Automating Link Building with Zapier | Link Building #abeeratips
Link building may be a time suck. You have to seek out prospects, vet them, find their emails, verifythem, and send outreach
emails plus some follow ups. But half these steps are often semi-automated using Zapier. So ifyou would like to find out the
wayto automate these 3 steps of the link building process, then staytuned. Ifyou haven't heard of Zapier it is a tool that
allows you to connect web apps together using"If... Then"statements. When you create a mixture of web apps, they're called
"zaps."For example, this zap says: "Ifyou get a new customer through Stripe then add them to an onboardingsequence in
ActiveCampaign. Or ifyou've got a paid account with Zapier, you can create multi-step automations. So lets add on to our
previous example, which now says: them to an onboardingsequence in ActiveCampaign and send them an SMS through
Twilio. Zapier has over 2,000 apps you'll mix and match, so there are virtually an infinite number of automations you'll create.
But hey, this tutorial is about automatinglink building. So to organize our link building automation, we need to do a number of
the manual workfirst like getting an inventory of link prospects, vettingthem and findingthe first and surname of authors or
editors. To do this, I exported backlinks reports from Ahrefs' Site Explorer and had someone vet the list of prospects. Now, the
sole thing manual left to tryto to is to find the primary and surname s of the people we should be contacting. Now, two quick
sidenotes: #1. I've already had someone find these people and I've recorded their names during a note. And the reason why
I'm not enteringthem in here yet is because the automation requires a trigger so as to start out . So we'll mention this during
a second. And the second sidenote is that you simply need at least one row ofsample data so as to actually build and test the
automation. So for that reason, I've entered the primary and last name of the person within the last row of the sheet. And
duringthis case, I used myvery own information to protect the privacy of others.Let's start building our zap. Alright,
therefore the veryfirst thing we'd like to tryto to is set our trigger. Basically, Zapier must know when it should run the
automation. So the initiative in any automation are goingto be to choose an app then a trigger event. So I've chosen Google
Sheets as my app, and based on the selections from the dropdown, I want my automation to start out when there's a new or
updated spreadsheet row. Next, Igave Zapier access to my Google Drive and this is often somethingyou will need to tryto to
with anythird-party app you would like to integrate. In the next part, Ichose myspreadsheet, selected the worksheet, and that
i also set a trigger column. The trigger column is essentially a more specific condition that must be met in order for the
automation to run. So this is often what i used to be pertainingto in mysidenote and as you'll see I've set the zap to run after
the surname field is updated within the sheet. So I'll attend Find Data and expand my data sample to form sure everything
looksgood and I'm gettingto select that row for the rest of our testing. Alright, therefore the next step is to line our first
action. And looking backto our initial 5-step list of link buildingsteps, the first action we'd like to tryto to is locate emails. So
as you'll see here, I've set the app to Hunter and therefore the Action Event to seek out Emails. Now, for the custom settings,
you will need to map the Domain,given name and surname fields with the columns in your sheet. Otherwise the app won't
work usingthe Find Emails action since these are all required fields. Now, let's pause for a second and re-evaluate a couple
email-findingscenarios you'll run into. Scenario one is that ifyou cannot find a primary and last name. In this case, the zap
won't be triggered because we set our event to only happen if the surname column is updated. So duringthis case, you will
have to seek out the e-mail manually. Scenario 2 is that ifyou've got the primary name but can't find the surname . This is an
equivalent deal as scenario one. But since tons of individuals and corporations use emails like firstname@domain.com, you
can try enteringthe letter "a" within the surname field to run the row through your automation. Worst-case scenario, you get
an invalid email that won't even be sent. And the best-case scenario is you discover their email. Alright, subsequent step is to
update your spreadsheet with the found email.
Otherwise, Zapier might update the wrong rows
and we don't want that.
So, here I've chosen Google Sheets as my app
and Lookup Spreadsheet Row as the event action.
For the custom options, I've selected the
Spreadsheet and Worksheet as usual.
But you also have to set a Lookup Column and
a Lookup Value.
For the Lookup Column, select the Referring Page
since there shouldn't be any duplicates there.
And for the Lookup Value, just click the dropdown
and find the corresponding referring page value.
Now, I'll click on the Send Data tab and click Test
and Review to make sure everything looks good.
Okay, so now we need to actually update the
email into our spreadsheet.
So I set up a new step and I've chosen
Google sheets as my app.
And now that we're creating an Action
instead of a Trigger, we have the option
to update a spreadsheet row.
So for our custom settings, I've selected
my Spreadsheet and Worksheet as required,
and for the Row, you actually have to choose
a custom value.
So just click on the dropdown, then choose
the Custom tab,
and then select the Row from the third step.
By doing this, Zapier will dynamically choose
the row it's working on for future tasks.
And all we need to do now is go to the email field
since that's what we're updating, click the dropdown,
click on the Hunter dropdown and choose
the found email address.
