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iHeartLinks: How to Get Some Link Love from Radio Stations

Getting a link from a radio station website can be incredibly valuable to your SEO and authority building efforts. Here's how to get a backlink from a local radio station.

Radio station link building

You say radio, we say podcasts — but whichever way you swing it, the fact of the matter is that there is a hell of a lot of link building potential.

I’ll admit it: The decision to not reach out to radio stations because you’re working with a PR firm implies a sort of laziness that true link hustlers would capture.

Because if you don’t try all the link building strategies, how will you ever know which is really The One?

These types of questions keep me up at night.

At some point I’m going to have to admit that it just isn’t possible (or financially sustainable) to test and email every single radio station on the market worth its salt — and I’ll grieve accordingly.

So, let’s start with local radio stations first.

To be fair, this is not a new idea, but it is one that link builders often forget.

And, it’s so simple: Email your top 20 radio stations, ask to collaborate either on air, send products, or get featured on their blog.

It’s insanely versatile, because you can blend offline and online marketing to give your client a new type of backlink result.

It’s more than a link building hack — it’s like having three different link building opportunities in one hit.

I emailed a local radio station with a full technical SEO audit of their site and they mentioned my name and website live on air. It was a life-changing moment in my career and for my website’s local SEO.

I’ve also done a similar tactic for clients by mailing products to the radio stations hosts with a handwritten letter followed up with an email. This has typically positioned me to work with them from a contract position, it’s hard to get these ones for free.

Summary

Timeframe: Every 3 months

Results detected: 4-12 months

Average radios per month: 1

Tools:

  • Manual search using search operators like intitle:”local radio station”
  • Buzzstream (or Pitchbox)
  • BananaTag (or Yesware)

Benefits:

  • Similar to podcasts, radio stations increase your overall brand awareness connecting the dots between online and offline exposure.
  • Radio stations usually have a domain name that’s been around for a long time, therefore, increasing the value of the link from their website to yours.
Category Link Building
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Anna Crowe Marketing Consultant at A&Co

Anna is the Assistant Editor for Search Engine Journal. Over the last 10+ years, Anna has successfully been running her ...

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