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Over 70 million new blog posts are published each month — and that’s just WordPress alone. With so much content getting produced, it’s easier than ever to find relevant blogs and bloggers open to sharing your content.
However, in the ten years I’ve been doing blogger outreach in various industries, I’ve found one common theme: blog outreach can be time-consuming for the underprepared.
That’s why building a tool kit is essential. Without the right tools, you’ll waste time on menial tasks and diving down research rabbit holes.
Here are my go-to blogger outreach tools and some tips on how to use them effectively.
Best All-in-One Blogger Outreach Tool
I’ve worked at agencies, worked with agencies, worked in-house, and hired freelancers for blog outreach help. I eventually took a job with BuzzStream because BuzzStream has been my go-to blogger outreach and link building tool. Built for
1. BuzzStream – Prospecting, Emailing, Relationship Building, and Reporting
BuzzStream is the best all-in-one blogger outreach tool for agencies, in-house teams, and freelancers. The tool has features that help with every step of the blog outreach process, from prospecting to emailing to reporting.
Here is what stands out to me as the features that help blogger outreach teams the most:
Prospecting and Blog Discovery – integrates with Moz, Ahrefs
With Buzzstream, you can upload your prospects or use their helpful research tool to discover blogs and blog posts that fit your target audience.
You can vet the sites using integration with Moz and Ahrefs for information like Domain Authority, number of external links, or blog publish frequency.
Contact Information Discovery – integrates with Hunter
Once you have your blog list, Buzzstream can find email addresses and social accounts based on what is available on the site. You can even sync up your Hunter.io account to help find even more contact info.
Sending Emails – with a Chrome Extension
Once you have your list of prospects and contact information, you can set up email sequences with follow-ups based on fully customizable email outreach templates. You can email prospects from the Dashboard, but I like using the Chrome extension Buzzmarker. Using the Buzzmarker allows you to craft emails without leaving the blog page, so you can easily reference any information from the target blog post within your email.
Tracking Relationships and Results – within the app
Remember, real people are receiving these emails on the other end. BuzzStream gives you complete visibility into the emails sent to websites so that you can maintain relationships and, more importantly, avoid spamming the same bloggers with multiple campaigns at one time (this is especially helpful at larger agencies or large teams).
The app will also tell you when you’ve received coverage by looking for backlinks to your target posts.
Pricing: Free trial. $29/mo for the Starter plan.
Prospecting and Blog Discovery Tools
The first step to blogger outreach is finding blogs to pitch. There are a variety of tools available.
2. Ahrefs’ Content Explorer – Finding Top Linked Blog Content
Ahrefs’ Content Explorer feature is a must-have tool for content marketing and blog discovery. Enter a keyword, and Content Explorer displays top posts along with information like Domain Rating (DR), number of backlinks, organic traffic, traffic value, and other helpful metrics for determining if the site is valuable as a link building target.
Then, there are a handful of helpful filters to hone in on the content types that best fit your content strategy. For instance, you can filter by Publication Date to find the most recent content and active blogs for outreach. Or, you can filter by author if you want to identify specific content by an author to reference in your pitch.
Pricing: $99/mo for Lite Version
3. BuzzSumo’s Content Analyzer – Identifying Top Shared Content
BuzzSumo can find top-linked content, but its natural strengths are its social metrics.
Like Ahrefs, BuzzSumo’s Content Analyzer allows you to search based on a keyword to identify top-linked content across the web. But BuzzSumo also displays social sharing data from X, Facebook, Pinterest, and Reddit.
You can then drill down into each shared post to identify users who have shared content. With this list, cross-check to find bloggers that have shared on social media but have yet to link to it from their blog.
Pricing: $199/mo
4. SparkToro – Identifying Influencers
SparkToro was co-created by former Moz Co-Founder Rand Fiskin and can be used in your blogger outreach campaigns to identify influencers.
Rand and the team learned from their experience with Moz that to truly expand your reach, you should look at what your users are talking about, not what they search for on Google. So Sparktoro uses data from social networks like X, LinkedIn, or Facebook to help you identify what topics your audience follows and interacts with on social.
