If you’ve been in marketing for a while now, chances are you’ve heard of the term “link roundup”.
Bloggers and content creators have been using roundups as a way to…
- Build backlinks back to their website
- Build relationships with people from their industry
- Showcase their knowledge by curating the most valuable content that’s out there.
The truth is that, to hold a good expert roundup, you need to put in a lot of work.
At the same time, to get links from a link roundup, you need to have a process in place.
In this ultimate guide, I’m going to explain what link and expert roundups are, what the differences are, if they still work, and how you can use them as part of your link building strategy to grow your search traffic and connect with thought leaders in your space.
Let’s get into it.
Key Takeaways
- Link roundups are curated lists of valuable content that help you earn backlinks
- Expert roundup posts are better for building relationships and gaining social media visibility
- Link roundups still work as a link building tactic, even if they don’t drive much organic traffic
- You can find link roundup opportunities using search engines and simple operators
- Consistency and best practices matter when using roundups as part of your link building strategy
- A done-for-you link building service can handle prospecting, outreach, and follow-ups for you
Link building cheat sheet
What’s a Link Roundup?
Let’s start with the most obvious question.
What exactly is a link roundup?
Well, according to SEO agency Webris,
This means that roundups are lists of curated content from around the web on specific topics, e.g. SaaS marketing, over a specific time period.
You’ll find roundup posts published across all kinds of sites: from niche blogs to larger publications like Search Engine Land or even media outlets like CBS News covering trending topics.
Even well-known SEO experts like Matt Cutts have emphasized the importance of earning links naturally through valuable content.
For example, the screenshot below shows a quality link roundup post about SaaS, startups, and content marketing.
As you can see, the resources are split into two categories:
- SaaS and startups
- Content marketing and SEO
The roundup saved links that are listed in each category are the resources suggested by the author or publisher.
There is literally no limit to what topics you can find and do a roundup for.
These roundup posts often include related articles from across the web, making them a useful way to surface valuable content for readers.
From digital marketing to search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing, there are literally hundreds of topics that roundups can cover.
The most common type is a weekly link roundups, although you can also find monthly and yearly roundups.
These are all curations of great content in the form of a list, exactly like we saw earlier.
This is the first type of roundup.
The second type involves curating opinions from experts on a very specific topic and creating a content piece in the form of a list post.
According to HubSpot,
Here’s an example from RobbieRichards.com:
As you can see, this isn’t a link roundup, in the sense that it doesn’t contain links to great content that exists online.
This is what we call an expert roundup and it’s different to the one we saw earlier.
So far so good, but a question arises here:
Do link roundups and expert roundups still work in 2021?
This is what we’re going to cover next.
Do Link Roundups Still Work?
Purely from an interest and search perspective, we’d say that roundups are a blogging tactic that’s kind of outdated.
You can see that according to Google Trends, no one is searching for that term over the last five years.
This happens because no one is going to search for a roundup using just the term “roundup”.
The term has to be combined with something else to make sense.
Regardless, what you need to know as a content creator or website owner is that link roundups are often the easiest type of quality backlinks you can acquire.
The reason is simple:
People compiling those curated lists of content are always looking for fresh content using various search operators and advanced search filters on Google.
By reaching out and asking to be included in one, you’re making the creation process much easier for them.
The truth is that, if you want to leverage roundups as part of your strategy, you need to know – and probably use – both.
Why?
Well, because the first type, that’s link roundups, can be used for building links back to your website, while the second one can be used to build relationships with people in your industry.
In terms of link building, they’re a low-effort way to get your content featured and build links that support your backlink profile.
Remember:
Link roundups can work great for acquiring links but other than that, don’t expect to improve your website traffic or have customers land on your website.
The quality of the traffic you’ll acquire won’t be what you’re used to.
Thus, the main benefit you can expect here is to acquire inbound links.
While they don’t generate much referral traffic, they still contribute to your overall authority and visibility in search engine results.
So far so good, but what about expert roundups?
Well, that’s a completely different story.
Remember the expert roundup post that we saw earlier from RobbieRichards.com?
According to Ahrefs, this is a piece of content that has 177 backlinks from 53 referring domains.
As you can see, it doesn’t get any organic traffic, but that’s by design.
There are two goals when creating an expert roundup:
- Acquire backlinks
- Make connections with people in your industry
Besides backlinks, those pieces get, in most cases, many social shares as well.
Just think of all the people who are participating in a related post and sharing it on their LinkedIn profile or sharing a Tweet about it.
This is massive.
For example, take a look at how many social shares another expert roundup post by RobbieRichards.com has got:
Thus, we can understand that this type of content is both linkable and shareable.
As I hope it is evident by now, both link roundups and expert roundups can work under certain conditions.
The question is:
How can you use link and expert roundups to grow?
This is a twofold answer:
- You can use past roundups to acquire helpful links back to your website.
- You can make expert roundups to get links, shares, and connections with experts in your niche.
In the following section, I’m going to show you exactly how you can do that.
How to Use Link Roundups to Grow
As we noted before, link roundup opportunities can be quite effective, in some cases, in helping you acquire new links.
Of course, for this to happen, you need two things:
- Link opportunities – people you can reach out to
- To actually reach out to people and start building relationships
You can do that manually – or with ease using a SEO tool like Respona.
Let’s see how the manual process works first, and then switch to our tool.
