Situation: Flat Traffic at Start-Up Website
The language-learning start-up OptiLingo worked with Zen Anchor to help increase organic traffic to their website. There was already a blog in place, and the website fluctuated between 150 – 175 daily visitors (see above) with some occasional traffic spikes over 200. The ask was to develop a strategy around outreach, building backlinks through email campaigning, and guest posting to further establish the brand as an authority in the language-learning niche.
Challenge: Build Organic Traffic for Lead Generation
OptiLingo functions in a highly competitive language-learning niche with brands like FluentU, DuoLingo, Rosetta Stone, and Pimsleur. The challenge was to find potential outreach partners that would work with OptiLingo in exchange for creating content and sharing industry insight. Sponsored posts were not an option as they tend to be over-priced with a very little guarantee on the ROI. So, these new relationships would need to be genuine and organic.
SEO Outreach Requirements:
- Build an outreach campaign that would target high-value prospects.
- Design an email campaign around contacting these assets.
- Negotiate deliverables in exchange for backlinks to the OL website.
- Nurture relationships for future potential collaborative efforts.
Solution: Creating the List and Refining the Message
We built a list of potential guest post contacts. Our team evaluated these contacts based on site-traffic, authority, and an audit of competitor websites. We initially targeted low traffic blogs and negotiated genuine content creation in exchange for backlinks. These were typically 800 – 1000 words in length. And we propositioned sites that weren’t interested in content with a relevant link exchange.
As we progressed further into the outreach, we leveraged our previous successes for new collaborations. Next, we began to target mid and high-end blogs. And we used our previous content to showcase the value in our relationship while combating any notion of spam or inauthenticity. Our goal was always to work with these new brands, helping them better reach their audience.
Results: Outreach Strategy Results in 2,000+ Daily Visits 
After six months of email outreach that focused on creating lasting collaborations that provided genuine content, OptiLingo has forged several new partnerships in its perspective niche. Additionally, traffic has been on a stable and rapid increase since March: currently trending to over 2,000 daily visitors, 60K monthly visitors (Google Analytics).
Now the outreach strategy has shifted. Businesses seek out our client – requesting content, link exchanges, and other collaborative efforts. And the team at OptiLingo navigates these new relationships to continue spreading brand awareness and organic reach.
Gary is the founder of Zen Anchor. With over 10 years of experience in digital marketing, Gary has worked with a variety of clients including Avis Budget Group, LexisNexis, Guardian Life Insurance, AJG, Bulletproof and the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. When he’s not managing campaigns, he’s either playing hockey, performing improv or reading another book off of his Goodreads list.