Taking this unique perspective, you can pinpoint key influencers to collaborate with for blogger outreach, content promotion, guest blogging, or other partnership opportunities in a way that other tools can’t.
Pricing: Free, $38/mo Personal plan
5. Google w/ advanced search operators – Uncovering Guest Post Opportunities
By using specific search queries, such as “topic + write for us” or “topic + guest post,” you can discover sites actively seeking guest contributors.
But you can further level your game with Google search operators like inurl: and intitle: operators.
The Inurl: search operator finds you URLs with your search operator, and intitle: operator finds pages whose title includes your search operator. In each case, you can more definitively uncover blog posts related to the topic of your choice.
Tip: Use Google search operators when building your Research lists in BuzzStream. Our tool de-duplicates all pages, collects contact info, and provides metrics.
Pricing: Free
Blog Validation Tools
As you build your outreach list, shaving down your target list is critical to generating responses from bloggers. These are some tools that make the validation process quicker and more efficient.
6. Moz – Measuring Site Authority
Moz’s Domain Authority (DA) is a widely used industry metric built to help SEOs understand a site’s ability to rank. It isn’t the same as how Google ranks pages, but it has shown to be very directionally accurate.
DA is one way to assess a website’s perceived strength and credibility for a blogger outreach campaign. Simply enter the target site into the Link Explorer or Domain Analysis tools.
Moz’s Link Explorer tool can also help assess the quality and relevance of a blog’s backlink profile. If you see a high Spam Score, consider not trying to build a link from the site.
Tip: BuzzStream integrates Moz metrics directly into the platform. You can see Domain Authority, the number of inbound links, and the number of links passing value for every prospect you add to a project.
Pricing: Moz Pro has a 30-Day Free Trial, then $99/mo Standard tier
7. Semrush – Measuring a Site’s Traffic
Semrush, another powerful SEO tool with a similar feature set to Ahrefs, can help estimate the traffic to a particular page or site. Semrush’s Traffic Analytics compiles metrics like Visits, Pages/Visit, Avg using clickstream data. Visit Duration, all of which can help determine whether or not a site is worth investing your time in pitching.
Or, enter the target blog into their Domain Overview tool to see information like Organic Search Traffic and number of backlinks.
Pricing: $129/mo for Pro tier
8. Siege Media Chrome Extension – Validating a Target Site
Siege Media’s Chrome Extension provides a quick and efficient way to evaluate potential outreach targets using on-page signals. Content marketing agency Siege Media built the tool based on the insights of years of blogger outreach from the agency, and it is indeed extremely accurate.
The scorecard assesses the quality of a website or blog directly from the browser, considering factors such as words with intent to collaborate, number of nofollow links, etc.
It still takes a keen eye to manually quality and validates a site for outreach, but this tool gives an excellent head start.
Pricing: Free
Content Ideation
Even if you have the right person to email, you still need a solid, shareable idea to get a response. Here are two tools to help you brainstorm content ideas with backlink potential.
9. Ahrefs’ Content Explorer – Identifying Linkable Content Ideas
In addition to the prospecting capabilities, Ahrefs’ Content Explorer can help you identify content ideas that will likely get links.
Enter a topic or competitor site to see top-linked content over time. You can easily click on the backlink profile to determine whether the content drives valuable links.
Analyzing these successful pieces gives insights into content that resonates with audiences and will likely earn links. Then, you can replicate and expand on the content to pitch to target bloggers.
Pricing: $99/mo for Lite Version
10. Exploding Topics – Finding Trending Topics
Exploding Topics, co-founded by Brian Dean from Backlinko, helps with the blog ideation process by identifying emerging trends and topics that might not yet be mainstream.
This tool analyzes data across various platforms to spot these growing trends and allows you to ideate content around these trending topics.
You can search trends by topic or, with a paid plan, search for your keywords and topics.
Pricing: Free with limited features, $39/mo for Pro tier
Blog Content Creation Tools
Creating compelling blog content for outreach is as crucial as the outreach itself. Below are some of the best tools to ensure high-quality, engaging content supports your outreach efforts.