Here are some operators you can use when it comes link roundups, according to Quick Sprout:
- “Keyword” + “link roundup”
- “Keyword” + “weekly roundup”
- “Keyword” + “weekly link”
- “Keyword” + inurl:roundup
- “Keyword” + intitle:roundup
- “Keyword” + best recent posts
- “Keyword” + best blogs of the week
For the sake of example, we’ll be using the second one, “Keyword” + “weekly roundup”.
From here, choose the roundups you’d like to get included on, and start looking for email addresses.
The problem with this approach is it takes forever.
Done-for-you Alternative for Expert Roundups
Expert roundups are even more time-intensive than link roundups.
You’re not just finding link roundup opportunities—you’re creating them from scratch.
That means:
- Finding relevant experts in your niche
- Reaching out and convincing them to participate
- Managing conversations and follow-ups
- Organizing responses into a cohesive piece of content
If you’re doing this manually, it can take weeks to put together a single expert roundup.
With our done-for-you link building option, we handle this entire process for you.
Just place an order and we’ll handle the rest.
We:
- Identify relevant experts
- Reach out on your behalf
- Manage communication and follow-ups
- Help secure contributions and links
So you can benefit from expert roundups without spending weeks coordinating everything.
Bonus: How to Organize an Expert Roundup
As I’ve discussed several times throughout this post, there is a major difference between link and expert roundups.
The way to identify link roundup opportunities is different from identifying opportunities for an expert roundup.
I’d say that reaching out to people in your industry to get them to participate in an expert roundup is way more difficult than reaching out to link roundup opportunities.
Let me give you an example.
The following expert roundup, published on Sumo, features 34 cold email subject lines by 34 different marketing professionals who’ve used them.
Can you imagine what it’s like reaching out to each of these folk — especially if you’re new to the industry — and asking them to participate in your roundup?
Assuming that you manage to reach out to them via email (using your Gmail account) or by reaching out on a social media platform, how will you keep track of the conversations, send follow-up emails, and do everything it takes to get a reply?
As you can imagine, you need a much more streamlined process and a software that will help you automate the process.
Some marketers use tools like Screaming Frog or their favorite SEO tool to assist with research, but even then, managing everything manually can be overwhelming.
First of all, you need to make a list of prospects you’d like to participate in your SEO expert roundup post.
For the sake of example, we’ll assume that you want to create a roundup blog post around SEO; thus, you’re looking for SEO experts who’ve already contributed to a roundup around SEO topics.
To find them, we’ll conduct a simple search using the following Google search operators:
Here’s what you’ll see next:
Some of those results seem promising because they contain a good number of experts that have contributed to the post.
For example, take a look at the following list of experts included in one of the top results for our search query:
This is a great list to start from.
The good thing about it is that it gives you everything you need to get started; their name and website.
What you need to do next is create a csv file with the following columns:
- First name
- Last name
- Referring URL (the URL of the roundup post you found the expert)
- Website URL (the URL of the expert’s website)
- LinkedIn profile (optional)
Here’s how your csv file will look like:
As you can imagine, when contacting someone for the very first time, it’s not easy to get a reply.
In fact, according to a recent study by Backlinko, most cold emails sent nowadays don’t get a reply.
This is why you need to add as much information and context as possible to your email; so that you have actual chances of getting a reply.
Author’s Note: In our example, we made a list of prospects using only the above search result. That list contains 50 SEO experts we can, potentially, reach out to. If you want to maximize your chances of getting replies for your expert roundup, make sure to add as many prospects as possible.
Link building cheat sheet
Now Over To You
So there you have it.
You now know what link roundups are and how to acquire quality links using them.
Most importantly, you’ve learned how to use those two types of roundup to grow.
One of the biggest takeaways of this post is that…
- Link roundup posts can be effective for acquiring links
- Expert roundup posts can be effective for acquiring links, social shares, guest post opportunities and connecting with experts within your niche.
Nothing can stop you from using both as part of your strategy.
Just follow the process I shared with you, and I’m sure you’ll have success using both tactics.
If you want to start earning backlinks from link roundups without spending hours on prospecting and outreach, we’ve got you covered.
Our done-for-you link building handles the entire process—from finding opportunities to securing placements and earning quality backlinks.
You just tell us what you want to promote, and we take care of the rest.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Do link roundups still work for SEO?
Yes, link roundups still work as a way to earn backlinks and quality backlinks. While they may not drive a lot of direct referral traffic, they help strengthen your backlink profile.
What’s the difference between link roundups and expert roundups?
Link roundups are curated lists of content from around the web, while expert roundups are collections of insights from multiple contributors. Link roundups are better for quick backlinks, while expert roundups are better for relationships and social reach.
How do you find link roundup opportunities?
You can find them using Google search operators like “keyword + link roundup” or “keyword + weekly roundup.” From there, you evaluate the site and reach out to suggest your content.
You can also monitor new roundup opportunities using tools like Google Alert or by tracking search results regularly.
Are link roundups worth the effort?
They can be, especially if you’re just starting out with link building. They’re relatively low-effort compared to other strategies and can help you build your first backlinks.
How long does it take to get results from link roundups?
It depends on your outreach volume and consistency. Some placements can happen quickly, while others may take weeks of follow-ups.
Can I outsource link roundup outreach?
Yes. Many businesses choose to outsource this because of how time-consuming it is. A done-for-you link building service can handle prospecting, outreach, and follow-ups for you.
What are link roundup opportunities?
Link roundup opportunities are blog posts or roundup posts where authors curate and share useful content from other websites. These are great opportunities to earn backlinks by pitching your content.
Are link roundups good for small businesses?
Yes, link roundups are especially useful for small businesses because they provide an accessible way to earn backlinks without needing large-scale link building campaigns.
