How to Get Featured in Roundups

Getting into roundups can feel like trying to sit at the cool kids’ table in high school… except now everyone has a blog, a Canva subscription, and a deep desire to be called a “thought leader” without producing a single original thought.

But fear not. I will walk you through the blood-soaked battlefield of roundup features with enough sass to roast marshmallows over.

Let’s go.

1. Roundups Are the High School Group Projects of Content Marketing

There are four types of roundups, each with their own drama:

Expert Roundups:

The classic: 17 “experts” (12 of whom peaked in 2017) answer the same question like it’s their TED Talk debut.

Your move: Say something actually useful, like you’ve touched grass and spoken to a client in the last year. Add a stat. Add a story. Don’t say “it depends.” Everyone says that. You’re not mysterious, you’re lazy.

Link Roundups:

Blog curators gather content like squirrels hoarding nuts—except you’re the nut, and they want you shiny and SEO-ready.

Your move: Be the blog post they have to include. Think: skim-friendly layout, spicy title, value bombs. If your post still says “Welcome to My Blog,” go fix that before speaking to humans.

Product Roundups:

Where dreams of affiliate cash go to die. “Top 10 Planners for Busy Moms”—sponsored by the one planner that somehow costs $79.

Your move: If your product doesn’t suck and you’ve got actual reviews or testimonials, you can play here. Bonus if you didn’t Photoshop your product onto a marble background like it’s about to drop a skincare line.

Resource Roundups:

The roundups for people who love checklists, hate fluff, and want 38 templates by breakfast.

Your move: Offer evergreen content that solves a real problem. Bonus points if you can say “actionable” and actually mean it.

2. How to Find Roundups

Forget asking your spirit guide where the backlinks are. You want roundups? Act like it.

Google like you mean it: Search for things like “[your niche] + roundup”, “best of [your topic]”, or “inurl:roundup [keyword]”. If you can search TikTok filters for an hour, you can do this.
Stalk smarter, not harder:Use Ahrefs, Semrush, or Moz to analyze your competitors’ backlinks. See who keeps featuring them and ask yourself, “Why not me?”
Get on newsletters that actually curate stuff:If someone’s already curating other people’s content, they’re primed to feature yours. Subscribe, read, and pitch like you’ve read more than the first sentence.
Twitter/X and LinkedIn:Follow curators, look for hashtags like #WeeklyRoundup or #ExpertQuoteRequest, and resist the urge to reply with “DM sent!” like a crypto bro.

This guide on finding guest post opportunities might help you reverse-engineer roundup targets too.

3. Make Content That Doesn’t Embarrass You

Curators want content that oozes authority, not desperation. Let’s break it down:

Experience: Use real stories, lessons, and examples. If you’ve never made a mistake in your field, you’re either lying or still in onboarding.
Expertise: Back up your advice with data, insights, or actual results. If your source is “vibes,” stay silent.
Authoritativeness: Quote respected sources. Link to research. If your article reads like a TikTok script, rewrite it for grownups.
Trustworthiness: Grammar. Formatting. Clear takeaways. No shady links. If your post looks like it was written in a caffeine blackout, go take a nap and come back.

Here’s the formula:

[Real story] + [Specific data or insight] + [Actionable takeaway] = Curators don’t delete your email immediately.

Don’t just write to rank. Write something that could hold up even if it didn’t get a single click. (That’s also how ethical guest posting works.)

4. Pitching: How to Not Sound Like a Human Spam Filter

Stop doing this:

“Dear Admin, I stumbled upon your wonderful blog and would love to collaborate.”

Start doing this:

“Hi Sam, I saw your ‘Top AI Marketing Insights’ roundup from April and noticed it included several voices on audience targeting. I’ve just published a case study on how we increased B2B conversions by 37% using AI-powered segmentation. If that fits a future roundup, I’d love to share it with your audience.”

See the difference? One sounds like a human. The other sounds like a bot who believes in itself too much.

Bonus tip: Offer to share their roundup. Help them. You’ll be amazed what happens when you’re not just there to suck up attention like a leaky Roomba.

Here’s what works better: cold outreach lines that don’t make people hit delete out of reflex.

And here’s an example of a cold email template that actually worked.

5. Mistakes That Get You Blacklisted by Curators

Mass pitching with zero personalization. That’s not outreach, that’s digital graffiti.
Sending bad content. If your article has 6 popups and no point, it’s not “underrated,” it’s unreadable.
Being too promotional. Roundups aren’t infomercials. Nobody’s featuring your course called “Manifesting Funnels.”
Following up 48 times like you’re owed something. No. We ghost rude people here.

If you’re wondering why you get ignored, read this.

6. Want to Play God? Host Your Own Roundup

Hosting your own roundup is the closest you’ll get to editorial power without buying a media company.

Pick a timely theme.
Invite credible voices.
Feature people with audiences.
Format it like you didn’t just learn HTML yesterday.

Not only will you build authority, but everyone you feature now owes you a favor. It’s like networking, but sneakier and more fun.

But before you focus on big features, make sure you’ve covered the basics like earning your first backlinks.

Don’t Believe Me? Here’s the Data, Karen.

Look, I get it. You’ve been burned before. Some guy on YouTube with “marketing guru” in his handle told you that spammy email blasts were the secret to getting featured. You tried it. Now you’re on three blocklists and one SEO watchlist.

So let’s pivot to facts — the kind backed by people who did actual research and weren’t wearing sunglasses indoors:

Roundups aren’t just fluff. They’re strategic SEO power plays. According to WP Tasty, roundups drive referral traffic and help you build those juicy high-authority backlinks. Not because you begged, but because you provided value. Revolutionary, I know.
Expert roundups build trust and authority if you actually know something. Orbit Media breaks down how roundups elevate both the curator and the contributor when done right. The key? Say something worth quoting, not just rephrasing the obvious.
Product roundups equal affiliate goldmines (when they’re not scams). As Printify explains in their affiliate roundup guide, these listicles are money-makers if the products solve real problems.
Content roundups drive community and traffic if your content isn’t trash. Content Powered points out how regular roundups create trust and community, not just links.
The ethical path isn’t just better. It works. Hike SEO and Outreach Monks both emphasize that genuine, useful content wins more roundup features than spray-and-pray link begging. Wild.

So yeah. This isn’t a bunch of recycled advice from someone who thinks “engagement” is a font style. I’ve done my homework. You’re welcome.

Getting Featured Is Easy (If You Act Like You Belong There)

You don’t need to sell your soul to get featured in roundups. You just need to stop sounding like a bot, start creating content that actually helps people, and pitch it like someone who reads things.

Treat curators like people. Treat readers like they have brains. And treat your content like it’s a reflection of your actual expertise—not a desperate attempt to win backlinks from the ghost of SEO 2010.

Be good. Be better. Or at least, be slightly more useful than the 58th person quoting Seth Godin.

I don’t just write content, I make people care about it. Let’s work together and make your brand unforgettable (in a good way).

Hire me

Take the Goods and Go

You’ve made it this far, which means you either:

a) genuinely care about getting featured in roundups, or

b) have nothing better to do and are reading this instead of answering Slack messages.

Either way, I’m rewarding your poor attention economy with a few actually useful freebies — no fluff, no fake urgency, and definitely no “exclusive for a limited time” nonsense.