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In this guide, I’ll show you how to create an expert roundup. This expert roundup guide is written step by step so you can easily follow and replicate it. I created three successful expert roundups getting 15000 highly targeted visitors, around 1500 new Twitter followers, 2000 social media shares, 90 email subscribers, and 42 new backlinks.

You can easily replicate it whatever your niche is: finance, blogging, internet marketing, dating, you name it. That’s the beauty of expert roundups: They can be created in almost any niche and bring great results.

Here are the expert roundups I created:

Check the 50 SEO Experts roundup. First, the numbers: We got 3519 highly targeted visitors, around 300 new Twitter followers, 500 social media shares, 20 email subscribers, and 14 new backlinks. These results are for the first 30 days after we published the expert roundup.

I think it is pretty good, considering that this was my ever roundup, and I’ve made some mistakes. You will see them mentioned so that you can avoid them. Also, I got an invitation to participate in another expert roundup created by Hussain Omar.

As you see, this roundup helped me to develop some great connections with awesome bloggers and influencers in the SEO niche.

In general, these people are very busy and otherwise will be, let’s say, at least challenging to interact with.

#1. What is an expert roundup?

An expert roundup post is a type of blog post that features contributions by multiple experts in your niche. Typically, as the host blogger, you will provide an interesting topic for discussion or a question and then reach various experts to share their opinion.

Each participant should be someone with some authority that has something to contribute to your audience.

The most effective roundups pose a particular question that the experts can efficiently respond to. It should be a question that people would like to find the answer to and contain some actionable advice that will help them.

As you can see, a roundup can be about any topic so that you can do it in any niche you are active in travel, dating, fitness, diets, finance, you name it. In each niche, there are bloggers and experts that people would love to hear their opinions.

Check the 5min video I found on youtube about expert roundups that briefly explain how to create an expert roundup.

So now that you have a pretty good idea of what expert roundups are, let’s see what your benefits to hosting one are:

#2. Expert Roundup Benefits

Before speaking about benefits, I’d like to warn you there is some work involved. You should prepare for at least 40 hours of work to plan, create, and promote a successful expert roundup. That is what it took me for the first one, but I found out I can automate using tools, so I think it’s safe to say you can end up with 25-35 hours of work for a roundup.

The good news is that there isn’t any deadline so you can split the working hours between your other essential tasks. Other than the time, you may spend some money if you decide to give a little boost to the roundup and do paid Facebook advertising or even send a press release with the conclusions to get more traffic.

Here are the benefits for the blogger that organize the expert roundup:

#2.1 Establish yourself within the blogging community in your niche

This is an excellent strategy to establish yourself quickly or your company within the blogging community for your niche. Especially if you are quite new and not many know you.

And since you will be linking, sharing, and promoting your contributors’ responses, many of them will be willing to help you down the line.

#2.2 Will give you heavy targeted traffic

Most of the experts that participate will send traffic directly to your post by sharing it with their social circles. And because a roundup is a compilation of smart insights from knowledgeable figures, it’s the type of content people actively want to share.

#2.3 Will earn you some good backlinks

As I’d like to say, when we talk about SEO, backlinks are the currency. Everyone that wants to optimize a website needs backlinks.

Experts roundups are a pretty effective way to get yourself some backlinks in two ways: First, many experts have a page on their blogs with all their contributions, interviews, etc.

Secondly, the roundup conclusions are research that bloggers and journalists can use in their materials. For instance, several bloggers quoted my roundup that wrote articles on what we should focus on SEO in 2017.

#2.4 You will get email subscribers

In my opinion, email subscribers are more important than social shares, followers, and even most of the backlinks you will get.

I explained in this article why. You should create a 1-3 pages booklet with the conclusions of the roundup. Offer it to your visitors in exchange for their email addresses.

#2.5 Establish relationships with blogging influencers in your niche.

The biggest advantage roundups provide you with is RELATIONSHIPS, not just the social media shares and backlinks generated as a result. That leads to more successful blog posts in the future and guest blogging gigs with some of the best blogs available in your niche.

A relationship can bring you hundreds and thousands of leads and clients down the road versus a link or Tweet that can generate a sale or two.

3. How to prepare your expert round?

Before creating the roundup, several things need to be done. All of them will influence the response rate, making it a success or a failure, so make sure you have them all right:

#3.1 Do your research

Before launching an expert roundup, I encourage you to check previous roundups created in your niche. This will help you develop a different topic/question that was not asked before (especially if you are in a small niche with many influential people). Also, it will help you to make a list of people that already participated.

Google your niche + experts, your niche + experts roundup, your niche + specialists, your niche + roundup to find previous roundups.

#3.2 Prepare your website/blog

The blog/website where you host the roundup is essential, and there are several things you need to take care of:

Ensure your hosting package will support traffic spikes, so you will not have your account blocked, or your website slowed down.

Check your website for broken pages or images and list your contact link or email address and social profiles in visible spots. The about us and contact pages should be updated and working.

If you haven’t written anything new for an extended period, make sure you update your content. Not many will contribute to a website that is not up to date nor has visitors.

