355: The Dream 100: Stop Building Links and Start Building Friendships
Oct 3, 2019
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Brendan Hufford, an SEO expert and entrepreneur, shares his innovative Dream 100 strategy for effective networking. He emphasizes that building genuine friendships, rather than merely collecting links, leads to meaningful SEO improvements. Brendan discusses the importance of prioritizing quality connections, personalized outreach, and maintaining persistence in follow-ups. He also touches on balancing side hustles with full-time work and offers stoic time management tips to nurture both personal aspirations and professional growth.
The Dream 100 strategy advocates for fostering meaningful relationships with 100 influential individuals in your industry to drive growth.
Building high-quality backlinks is more effective through targeted partnerships rather than generic outreach efforts, enhancing SEO benefits.
Establishing authentic connections in business creates long-lasting friendships, leading to collaborative opportunities and mutual support over time.
Deep dives
The Power of the Dream 100 Strategy
The Dream 100 strategy emphasizes focusing efforts on building meaningful relationships with 100 key individuals in your industry rather than attempting to connect with everyone. This approach, popularized by Chet Holmes, encourages prioritizing connections that can genuinely advance your business. By concentrating on these relationships, entrepreneurs can cultivate impactful partnerships that yield better results compared to traditional outreach methods, which often utilize generic, mass communication. Such strategic networking can lead to significant opportunities over time, transcending mere link-building into fruitful collaborations.
Quality Over Quantity in Outreach
In the realm of SEO and marketing, the importance of securing high-quality backlinks is highlighted, suggesting that fewer, but more relevant links can be more advantageous than numerous low-quality ones. Building relationships with the right 100 websites can produce better recognition and support compared to a scattershot approach to outreach. The podcast illustrates that many ineffective outreach attempts are often forgettable form letters lacking personal connection. A more thoughtful and creative approach to outreach can lead to successful engagement and drive reciprocal benefits.
The Importance of Genuine Relationships
Establishing authentic relationships in business goes beyond transactional interactions; it’s about fostering friendships that can last over the years. The podcast provides examples of successful figures who link frequently with those they know personally, showcasing the power of closeness in network building. A relationship-based approach encourages individuals to genuinely care about their connections, which can result in mutual support rather than purely seeking favors. This mindset can open doors to collaborative marketing opportunities and sustained engagement through shared goals and values.
Engagement Through Value
Providing value to others is a fundamental principle for establishing connections in any niche. By actively engaging with content created by potential partners, you can showcase your willingness to help and their importance to you. The episode stresses creating long-term relationships, where you contribute positively to the person’s projects or share meaningful successes from following their advice. This not only enhances your visibility but builds a reputation as someone who is a valuable ally, reinforcing a fruitful network.
Tiered Networking Approach
The podcast outlines a tiered approach to identify and connect with your Dream 100, categorizing them into three levels based on their relevance and your existing relationship with them. Tier one consists of those at your level, tier two includes individuals slightly ahead of you, and tier three represents industry leaders or major influencers. This systematic breakdown allows you to prioritize outreach and tailor your communication style according to the dynamics of each relationship. Such organization in your networking efforts can make the daunting task more manageable and strategic.
If you have an online business, chances are you’ve tried your hand at outreach.
If you want to expand and grow your business, especially from an SEO standpoint, you need good quality links pointing to your site from other websites.
The problem is that getting other sites to link to you is not easy, as I’m sure you’ve found it. The “traditional” method is to send out dozens, even hundreds of emails to other site owners trying to land a guest post.
But, as today's guest Brendan Hufford explains, this takes an awful lot of work, has a low chance of success, and the links you do get might not actually be doing much for your site’s SEO.
Brendan is an SEO master, a long-time entrepreneur, and a master at building win-win relationships. His approach to SEO and link building is a little different.
“Build friend’s first, not links,” is Brendan’s motto when it comes to outreach. He’s come up with his own Dream 100 Strategy for SEO, and he’s seen it work wonders with his own businesses and for his students.
Tune in to hear Brendan explain how you can create your own Dream 100 list of the sites you’d like to work with to grow your business.
He explains why most outreach is awful, how you should be reaching out to people, why there is long-term value in building friendships, and how you can improve your SEO and grow your online business.