Every business owner is trying to gain some visibility for their product or service, but it is easy to go unnoticed in the online world. With everyone scrambling for attention, getting endorsed by an authority figure can bring many benefits. From a traffic and SEO perspective, getting backlinks from respected industry websites can lead to a better search engine position and increased site authority. From a reputation standpoint, being mentioned by these industry figures can give you valuable recognition and social proof. Gaining industry authority can take time, but one of the quickest ways to achieve it is with a roundup article.
What is a Roundup Article?
A roundup article has long been popular among newspaper editors, but it works equally as well online. Based around a particular topic, a writer will speak to a number of people to gauge an opinion, which will form the basis of an article. The article might be based on expert opinions, but it could also be the opinions of keen amateurs or local people. The writer will then collate the different opinions, often just a short paragraph or two, and present the article to readers. For example, an article might ask business people for one tip to increase productivity, or ask fitness professionals for their top method to burn stomach fat.
Start Brainstorming Topics
To start, think of some interesting topics that will benefits readers, but will also be easy for your experts to answer. You will not be looking for anything too detailed, just something that can be answered in a short paragraph. Some general ideas could be to ask for top tips, book recommendations, best advice, worst advice, or biggest mistakes. These simple ideas can be transferred to most topics, but you can also use something based on recent news or events to remain current.
Contact Respected Experts
Unless you are new to a niche, you probably are already aware of the well-known figures in the industry. People with successful products, popular blogs, or social media profiles will be perfect for this type of exercise. When you are contacting people, try to ensure you are respectful of their time by keeping things brief and to the point. You won’t get positive responses from everyone, but you only need a handful to achieve your goal.
Format Article and Post to Your Blog
When you have collated the content, try to give readers some introductory context by explaining why you have assembled the opinions. You could simply explain the importance of the topic to your industry, or reference some topical news that led you to speak to the experts. Each contributor should have a link to their website, providing them some promotion for their time and effort.
Contact the Experts
After posting the article, contact the relevant contributors with a link to the post, while also asking if they could let their readers know. Most people will be happy to inform their followers, and they can also personally benefit from their association with the most knowledgeable experts in their market. This repeat contact will also help to forge relationships with like-minded entrepreneurs, particularly if you have been consistent and done everything you said you would.
The Result
If everything goes to plan, your article should provide several benefits:
- You should receive some backlinks from high authority blogs and social media accounts, helping with your search ranking position and website authority;
- You will get social proof from a perceived relationship with industry figures, resulting in a bigger reputation amongst your readers;
- You will have forged new relationships, allowing you to write more roundup articles of this type. While you should get some initial spikes in traffic, it might take a few more articles of this kind before you start to notice your reputation has grown.
Potential Issues
In certain cases, you may find it hard to get a response to your initial queries. Many entrepreneurs are bombarded with emails, often requesting links, recommendations, and interviews, so they don’t respond to everything. In order to get their attention, writing a curated content piece can be an effective option. To do this, look through their recent blog posts, write your own post based on their article, then contact them via their comment section or social media to let them know. Going this extra step can often make you stand out, increasing the likelihood of a response.
In summary…
A roundup article is a simple way to create content for your site, but the results can far outweigh the effort required. Authority and reputation can increase overnight, both in the eyes of your industry and the search engines, and this can lead to more visitors, readers, and customers. Much of online marketing is based around reputation, and a number of roundup articles can go a long way to increasing yours.