#3.3 Tweak your social profiles

Most of the experts are active on social media. Depending on the niche you’re in, they may be using Linkedin, Pinterest, Facebook, or Twitter. Most experts are using Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, and Instagram (in this order) if you are in digital marketing.

Check your social media profiles and make sure there are up to date, clean, and share quality information, not pictures from the latest party, when you got drank. Most of the people you will contact do not know you, and the first (digital) impression is crucial.

#3.4 Your email address should look like a pro

Add your blog, social media accounts, and website to your email signature.

Also, you may add your last blog post as well. Most of the people you contact will like to find out more about the roundup guest as they don’t want to have their names listed in shady places. Check this tutorial for more tips on setting up your email signature.

4. How to create an expert roundup

So you still want to create an expert roundup and enjoy the benefits I’ve listed above. Good then..let’s go. I will show you how I did it step by step to create my roundup so you can replicate the strategy in your niche.

4.1 Choose a good topic

The first thing you need to figure out is what topic and question to focus on for your roundup. Questions that focus on solutions to specific problems, software tools to solve a problem, or tips and tactics are great directions to go when creating a roundup.

Whatever topic you choose, you want to make it as easy as possible for your experts to answer the question. Make your question specific and limit the scope so that busy experts can provide shorter answers.

If you don’t have any idea yet, check previous roundups created in your niche, as I’ve shown you already, and tweak them slightly.

4.2 Create a list of experts

Create an Excel/ Google drive document with the following fields (Name, Website, Email, Phone, Social Media Account #1, Social Media Account #2, 1st contact attempt, 2nd contact attempt, Answer, Contribution) and introduce each person you are willing to participate. You will use this list many times, so make sure you keep it up to date.

The experts you will contact will most likely reply and will like to participate in your roundup if they know you or your website have a lot of traffic and authority. If you’re new, prepare yourself for a lot of rejection or silence from their end.

And let’s face it, these guys are pretty busy managing big companies, attending conferences around the world, or drinking cocktails at the pool. Answering experts roundup requests from all kind of newbies are not like their first thing in the morning.

I was surprised to see two or three successful influencers that answered pretty quickly to my request, willing to help me, which I highly appreciated, but this is not a general rule.

4.3 Find experts willing to participate in your roundup

Here are several methods we tested and worked for us to find experts willing to participate in an expert roundup:

4.3.1 Check your contacts list

Check your email inbox /contacts list / Skype and business cards for influencers you already know. If they know you or a familiar friend, you can introduce him to make sure you ask him to do it. Politely ask them to participate in your roundup.

This step is critical.

As I’ve said, you will see way better response rates as people you already know are more willing to work with you.

4.3.2 Scan social media accounts for prospects.

 I’ve used mostly Twitter and Linkedin to get in touch with my prospects as these social networks are primarily used in the SEO niche. In 3rd place is Facebook and Instagram comes on 4rd. Use the search functions to find out influencers in your niche.

4.3.3 Look for experts that participated in previous roundups

Experts that already contributed at earlier roundups are more willing to participate as they know the benefits of this type of post. They are also already seen as the authority in your niche, and your readers will like to see familiar names.

Use Google to find previous roundups and contact the participants.  Use keywords like: “[your niche] expert roundup”, “[your niche] roundup”, “[your niche] bloggers” etc.

Most roundups list the website and social media profits of the contributors, so there is a no-brainer to contact them. If you don’t have those contacts, you may have to search their names in Google and popular social networks to find their accounts.

Add all the experts that you’d like to have featured in your roundup in the sheet, along with their social media profiles and websites.

4.3.5 Search on Google for blogs and magazines in your niche

If the experts have a blog and social accounts, you should get yourself introduced by commenting on their posts before contacting them and asking them a favor to participate. Nothing too much or too intrusive. All you need to do is to make your name and your face familiar to them.

When they will get the email with the request from you and ask themselves, “Who this guy or this gal is” an honest answer should come to their minds: “Is the guy that commented on my blog, or the guy that asked me that question on the conference.”

You can search for experts in your niche using Google manually or using tools like BuzzSumo, ScrapeBox, NinjaOutReach, PitchBox, Outreach. Buzz or LinkAssistant [Check our review here] from SEO Power Suite.

I haven’t used any tools for my first roundup, but I will use them when creating the second as it speeds up the process.

Create a list of keywords for your niche and add a blog, blogger, influencer, expert at the end of every word, and run Google searches. You should contact the people from the first three pages. You may also look for bloggers lists already created by others and contact the people from that list.

Add all the experts that you’d like to have featured in your roundup in the sheet, along with their social media profiles and websites.

4.4 Fine-tune your list of experts

If you followed all the steps above, now you should have a pretty big list of experts. Please note that I’ve emptied the email column before taking the screenshot to protect the contributors’ privacy. Make sure you have for each prospect at least two contact methods (Email, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Phone number, etc.).

You can use a tool called URLProfiler, which comes with 14 days of a free trial, which is enough for what you need.

With URLProfiler, you will get most of the websites’ details – social media accounts, contact page, email address, phone number, etc. It is an excellent tool if you do outreach, and I recommend it.

