far more valuable than anything gained by a meticulous approach to hand-coding elements of the site that the end user may never see anyway.

Sure, you might not need a particular website feature right this minute, but the ability to swap in features and functions with a quick add_action(‘before_header’, ‘that_function_you_didn’t_think_you_were_ever_going_to_need’); is pretty useful, especially when you’re busy. Furthermore, many of the popular frameworks have great documentation and vibrant discussion/support forums full of folks who are eager to lend a helping hand.

Extensibility, or, What Does This Lever Do?

giant jenga On one hand, depending on how extensive the documentation available may be and how much you know about the framework you’re using, building out features using all the built-in filters and hooks may become second nature. Many theme frameworks have benefited from the work of dozens to hundreds of contributors over the years, and can provide rich functionality out-of-the-box for all sorts of integration with social platform API’s, SEO optimization, data structuring, and lots of things that could take one person a very long time to put together.

On the other hand, especially if you already have lots of your own code snippets and plugins that you like to use, and a markup structure that you are happy and familiar working with, you can build your own theme from the ground up with every bit of functionality that you need, comment your code accordingly, and be confident that when it comes time to grow your site, you’ll be 100% at home with your own work, and able to extend the code in a natural, fluid way.

Trying Something New Is Good For You

hey mikey I’ve frequently seen endorsements of various frameworks calling one or another the be-all, end-all, best-ever tool for developing WordPress themes. I can definitely relate to that level of loyalty to something that works extremely well for you. But I also have to say that for me personally, half the fun is in finding yourself in slightly unfamiliar waters and devising a great solution for the task at hand.

Yeah, it’s smart to have something very consistent to rely on at times, but it’s also a great challenge to take yourself out of your element from time to time, whether that means using a theme with a set of action hooks you aren’t familiar with, coding a whole theme from scratch, or just drinking tea instead of coffee. It’s up to you!

No Wrong Answer

no wrong answer Of course, as I said at the beginning, I’m neither endorsing nor opposing the use of frameworks or boilerplates. I’ve had success with many different methods of developing WordPress sites, and I think it’s always better to have more options in your tool kit than to limit yourself to one way. In the end, it comes down to what works the best for you. Experiment and find out what you like! Hopefully this offers a little food for thought for your next project.

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How to Get Blogger Reviews [Real Outreach Examples]

by Peter Attia on April 11, 2013

One of my favorite ways to get some solid links is by going after product reviews on other blogs. Not only do you get a link, you end up with a full page testimonial of your product infront of another blog’s readership.

You have to give the bloggers your product for free for them to review, which makes your production costs a deciding factor. Other than that, it’s free.

Is This Black, Grey, or White Hat?

I’ve heard different opinions on this, but it boils down to how you approach it.

The black hat point of view:
You’re giving compensation (you’re product) in exchange for a review. Therefore it’s a paid link/review and is going against Googles guidelines.

The grey hat point of view:
No actual money exchanges hands and the review isn’t written by you, therefore it’s ok.

The white hat point of view:
The post is written genuinely by the site owner – good or bad – and any links gained are entirely organic since you never asked for a link (you asked for a review).

All in all, it’s a silly argument. It’s a tactic that works as long as you don’t do something dumb like blast an email to 500 people at once.

Finding Bloggers and Managing Your Outreach

I’m not going to dive too deep into this, as I mostly just want to go over some outreach examples. If you want a full run through check out my previous post on finding guest bloggers.

Basically, you want to find someone with a good social presence. This is more about getting your product infront of the right audience than getting a link. I recommend using Followerwonk to dig for relevant profiles. As an example, with their bio search you can search for “recipe blogger” if you’re trying to get reviews for kitchenware. From there you can sort by number of followers and start going down the list. However, make sure their followers are genuine and not artificially gained, otherwise there’s little value.

You’ll also need a way to keep track of everyone you’re contacting. The worst thing you can do is contact the same person repeatedly or contact two people from the same blog. The easiest tool I’ve found for something like this is BuzzStream. You can completely sort and manage your contacts through their interface.

If this is a small or temporary project, a simple spreadsheet will work. However, you have to be really good about keeping track of when you message someone, wether they responded, wether you followed up, their name, their email, etc.

