Create Link Roundups

Targeting link roundups for links is a well-documented strategy.

But, many people forget that they can actually create their own link roundups, too.

Link roundups generally gather a lot of inbound links as they’re essentially curated content.

You can create a “roundup” of virtually anything but usually, it’ll be something along the lines of the best sites/blogs/posts from a particular industry within a certain time period.

Here’s an example:

Here’s how to do it:

• Curate some content (i.e. best content of the week/month/etc.)
• Create your “roundup” post
• Promote it

Curating a bunch of links sounds pretty straightforward, but in order to actually create a “roundup” post that is likely to get linked to, it needs to offer a lot of value.

Roundup posts do that by:

• Saving time: People are generally short of time, and in most industries, there are literally hundreds and thousands of blog posts published every month. Nobody has time to read them all, so curating only the best ones is typically a great time-saver, which will be popular.
• Being useful: Again, there are thousands of new posts published every month, so a curation of only the most useful posts will be a valuable resource (i.e. a post that says “hey, here’s the only posts you need to care about this week/month/year)

The best tactic is to publish a new roundup post on a regular basis, so people know when to expect the next one.

For example, UpCity publishes one every week:

Should your roundup post become popular, you’ll likely get people reaching out to you with “suggestions” for post inclusions each month.

But, for your initial post, you’ll need to curate the links yourself.

Here’s where to start:

• Reddit: Find subreddits related to your industry and sort by “Top” > “This month/week” – this will show you the most upvoted posts and links from the past month. Many of these will be good contenders for your roundup post.
• Twitter: Follow influencers and see what they’re posting. Look out for the same post being tweeted over and over again – this is usually a sign of a great post.
• Other “roundup” posts: Roundup posts are popular, so it’s likely that other bloggers in your space are creating them. These posts are already curated, so they’ll likely link to a lot of great posts.

Note: When creating your post, it pays to write a brief (1-2 sentences is enough) summary of what each link contains. This proves to people that you’ve read the post (rather than just adding any old nonsense for the sake of creating a roundup post).

After you click the publish button, you need to promote your post to the right people. This includes:

• Anyone you mentioned: Reach out to anyone you linked to in your “roundup” and let them know. They may link to you (or at least promote the post on social media)
• Influencers: Use Followerwonk (or a similar tool) to find influencers in your niche and let them know about your roundup post.

Here’s an outreach template:

“Hey [NAME],

I’m [YOUR NAME], [POSITION] at [WEBSITE].

Just wanted to give you a quick heads-up, as I included your recent post in my latest monthly roundup.

Here it is, if you want to check it out: [INSERT LINK]

Hopefully it’ll drive a bit of extra traffic 🙂

[YOUR NAME]

PS. Might make a nice addition to this post? [INSERT POST LINK]”