If you have issues finding contact email addresses of websites, try Hunter.io. It’s pretty good at finding working email addresses. The free plan allows you to make 150 requests per month, which should be enough for your roundup.

4.5 How to contact the experts for the roundup

As I’ve said previously, you might use outreach tools like BuzzSumo, NinjaOutReach, or LinkAssistant, but I wouldn’t recommend using tools, especially if this is your first roundup. Instead, try to get personal and address each contributor one by one.

Here is a special offer for Monetize.info readers:

You can try NinjaOutreach for two weeks without entering your credit card details. Simply fill the form, and you will be able to use all features of Ninja Outreach. 2 weeks are more than enough for you to find out if this tool works for you and your niche or not.

If you can’t find a particular expert’s email address, you can try sending your question directly on Twitter. I did this successfully in my first roundup to collect answers from four people that I otherwise would not have been able to reach.

4.5.1 Contact the experts on Twitter

On Twitter, you contact the users by mentioning their username in a message, asking them politely if they want to participate. This way, you attract their attention as they get a message when someone mentions them. When you get their accept you send them the details of the roundup. For my roundup, I’ve used the following message:

@Username Hello. Would you like to participate in an SEO expert roundup regarding 2020 SEO trends? Thank you

You should also follow them, and if they follow you back, you can send them a direct message. However, the mention short message I didn’t being more effective as direct messages are used for self-promotion and spam mostly so not many Twitter users check them.

4.5.2 Email outreach templates

Here is the template you can use to outreach. When you got confirmation of some of the big names in your niches, you may mention those to make it more attractive to contributors:

4.5.3 Outreaching Tips:

4.6 Create the expert roundup post on your site

When you receive an answer, add it in a document with the answer and the bio, picture, and social profiles of the contributor. You may also create a post on your blog and add the answer directly one by one as long as you receive it.

Don’t forget to update your spreadsheet of participants so you will have a clear picture of who did send the contributions and who didn’t. Also, send immediately a thank you email to the contributor. Add that you will let them know when the roundup is live.

The length of your roundup article depends on how many people you’ve invited to participate, and of course, how many people respond as well.

Tip:

You may create a PDF file with conclusions that your visitors can download in exchange for subscribing to your list or for sharing the roundup.

Once the deadline is reached, and you’ve finished putting together your roundup post, and once you’ve edited and proofread it a hundred times over, you’re then ready to hit that publish button.

5. Promote the expert roundup

Ok, so now you have published your first expert roundup. Well, that’s great, but your work is not finished. Not even close. You have to promote it and attract visitors. Not only will you be promoting the post, but potentially everyone who has contributed your roundup post will also want to promote it.

5.1 Inform the experts the roundup is live

Once the post is live, you will want to let the experts know that it’s ready for full-on promotion. But you don’t want just to send them a link to the post and let them figure out what to do from there.

Start by creating a ClicktoTweet link to allow the expert to share the post immediately with a custom message.

5.2 Promote the roundup on social media

Share the post on all your social media accounts and tag the contributors.

On Facebook, you can tag them all in one place. On Twitter, you are limited to 160 chars, so you will need several posts to include them all. You may include 3-5 per each post daily, and in several days you will tag them all.

You may also purchase Facebook advertising. If you target well the audience with less than 10 dollars, I doubled my reach (1,037 organic and 1,076 paid reach)

5.3 Inform your readers about the expert roundup.

Before posting the roundup, you may send an email to your list letting them know to check your website on the date of publishing. Tell them to prepare their questions for the experts to visit the roundup post and answer the questions.

Remind your readers about the big launch a couple of days before you post. Then send them the big announcement email on launch day. Sending multiple emails raises awareness and adds a sense of importance to your roundup post.

5.4 Announce other people from your niche

You have created a  nice piece of knowledge, so you may outreach people from your niche to check it and add their inputs. Use the same techniques to find influencers and tell them to check the roundup. Invite other bloggers and helpfully

5.5 Let the press know about the roundup

Don’t forget to email journalists about the roundup, as this kind of article gets easily noticed in the media. You can get one step further and send them the pdf with conclusions to easily create the press article. Also, you may send a press release with the conclusions of the roundup.

6. What are the experts saying?

I’ve asked several participants to round up their opinion on the roundup and what tips they have for expert roundup creators.

7. Takeaways

When done correctly, expert roundup posts can help you, and your blog stands out. Above all else, they can provide a ton of value to your readers and blog followers.

Now will have a fantastic piece of content that you, the experts, and your audience will love – and will love to share.

Yes, they do take time to put together, but they’re so worth your time, folks. You will also have made new, influential connections in your niche.

When you’re starting, writing great content isn’t enough to get noticed. Use expert roundups to make yourself seen and establish excellent relations with folks in your niche. Now that you introduced yourself to the experts, you may create interviews and keep them connected.

Download now all the resources used here and this post in a nice formatted PDF by filling out the form below:

CONCLUSIONS

I hope you enjoyed reading our expert roundup creation guide.

It’s your time now: Create one for your website and let me know in the comments form below how it worked for you.

Also, if you have questions, I will gladly reply.