Have a look around at all your favorite blogs and you’ll see they all have thousands of followers. You can usually tell because they will get over a hundred comments every time they post a new article. If you read the article you will realize it’s not even that good. People leave a comment on their blog and your article is much better. That really starts to get depressing after a while. You’re putting in hours of hard work perfecting everything you do and someone is living on easy street because they started a few years before you. If you want to grow your blog you need to become friends with these people.
You can’t live in the shadows much longer if you eventually want to be as successful as them. Once you’re friends with influential people they will give you backlinks left, right and center. Their popularity will rub off on you.
All it takes is a little online friendship. It’s not like you need to go for dinner with them. You just want them to notice you and begin to like you. Everyone is trying to do the same thing with the same people, so you have to be smart. Are you wondering how you can do it without looking desperate?
Buy their time
The easiest way to get quality time with an influencer is to buy their time. This could be some kind of coaching session they offer, or maybe they have a premium product where they’ll actually spend a little time speaking to everyone. It doesn’t really matter which one you choose because they will all do the same thing.
Coaching is better, but it won’t be the cheapest option. Take advantage of any opportunity and ask as much great questions as you can. They will obviously notice the people who ask more questions and will know you are keen to learn.
Use their advice
People will give out great advice for free every single week. They don’t do it to look good, most want you to go out and follow what they’re telling you. The whole idea is that you get results and think of them as a demigod. They know this means you will buy their products because they give out advice that works, which is sadly lacking in the online world.
Your mission is to see results and let them know. It’s even better if you can compile some kind of case study. Tell them about it and they’ll tell everyone else. They will want everyone else to know how great their advice is. This works big time.
Tell them how much you love them
This doesn’t need to be a love poem you send by email. I’m sure they’ll enjoy reading it, but it’s not going to do you any good in terms of backlinks or traffic. Write out an article and mention how great they are. Make sure you include a link to their website and they should find your article. If they don’t then you can maybe email them and let them know.
Once they read it and see how wonderful they look they will once again send everyone else they know to look at it. They just want everyone to bask in their greatness and you get lots of new readers at the same time.
Become friends with their friends
I don’t know if you’d call this sneaky or not. It’s not really if you go about it the right way. There’s always a food chain in the online world and the top bloggers are right up at the top. You’re down at the bottom, but there’s going to be people who are a little higher up.
The top dogs will no doubt be friends with some of the people on the lower levels. They are much more approachable and you should try following them and becoming friends, but only if you’d want to be their friend anyway. Now you can wait until you’re introduced to the top dog. I’m sure you’ll still get some extra traffic from the other blogger while you’re waiting.
About the Author
Ben Austin is a London based web entrepreneur who works for www.seo-positive.co.uk. He is eager to hear from you about how he can help improve your site.