Alexandra Tachalova Interview On Building Links Through Outreach Process

“Your current circles are your first list of prospects.” 🔗

On my Inside A Hustler’s Brain show at DMSS Bali 2019, I talked with Alexandra Tachalova of Digital Olympus about email outreach and link building. 🎙️

📊 In this episode, we unpacked:

• 🌱 Her start at SEMrush
• 🤝 Start with your current circles
• ✍️ Why she skips guest posting
• 🔗 Dofollow, nofollow and redirects
• 🛠️ Tools and focus

🎥 Watch the full episode:

🌱 Her Start at SEMrush

Alexandra first heard about SEO when she joined the SEMrush team about eight or nine years earlier and fell in love with it. 🌱

She now specializes in B2B link building. Her top tip: start building links to your content pages as early as possible. For a link-building expert’s view, read Charles Floate’s interview. 🔗

🤝 Start With Your Current Circles

Your partners, clients, subscribers and social followers are your first prospects. They already know you, so you don’t need to break the ice. Just ask for what you want. 🤝

Always give something back: a social share, a feature in your next newsletter or a spot on your site. These are the low-hanging fruit links.

✍️ Why She Skips Guest Posting

Her team builds links organically but doesn’t do guest posting for clients. It’s too expensive: one link per piece, and good sites need a decent article. ✍️

Instead, she connects with people who already write guest posts on those sites. They’re easy to approach, but most want a link back, so be creative. Avoid direct link exchanges at all costs. Instead, offer guest posts that link to partners, or connect partners with each other. For more on content-led SEO, read Kyle Roof’s SEO strategies. 🔗

🔗 Dofollow, Nofollow and Redirects

A healthy brand earns nofollow links naturally, so there’s no point paying for them. Clients pay for dofollow links only. 🔗

A nofollow means the site doesn’t vouch for the target. Many big publications, like Forbes, make contributor links nofollow or route them through redirects when editors don’t know the sources, so no link juice passes. She’s cautious about expired domains: to redirect one properly, you need similar content on your own site, which is tricky.

🛠️ Tools and Focus

Her keyword and competitor tool is SEMrush. Ahrefs is great for backlink analysis. She tracks secured links with Pitchbox. 🛠️

She doesn’t chase Google updates. Instead, focus on your own business: high-quality content with lower bounce rates, steady links from quality sites and regular site audits to catch mistakes like pages blocked in robots.txt. Digital Olympus also streams its event online for free. For an SEO tool founder’s view, read the Surfer SEO founder interview. 🔗

📝 Key Takeaways From the Alexandra Tachalova Interview

• 🌱 Build links to content pages early
• 🤝 Start outreach with people who know you
• 🎁 Always give something back
• 🚫 Avoid direct link exchanges
• 🛠️ Track your links and audit your site

❓ FAQs About Alexandra Tachalova

Who is Alexandra Tachalova?

A B2B link building specialist and founder of Digital Olympus, who started her SEO career at SEMrush.

Where should I start with link building outreach?

With your current circles: partners, clients, subscribers and social followers.

Does Alexandra recommend guest posting?

Not for her clients. It’s expensive, so she connects with existing guest contributors instead.

🎙️ More Inside A Hustler’s Brain Interviews You’ll Love

• Cyrus Shepard Spills Secret SEO Hacks to Rank #1 on Google 🚀
• Interview with Koray Tuğberk on AI and Programmatic SEO Secrets 🤖🎙️
• Interview With Craig Campbell Top SEO Strategies For 2026
• Tips For Bloggers (2023) 🔥Expired Domains, Backlinks With @JitendraVaswani

What’s your go-to link building tactic? Tell me in the comments. 💬

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