Respona Review: The Unfair Advantage Your Competitors Don’t Want You to Know!

It’s no secret that quality backlinks are the lifeblood of your website’s reputation on search engines. They’re like the unsung heroes, working tirelessly behind the scenes to bolster your online presence.

In fact, according to a 2021 study by Backlinko, there’s a robust correlation between total backlink count and Google rankings. Impressive, right?

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Let’s consider an example. Imagine your website is a hip new coffee shop in town. You’ve got a comfy environment, a delightful coffee selection, and the yummiest pastries. However, how would people know how awesome your shop is if no one talks about it?

That’s where backlinks come in. Think of them as word-of-mouth recommendations in the digital realm. When a reputable site links back to your coffee shop’s site, it’s akin to a customer telling their friends about your fantastic latte art. Suddenly, your coffee shop becomes the talk of the town!

What is link building exactly?

In the simplest terms, link building is the process of gaining hyperlinks from other websites to your own. It’s like laying a trail of digital breadcrumbs leading right to your content. This process helps search engines crawl the web, understand the context of your content, and ultimately improve your search engine rankings.

Now, here’s where it gets tricky – managing and automating this process efficiently. This is where our superhero – Respona – enters the scene. Picture a tool that blends the power of PR software, an outreach platform, and a link-building aide into one smart solution.

Respona leverages a powerful search engine with personalized outreach capabilities and an automatic email sequencer, making your link-building endeavors smoother than a well-brewed espresso.

In the dynamic terrain of link-building, Respona emerges as a powerful and transformative tool. Choosing to utilize Respona’s multitude of features is an excellent strategic decision. Let’s dive deeper and understand how to kick-start your Respona journey with a step-by-step account setup and navigation process.

Setting Up and Navigating Through Respona

Your first step into the world of Respona begins with a simple yet significant process: creating your account.

• Step 1: Visit the Respona website. The easy-to-navigate interface welcomes you, designed with the intent to make your sign-up process a breeze.
• Step 2: Locate the ‘Sign Up’ button. You’ll find this command placed prominently on the homepage. Click it to open the gateway to a new chapter in your link-building journey.
• Step 3: The registration page opens up, asking for an active email address. Fill in this information carefully, as this will be your primary credential for Respona.
• Step 4: You’ll be prompted to provide some basic personal information. Enter this data as accurately as possible, thereby establishing your unique identity in the Respona community.
• Step 5: Once you’ve successfully entered all the necessary details, click on the ‘Submit’ or ‘Create Account’ button. Voila! Your Respona account is all set up, paving the way for effective and strategic link-building.

With the sign-up process complete, you are now part of a community that values efficiency, creativity, and smart solutions for link-building.

Exploring Respona and its key features

Logging into your account transports you to the central hub of Respona: the Home Page. With a design that’s focused on a user-friendly experience, the Home Page gives you easy access to a range of tools and features via a toolbar located on the left-hand side of your screen. Each of the following options serves a unique purpose:

• Dashboard: Consider this your control room. The Dashboard presents a visual summary of your link-building activities. Here, you’ll find key statistics, notifications, recent activity, and an overview of your campaign’s performance.
• Campaigns: This section is your launch pad for link-building campaigns. You can create, manage, and monitor various campaigns. It also allows you to see at a glance the status of each campaign and delve into more detailed analytics.
• Relationships: In the world of link-building, relationships are key. This tool helps you manage your contacts, keeping track of your interactions with them. It’s essentially your digital Rolodex, keeping you updated on the status of your relationships.
• Insights: The Insights tool serves as your analyst, providing a deep dive into your campaigns. It offers valuable data to measure the effectiveness of your efforts, making your link-building strategy data-driven and, thereby, more potent.
• Inbox: This is your communication center. The Inbox collects all the responses to your campaigns. It allows you to read, reply to, and manage emails related to your link-building activities.
• Press Inquiries: The Press Inquires tool is designed to help you handle media inquiries effectively. It lets you collate, respond to, and track press-related communications.
• Toolbox: The Toolbox is your all-in-one resource center. It offers a collection of additional tools that can be used to supplement your main link-building activities, such as keyword research, SEO suggestions, and more.

How to use Respona for link building?

I like the simple, sleek, and clutter-free dashboards in any tool. That’s where Respona is an absolute 10/10!

Once you click on the dashboard button, you are greeted with a clutter-free, simplistic and eye-pleasing page.

As you can see in the image below, you’ll see the “Getting Started” option. From here, you can:

1. Schedule an Onboarding Session
2. Connect your email
3. Launch your first campaign
4. Invite your team

And in case you need some assistance for better understanding the tool (which I think you won’t need after reading this review!), you can watch Respona’s Tutorial video, Connect with the Support team or get a new campaign idea right from that same place.

How to start a new campaign?

Step 1: Initiating a New Campaign

Located on the top left of your Dashboard is the ‘Start New Campaign’ button. Clicking on this propels you onto a new page where the true magic of Respona shines through – the campaign templates.

