How to Get the Highest-Quality Backlinks Possible by Starting a Niche Podcast

Last week’s article was my exact workflow for making guest podcasts in 90 minutes: https://edwardsturm.com/articles/how-i-produce-guest-podcasts-in-90-minutes/

I share the software I use, my prompts, my settings, everything. And for those who don’t know, I have probably the top SEO podcast/YouTube, with 3-7 of the industry’s leading people on as a guest each week. So my workflow has had to get tight in order to have this level of output.

But it occurred to me that this skillset will be extremely efficient for link building.

For the last 6 years at least, podcasts have been a known lead generation hack:

1. Invite decision-maker on who you want to do business with/sell to.
2. Decision-maker says yes because they never get invited onto podcasts and can flex this on LinkedIn to look/feel important.
3. Have an actual good podcast. Ask good questions. Vibe. Don’t have it appear like you invited them on just to sell to them.
4. Create relationship with decision-maker.
5. Connect on social media.
6. Get top-of-mind awareness as they see you continuing to post.
7. Trust is built.
8. Sales are enabled.

It’s the same process for getting links from small niche bloggers, social coverage from micro-influencers, and eventually from more legit people with bigger audiences and more authoritative websites.

The main thing to realize: the very small niche bloggers and new micro-influencers likely have not had coverage yet. They undervalue their voices, aren’t making much or any money, and are eager for authentic validation that they are important.

How do I know this? I remember what it was like starting out, when my audience was very small. A few months in, not sure if what I was doing was working, saying yes to anything, any recognition was good recognition.

So what you do:

1. Map blogs in your niche. Organize them by Domain Authority or Domain Rating.
   1. Work your way up. Before pitching the high-authority people, start with the low-authority ones. The highest-authority people care a lot more about seeing you’re legit – so when you pitch them you want to already have done many episodes with people in the niche.
2. Do the same thing with micro-influencers on Instagram and TikTok.
3. Do the same for adjacent businesses that could link to you as a “partner.”
4. Do the same for journalists in your niche.
5. Especially look for people who have reported on competitors – you can see your competitors’ existing backlinks in any SEO tool.
   1. If they reported on a competitor, they will report on you too (if you create a friendly relationship with them).
6. Starting with the smallest, least authoritative people, reach out to them to come on your podcast. As they’re not big yet, their DMs and contact forms will be open.
7. Bonus: send them a few thoughtful questions you want to ask – especially questions that show you’ve looked at their stuff.
   1. I got one of Lex Fridman’s biggest guests on my show, a Roman historian, by emailing him the most interesting questions I could come up with that were related to my niche – questions about how the Romans did marketing. When he came on, he told me that after the Lex Fridman podcast got 7+ million views, he’s since gotten 5+ podcast requests EACH DAY. Mine was one of the few he accepted because the questions I proposed in my pitch email were intriguing.
8. The idea is the acceptance rate will be abnormally high because again, these people will be eager for validation.
9. You can also use PodMatch to register your show and have guests pitch you. But you want to prioritize people with active blogs/sites/growing social media accounts/connections.
10. Do two podcasts per week. Ask good questions. Vibe. Don’t have it appear like you invited them on just to try to get something from them.
11. Connect on social media.
12. Get top-of-mind awareness as they see you continuing to post.
13. Trust is built.
14. Optional: After a couple podcasts, put out a cheap press release about the amazing guests you’ve had on (maximum 3 guests per press release). This press release will rank, but the main purpose will be to talk your guests up. Use terms like “Leading experts.” Then message them on social media saying something like, “Thank you again, I just put out a press release on having you on the show: LINK.”
15. Then, after a month, ask if they’d like to write a post/do an Instagram Reel/write an article on your company.
    1. The truth is, they might even do this for you without asking. These people are content creators. Writing from first-hand experience, content creators always need stuff to share. If they like you and you explain why what you’re doing is cool, they might share you right after the podcast without you asking.
    2. If they’re on the fence, you can also offer to make another podcast/video on what they’re doing (like on their niche blog or their articles). You give them a video, they give you a written backlink!
16. The more you do this, the more you level up. You can now invite on bigger bloggers and journalists from top publications.
17. Stay in touch with these people after. Through this, you are acquiring a Rolodex of top influencers in your industry. Your connections will become better than any PR person.
    1. Like these influencers’ posts. If they wrote something interesting, invite them back on to talk about it.
    2. I had the CMO of Originality AI on my podcast. She told me she stopped working with PR people for press connections because her own connections were better, more authentic, and she did a better job than relying on external people. She literally said her attempt at outsourcing digital PR was her biggest failure because proper digital PR is so relationship-heavy.

These backlinks will be some of the most natural, niche, quality links you can get – and while you do this, you also build out your brand through podcast episodes that rank (because podcasts rank well).

Then you get industry allies and connections that can help you in many other ways beyond backlinks.

Public-facing people don’t want to say yes to a pitch call (and most ignore backlink-request emails).

Public-facing people do, on the other hand, want to go on a podcast.