11. ChatGPT – Guest Post Outlining
For the most part, OpenAI’s ChatGPT powers most AI-driven copywriting tools, so it’s best to learn how to use it.
ChatGPT shouldn’t be used to replace writing altogether, but it can be a valuable tool for guest posting by assisting in writing initial drafts or outlines for guest posts. You can prompt ChatGPT with existing content to help build a brand voice for your guest blogs, ensuring they align with the target blog’s style. Or ask it to rewrite your content based on the new voice.
Furthermore, ChatGPT can assist in researching topics and generating ideas for blog posts. However, remember it doesn’t use keyword or backlink data to drive its ideas.
Pricing: Free version, ChatGPT Plus is $20/mo
12. Canva – Image Creation
Visual content is more shareable. And, if you are concerned about Google’s Generative Search taking over your content, create something that Generative Search cannot replicate: visual content.
Canva is a super simple yet powerful tool that helps create visually appealing content like infographics, diagrams, and other post images to take your content to the next level.
These visuals can enhance your blog posts, making them more engaging and shareable when pitched.
Pricing: Free version, $19.99/mo for Canva Pro
13. Pixlr – Photo Editing
Only some types of bloggers prefer images. Some bloggers and industries (like travel or beauty) prefer photography as their visual medium. That’s where Pixlr comes in.
Pixlr is an online photo editing platform that functions like a more accessible, free Photoshop. It operates directly in your web browser, so you don’t need to download any software.
Pixlr provides various editing tools, including filters, overlays, and text options, that you’d find in Photoshop but has a user-friendly interface, making it more accessible for amateur graphic designers out there.
Pricing: Free, with Premium upgrades
Email Discovery and Validation Tools
Once you have a list of prospects, finding accurate email addresses ensures the highest deliverability rates for your outreach campaigns.
14. Hunter – Finding Email Addresses
Hunter.io is a tool designed to help discover and verify contact information. If you are having trouble finding your blogger’s email address, it will search for emails associated with the domain and verify the validity of the contact info.
The piece I like the best is that it also presents you with the format of the email addresses on the site, so if Hunter cannot find the specific email, you can at least give an educated guess.
Tip: Hunter.io’s integration with BuzzStream further streamlines this workflow. By syncing your Hunter account with BuzzStream, you can use your credits towards revealing contacts within BuzzStream outreach campaigns.
Pricing: Free for 25 monthly searches, $34/mo starter tier
15. NeverBounce – Validating Email Addresses
An accurate, clean email list is the most effective way to ensure your blogger outreach gets seen.
NeverBounce is an email validation software that cleans and verifies your email list, significantly reducing the chances of email bounces. This focus on better emails protects your email sender’s reputation and prevents your emails from going right to spam.
Pricing: Varies based on number of emails. See pricing page for details
What Features Should I Look For in a Blogger Outreach Tool?
Blogger outreach tools should help with some or all of the following tasks: blogger discovery tools (based on keywords, niche, and metrics), email campaign management, template personalization, reporting and link tracking, and CRM functionalities. Buzzstream does all of the above.
In this post, we’ve also added content creation and ideation, as both are integral to the blogger outreach process, but you can use separate tools for those.
Can I Automate Outreach With Blogger Outreach Tools?
Using email scheduling, bulk sending, and follow-up sequences, you can automate outreach with blogger outreach tools like Buzzstream. But, personalized emails are still the best approach to successful blogger outreach.
Is Blogger Outreach Spam?
Blogger outreach itself is not spam when done correctly (and ethically). The correct way to reach out to bloggers is through personalized, relevant information that offers value to the recipient.
What Are the Best Practices for Blogger Outreach?
The best practices for blogger outreach are similar to those you would follow when receiving an email yourself. Here are the top three tips that we recommend for all outreach campaigns.
Personalize: Don’t waste time on generic pitches. Find out what bloggers write about and ensure your pitch is related to their industry. Be specific.
Offer Something of Value: Don’t just ask for something with nothing in return. Offer content, insights, or collaboration opportunities to benefit the blogger.
Keep it Short and Sweet: Don’t over-complicate your outreach email. Simply tell the prospect why you are reaching out and what you want.
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