The beauty of Respona lies in its wide array of campaign templates designed to kick-start your journey. Feel free to explore the templates all at once or filter them based on your specific needs, such as:

• Content Promotion
• Partner Recruitment
• Digital PR
• Link Building

While all the templates offer unique advantages, my personal favorite is the ‘Advanced Campaign.’ It’s perfect for those who appreciate granular control and customization. Click on ‘Start Advanced Campaign’ to launch this template.

Step 2: Discovering Opportunities

This stage encapsulates the essence of our mission – unearthing Opportunities! As you initiate this process, it’s a good idea to name your campaign. This keeps your campaigns organized and distinct, particularly useful when managing multiple campaigns simultaneously.

Next, select the automation type. This is where you choose your source for potential outreach contacts. Options include Google, Ahref, Podcast research, or even the ability to import a CSV file (if you already have a contact list ready). I lean towards Google for its expansive reach and consistently promising results. However, feel free to experiment and discover which option suits your needs best.

Step 3: Fine-tuning Your Search with Keywords and Filters

This stage is where the power of precision comes into play. Here, you need to input the primary keyword that your blog or campaign is centered around. The process of keyword selection is pivotal as it lays the foundation for your search queries.

What makes Respona shine is its ability to accommodate advanced search parameters. While running your keyword search queries, you can add multiple filters to hone in on the most relevant results. These parameters allow you to control various criteria, such as:

• The number of search results you wish to explore
• The geographical location you’re targeting
• The language of the content you’re looking for
• The relevance of the results to your campaign or content

This level of granularity ensures that your campaign is not just a shot in the dark but a focused attempt at link-building.

Once you’ve carefully set these filters, proceed by clicking the ‘Continue’ button positioned at the bottom right corner of the screen. I always ensure that I target specific locations and the relevance of my content. This ensures that I get tailored and clutter-free results.

The next step is crucial: selecting the right metrics. Respona allows you to pull data from several SEO tools like MOZ, Semrush, and Ahrefs. To keep things uncomplicated for our guide, we’ll choose Google. It offers comprehensive and reliable data, forming a solid backbone for your campaign.

With your metrics selected and filters in place, it’s time to start the real action. Click on the “Run Automation” button to set your campaign into motion.

Step 4: Find Contacts

Once the process is complete, Respona will present you with the list of opportunities for Link Building in the form of particular blog links. Even better, it throws in information about the Domain Authority of each link. This can help you determine to link with which blog can offer better results.

Now, click on the “Next Step” button, and you will land on the page shown below. Here you can pick how you want to find contacts only from the Blog links, News article links, or Domains.

• Blogs: Bloggers often have a dedicated and engaged audience. Building relationships with bloggers can lead to valuable organic mentions of your content, which could drive considerable referral traffic and boost your SEO.
• News Articles: News websites often have high domain authority, making them ideal targets for link building. Being featured on a reputable news site not only generates traffic but also lends credibility to your brand.
• Domains: This refers to the entirety of a website, including blogs, news sections, and any other subpages. Targeting specific domains is beneficial when you’re interested in an entire brand or when you believe multiple sections of a website are relevant to your campaign.

So, it’s not merely about finding contacts; it’s about pinpointing the most advantageous sources based on your campaign objectives.

For simplicity, let’s pick the “Blog.” You can add multiple filters based on Job Titles and Seniority too.

This ensures your words don’t fall on deaf ears. In simpler terms, you get to connect with the people who matter! Once done, click on the ‘Next Step” on the top right to enter the next step.

Note: There are some advanced settings on this page too. But I would recommend leaving them as it is, for now. Once you are well-acquainted with the tool, you can tweak those settings.

Step 5: Crafting a Powerful Outreach Sequence

With your keywords selected and automation running, the next crucial step is to design your outreach sequence. A well-thought-out sequence ensures that your campaign communicates effectively with your prospects. Here’s how to go about it:

Initial Contact: Begin by creating the first email of your sequence. This is your initial contact with your prospects, and hence, it’s crucial to make it engaging and personalized. Make sure your subject line is compelling, and the content of the email is concise, clear, and provides value to the recipient.

Follow-Up Emails: Don’t stop at the first email. Plan for follow-up emails that are spaced out appropriately. Remember, consistency and persistence are key in link-building. Craft each follow-up message to be cordial and professional yet persistent, always reminding the recipient of the initial email.

Tweaking Variables: Use Respona’s personalization variables feature to add a personal touch to your emails. This can include the recipient’s name, their business, or any other relevant information. Personalized emails help build rapport and show that you’ve done your homework about the recipient.

Testing: Before you finalize your sequence, ensure you review and test it thoroughly. Make use of Respona’s preview feature to see how your emails look from a recipient’s perspective. Make necessary tweaks to ensure the sequence is just right.

Once you’ve set up your sequence, hit the ‘Save’ button to lock in your work.

Step 6: Personalize and Launch

WE ARE IN THE ENDGAME NOW! Yup, that’s right! You have done everything right and are about to launch your first campaign. But before you do so, make sure you personalize minor details in the email.