Now, when we go to the last step and click Test
and Review, you'll see that the data is correct
and if we look at our spreadsheet,
it should have been automatically updated with
the email address that Hunter found.
Alright, the next step in our list is to validate the email,
meaning, is the email Hunter found deliverable?
Now, in order to verify an email, you need
an email address to validate.
The thing is, Hunter won't always find an email.
So we need to add a filter step before connecting
our email validation app.
If you're not familiar with Zapier filters,
they're just conditional operators.
So by setting one, we're telling the automation:
"Only continue If a specific condition is met."
So I've chosen Filter by Zapier as my app.
And then I set a condition that says:
"Only continue if the Email from Hunter contains
the @ symbol.
Reason being, all email addresses have an
@ symbol and if Hunter didn't find an email,
then the automation should stop and run again
on the next row of data.
So I'll click Continue, and Zapier confirms
that this zap would have continued
because Hunter found an email.
Now, that our filter is good to go, I'll choose
my email validator app, which is NeverBounce.
And I've selected the action to Verify Email Address.
And customizing this is really easy.
Just click the dropdown, choose Hunter, and
then select the email field.
So we'll test and continue on with our automation
to make sure the data is being pulled in correctly.
And in this case, the email is valid.
Now, the next step in our automation is to update
our spreadsheet with the NeverBounce status.
So in this step, I've chosen Google Sheets as my app,
and set the Action to Update Spreadsheet Row.
And since we had previously set up a lookup
step to find the row we need to update,
I'll click on the Row textbox, then the Custom tab,
and choose the correct row number from step 3 again.
Finally, I've mapped the NeverBounce text result
code to the Verify column in my Google Sheet.
And you can quickly find that by just clicking on
the textbox and searching for "text result code."
Finally, I'll hit the Test and Review button,
and then look back to my spreadsheet
to make sure the correct row was updated.
And everything looks good here.
Now, if you haven't worked with NeverBounce,
they generally send back one of four status codes.
Valid, catchall, invalid, and unknown.
From my experience valid emails are deliverable
around 98% of the time, catchall emails are
around 80-85% correct, and then invalid and
unknown emails are almost always undeliverable.
So to make sure we're not sending emails to
invalid addresses, the next step is to set a filter.
So I chose "Filter by Zapier" as my app.
And for the conditions, I've set it to say:
"Only continue if NeverBounce's text result code
is valid OR if the text result code is catchall.
Otherwise stop the automation."
And if I click Continue, you'll see that this particular task
would have continued because the email was valid.
Alright, the next step is to actually send
these emails and follow-ups.
And the tool that I use to do this is Mailshake.
Mailshake is an email outreach tool that lets you
send personalized emails and automated follow-ups.
Now, I won't bother going through setting up Mailshake
since that's outside of the scope of this tutorial.
So within Zapier, I've added another Do this
action and chose Mailshake as my app.
And for the Action Event, I set it to add
a recipient by email address which will add
the prospect to one of my campaigns that I've
already set up in Mailshake.
Now, we need to customize the settings for Mailshake.
First, I chose my Mailshake campaign which
is called Ahrefs Sample Campaign.
For email, I clicked the dropdown and chose
the one found directly from Hunter.
And then I choose the first and last name
from my Google Sheet.
The last thing I added here is a Text Replacement,
more commonly referred to as a merge field.
These are just snippets of code you can add
to your email template, which will dynamically
replace them for each contact.
And the primary purpose is for personalization.
So as an example, I'm feeding the referring
page from my Google Sheet into Mailshake.
To complete this step, I'll go to Send Data
and click on Test and Continue.
Now, if I head on over to my Mailshake account,
you'll see that one contact was added.
And if I go to the email preview, you can
see that the contact's referring page URL
was inserted into the email since that's how
I set up my sample template.
Ok, the final step is to update your Google Sheet
with some data from Mailshake.
And this is more for tracking purposes.
Again, I chose Google Sheets as my App and
Update Spreadsheet Row as my Action Event.
I chose my Spreadsheet and Worksheet,
then I chose the dynamically selected row that we found in step 3.
And finally, I set the step to update the status ID
column with Mailshake's Check Status ID response,
which confirms that Mailshake has received
the request.
If I run the Test and Continue, then you'll see that
the final column in the sheet gets updated.
So the entire automation is setup and all
we need to do now is turn on the zap
and then start entering in first names
and last names into our sheet.
And as the zap runs, it should slowly but surely
fill in the blank spaces for you when the last name
column is updated since that's our trigger.
And now you have yourself a semi-automated
outreach and link building system.
Now, keep in mind that this is a system -
it's meant to work for you over time.
And with the time you save, you can spend that on
personalizing your emails and improving conversions. if you enjoyed
this article, make sure to like, share and subscribe.
Hey, I am Khadam Ali admin to this blog. I am trying to write good articles for you,if you like this so plz share this to your friends. if you have any questions plz leave a comment below the post.i try to give answers to you.
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