After that, it’s about how to construct your email. I’ve heard long elaborate emails work, but I’ve never been able to get a long email to work better than a super short one. I always keep it to 2-4 sentences and make sure something is mentioned that’s specific to that blog. So, on to some examples!

Email Outreach Examples

Here’s the fun stuff and the main point of this post. I apologize for all the markup, but it’s there for obvious reasons.

Example 1

This is a good one. I noticed she had a solid youtube following, so I mentioned it in the opening email. This shows I did more than email the first address I came across. It also, gave me an opportunity I wasn’t originally seeking.

This is also a good example of how important the follow up can be, as she didn’t respons for several days until I followed up with her.

Example 2

This one is pretty straight forward, except I had to talk to the bloggers representative instead of them directly. It still flows the same way, except responses are typically slower and you may have to be more detailed than usual about what you’re looking for.

Example 3

This one turned out fine, but I actually messed up on a couple things. First, I assumed the author that would be receiving the product was a woman. I think it was because I was communicating with a woman, but nonetheless, it shouldn’t have happened. Secondly, I had to follow up again to ask for the authors email address. I was used to having it, because I usually discuss directly with the person that does the review. Even though these things are minor, you always want to keep friction to a minimum.

Things to Consider

I used a company email when doing this outreach, because I was targeting high profile people with more time consuming opening letters. However, if you’re going to email 50+ people quickly, I would recommend using some sort of dummy email. This way if you make a mistake like contacting someone twice or contact someone that hates your product, you have nothing to worry about.

If you don’t have the time, you can just set up a gmail account. If you do have extra time and will be using your email for a while, you should set up a dummy site. The site has to make sense with your product though. For example, in the past I set up a site that acted as a PR front for a very specific niche. That way if people looked at the site, it was still relevant to the niche, but not what would seem like a competitor.

Conclusion

All in all, I contacted about 10 people and 6 were successful. I could’ve gotten a couple more, but the blogs made requests I didn’t feel the need to fulfill. Either way, this is a much better acceptance rate than asking for guest posts. It’s also shows the power of doing a little research and writing a decent outreach letter.

Hope this helps you guys out with your outreach in the future!

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How SEO Changed My Life

by Peter Attia on March 13, 2013

Like most people, I fell into SEO by complete accident. I never planned on doing anything even slightly related. I’d never heard of search optimization or pondered how search engines curated results. Now, however, I’ll never be able to look at the internet the same way again. I almost miss the the blind ignorance I had of thinking search result were completely natural.

That was about 7 years ago. Recently, I’ve accepted a Director of Marketing position at a startup in Austin called Skinny Limits. Right now the website only offers juice cleanse programs, but their main offering is vegan, raw, gluten free meal programs for people who want to keep a natural and healthy diet. Something only offered offline until we get through some hurdles and something I’m excited about solving.

They were a client I’d been working with since the beginnings of their launch and it took off. Within just a few months the company went from a staff of 2-3 to 15-16. As much as I’d love to claim this was solely due to my valiant marketing efforts :) it’s much more than that. They found a product people love. This sparked a newfound enjoyment for me. I found myself spending more time working on this one client than anyone else, so when an offer was made, the decision was easy.

This may seem like a standard job move for anyone else advancing in their career, but to me it meant a lot more than just a good opportunity.

Before SEO

I wasn’t dealt the best hand growing up. My childhood was spent in Newark, NJ where we lived in the basements and attics of family’s houses; My mother was mentally ill; my early teens were spent traveling with my dad who was running from law enforcement; and my high school years were spent in a low population ~~redneck~~ “old fashioned” town in the middle of West Virginia (This was right around 9/11 and I’m a short middle eastern guy). I would never take anything back and I have no regrets, but it made life difficult to say the least. I don’t think I lived in one place for more than a year or two until the age of 14.