Click on the “Verify and Launch” button in the top right corner. Here you can adjust on which day you want your emails to be shot, alter the schedule, set campaign priority, or modify your sending strategy. Verify the opportunities and hit enter.

It’s done! All you have to do now is wait and let the Respona do its magic.

What do I love about Respona?

Respona is designed with numerous versatile and innovative features, making it your reliable partner in reaching your link-building, PR, and content marketing goals. Let’s take a peek into some of Respona’s dynamic functionalities:

Tailored Outreach Campaign Templates

Respona understands that outreach campaigns should be as diverse as your targets. Hence, it provides tailored templates for different scenarios, whether you are reaching out to journalists, bloggers or even tapping into unlinked mentions of your business. These templates simplify the process of initiating new collaborations and converting brand mentions into backlinks.

Google News Integration and UX Improvements

Respona keeps you on top of the news cycle with its Google News integration. You can now find news articles for your journalist outreach campaigns easily. Moreover, the user interface of the campaign editor has been streamlined to represent a more natural campaign order, enhancing the user experience.

Multiple Sender Emails

With Respona, you can assign several sender emails to a campaign. This option helps distribute the campaign across all involved emails, broadening your outreach and potential impact.

Enhanced Personalization Sidebar

At the personalization step, Respona offers an enhanced sidebar providing in-depth information about each contact in your campaign. This information helps tailor your approach to maximize engagement.

Improved Email Finder Automation

The email finder has been optimized using AI for author name detection and support for catch-all domains. This major update improves performance, allowing for quicker and more accurate email finds.

Powerful Ahrefs and Semrush Integrations

Responsa’s integrations with Ahrefs and Semrush offer to make backlink searches more precise. Plus, even without a subscription to Ahrefs or Semrush, you can still pull Moz metrics and backlinks data using Respona credits.

Expanded Campaign Filters

The ability to filter campaigns is phenomenal. Now you can filter by owner, status, or campaign name and even combine multiple filters to find specific campaigns.

Integrated Podcast Search and Contact Finding

It’s easy to find podcasts and their contact details with Respona. The podcast search automation itself pulls both these details in one step, eliminating the need for additional automation.

Rewarding Referral Program

Respona values your trust and aims to reward you for spreading the word. As a user, you earn 5000 bonus credits for each referral who signs up for Respona and becomes a paying customer. The referral program also offers extra bonuses for leaving a review on platforms like G2 and Capterra.

Respona Pricing

Respona offers two distinct pricing tiers to suit the varying needs of businesses, both of which come with a 14-day free trial and a no-hassle cancellation policy.

Starter Plan ($99/month billed monthly)

This Plan is designed for in-house teams and SMBs. It offers one email account for $49 per additional, 5000 credits per month at $0.01 per additional credit.

The Starter Plan includes all features, such as email outreach, automation, relationship management, and integrations with several platforms, including Ahrefs, Semrush, Hunter.io, Snov.io, Rocketreach, Microsoft, and Gmail. Custom API and Zapier integration are upcoming features. The support includes custom onboarding sessions and priority support.

Unlimited Plan ($399/month billed annually)

Targeted toward agencies and large teams, this Plan provides unlimited email accounts and 600,000 credits per year at a cheaper rate of $0.008 per additional credit.

Like the Starter Plan, the Unlimited Plan also includes all the features and offers the same level of support.

In terms of basics, both plans offer unlimited workspaces, campaigns, prospecting searches, and team members, with scalable options for active contacts.

Respona is celebrated by its customers for providing the best support, best results, and easiest use, along with being a momentum leader and delivering the best-estimated ROI.

Respona Pros and Cons

Now that we have explored this amazing tool in detail, I believe it’s time to explore its Pros and Cons. Look, no tool is perfect. The same goes for Respona. It, too, has some advantages and limitations alike. Let’s take a look at a few:

Pros of Respons:

• Comprehensive Outreach Solution: Respona merges various outreach tools, excelling in link building, PR, and content marketing.
• Innovative Features: Includes tailored outreach campaign templates, a rewarding referral program, and Google News integration.
• Frequent Updates: Respona regularly rolls out new features and improvements, reflecting its commitment to innovation.
• Advanced Integrations: Integrates with industry-leading tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Google News, enhancing its functionality.
• Email Finding Automation: Uses AI to detect author names and supports catch-all domains, improving email-finding efficiency.
• Outreach Templates: Respona provides a library of outreach templates, making campaign creation a breeze.

Cons of Respona:

• Learning Curve: Given its numerous features, Responsa might present a slight learning curve for new users.
• Credit-Based System: The dependency on credits for some functionalities may limit usage for some users.

Wrapping Up

Respona is an excellent tool for your link-building process. No matter what niche you are working in, Respona can deliver excellent results for you.

Remember, connecting with like-minded individuals and building networks is critical for growing your blog. While you can do that manually, that won’t be much time-efficient! So it’s better to let tools like Respona takes the reign and do all the heavy lifting. You focus on crafting excellent content pieces that your users will love.

I hope this detailed and hands-on guide on Respona will help you in this quest. In case you need more assistance, feel free to reach out.

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