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Blogger outreach is challenging enough when you consider the process of communicating with blog owners and pitching ideas, but before you can even get to that step, you first have to find the most authoritative bloggers to reach out to. Some marketers make the mistake of finding blogs as they go along, without any list or schedule to build upon. While this can certainly work over the long-term, it’s obviously not the most efficient or expeditious method of outreach. With that said, here are three tips you can use to improve the depth and relevance of your blogger outreach list:

1. Start with an Extensive Search Session

First, you need to determine which blogs are attracting the most traffic for the terms, phrases, and keywords that your target audience is probably searching for. Thus, keyword research and brainstorming are the initial steps that will help you discover the thought leaders in your niche. There are many tools that can help streamline or automate the collection of high traffic keywords, or you can use a more independent approach by branching out from your own curiosities. Make this exercise an ongoing routine – whenever you think of a new keyword or query that would be popular with your audience, head to the search engines and take note of any blogs that discuss the topic.

2. Filter Blogs By Domain Authority, Relevance, and Other Factors

Once you’ve scoured the web near and far for every notable blog that publishes posts related to your sector, the next step is to refine the list a bit in order to give the more powerful blogs a higher outreach priority. The best way to do this is to set up a spreadsheet and create separate columns for each attribute that is important to you. Then you can use sorting techniques to list the blogs in whatever order you’d like based on a variety of criteria. This step is essential because it will help you avoid wasting time trying to reach out to blogs that don’t carry as much authority as you might’ve initially thought. Every blogger outreach campaign should be based on observable metrics rather than merely the design and functionality of the site.

3. Scavenge Social Media for Influencers

Now that you’ve compiled and filtered a list of blogs using search engines, brainstorming, keyword research tools, and spreadsheet sorting, it’s time to delve into the final frontier – social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.). These platforms are gold mines for networking in general, especially if you’re trying to assess which bloggers have the most leverage in terms of repeat traffic, followers, and fans. Furthermore, you’ll get to dive deeper into the social psychology of marketing in your niche and get to know your audience’s online habits and interests on a more personal level.

Time Will Inevitably Bring Prospects

In closing, don’t worry about building the most comprehensive list known to man on the first day. You’ll notice that many of your greatest blog discoveries are done spontaneously as you’re just browsing the web. Build the list to serve as a foundation and format for cataloguing blogs, and once you have that in place, time and exploration will eventually bring you more outreach opportunities than you expected.