I spent most of my teen years at home working on computers and playing the banjo (I mean come on, I was still in West Virginia). Then when I turned 17 and finished school, I did what I was used to and moved. I went to college in Pittsburgh for a while, but it just wasn’t for me. My father who worked hard for his degree, disowned me (we’re fine now). Ultimately, I spent the next several years moving to a new city about every 3-6 months. I slept in my car, stair wells, and the couches of kind strangers. I worked whatever job I could find: I sold art, I was a bartender, I did design work, I cleaned rugs, I repaired computers, I sold fruit, I set up music shows, I dug ditches, anything. I had no long term plan. I just wanted to aimlessly wander around with my backpack, my dog, and my banjo.

peter-attia
(me back then)

New Acquaintances

I got good at meeting people from moving around so much, so I was always able to get by and make friendships quickly.

About 4 years later I was working a construction job and while I was out of town, my foreman quit unexpectedly. This meant I no longer had a job, so I decided to just stay in the town I was visiting; Greensboro, NC. This is where I met Jay Young and Julie Joyce.

jay young and julie joyce

Jay has spoken at several conferences and Julie frequently writes on Search Engine Land and other popular SEO blogs. I first met Jay at a neighborhood pub where we both brought our dogs. both dogs enjoyed playing together, which naturally led to us conversing. We began discussing tech and computers and eventually he mentioned he was starting an SEO company, Link Fish Media. This is the first time I’d ever heard of SEO and I was instantly intrigued.

Soon after, I started working with them as a link builder. I was one of the first hires, so there wasn’t much training to be had. I had to do a lot of research on my own and the more I learned, the more fascinated I became. I spent long nights just reading about search marketing and learning how to maintain a website. I started working on my own projects and tests. Anything I could do to learn more, I did. I found something I was good at and something I really enjoyed.

I also loved the people in the industry. It sounds a little embarrassing now, but anytime I heard an SEO was coming to visit, I would get overly excited. I think the first two I’d ever met were Tony Spencer and Rob Kerry. Something about the industry just seemed to spit out amazing people and I saw a uniqueness in the SEO community that I never found anywhere else.

All of this was overwhelming and exciting for me. I hadn’t found something I was passionate about since I was a child.

I Changed

I no longer felt like I had to move around for no reason. This lead to me living in Greensboro for a full 3 years. It may not sound like much, but staying somewhere that long seemed impossible to me at the time.

It gave me the chance to make real friends again and become a real person in society. And for the first time in my life, I had a real apartment! Not a one bedroom with 6 people living in it or a mattress in a garage. I had a real fucking apartment! It was an empty apartment and my bed was a sleeping bag, but I didn’t care!

These changes in my life spiraled into me always reaching for more. I didn’t just want a better place or nice furniture, I wanted a career. I needed to prove to myself that I had the capability of excelling at one. I eventually felt as if I’d hit a wall in Greensboro and there wasn’t much more I could do. I needed to move again, but this time it wasn’t aimless. I had a reason for moving.

I decided the only real choice I had was to go to Seattle. That’s where SEOmoz and Distilled were and it seemed like my best shot. However, through an odd set of circumstances, I accidentally ended up vacationing in Austin. I immediately fell in love with the tech and startup scene there and well… I didn’t leave. Shortly after, I started working at uShip, which was my first in-house position. I think this planted a seed in me that got me attracted to in-house roles. I enjoyed collaborating with other departments, which can be hard to find in an agency setting.

After that, I realized I still had a lot to learn and began working freelance jobs with startups around Austin. I enjoyed it and since I had no “boss restrictions”, I was able to be a little picky about what clients I took on. I held out for the ones that sounded the most fun. This may not seem “economical”, but it gave me the most motivation to accel.

Moving Forward

My move to Austin was about 3 years ago and now I couldn’t be happier. I’m exactly where I want to be in my career and in a city that’s perfect for me. I completely attribute it all to SEO. It may sound ridiculous, but I truly believe I wouldn’t have gotten nearly as far in my life without my first gig as a link builder. Something I’ll be grateful about for a long time to come.

Since I just started this new gig, my time is a little strapped. I still plan on keeping up with the blog, however, less frequently. I’m hoping I’ll soon have some good case studies to share with you guys.

For everyone I’ve gotten to know over the years, both face to face and electronically, thanks for being so amazing. I have no idea where or how I would’ve ended up otherwise.

Cheers,
-Peter

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