Link building is a cornerstone of any successful SEO strategy, and even in the wake of Google's Penguin and Panda updates, it remains one of the most powerful strategies in a content marketer's toolbox.
But there is more to link building than simply creating great content and waiting for your peers to find you and grace your website with that all-important link.
You need to be proactive.
That means reaching out to the online community, connecting with the rising stars and current influencers in your industry, and building the kind of lasting relationships that bring positive link dividends. In other words, outreach.
But outreach is one of the more challenging SEO jobs to perfect, and it takes time and diligence to get it right. Seriously, it's overwhelming and challenging. Not to mention, most of your attempts will go unanswered.
That being said, successful outreach is not beyond the abilities of even the most inexperienced content strategist, and it takes a bit of knowledge (which I hope to provide) and some hard work (which only you can deliver).
What is Outreach?
First things first. Outreach for link building is neither a trick nor an easy-to-apply SEO tactic. Think of outreach as a good habit you want to adopt and never want to break.
I was at a networking event recently, and the group was asked to define outreach. Everyone, naturally, had their take on just what outreach was and how to use it to gain momentum in the SERPs. Here's my take:
[quote]Outreach is about building relationships with other bloggers and webmasters in your niche, particularly the top performers, to expose your content to a broader audience.[/quote]
Simple, right? At least, in theory, it is. In practice, outreach can be a bit more complicated. So, let's roll up our mental sleeves and dive into outreach for link building.
Different Types of Outreach
Before we go any further, I should point out there are many different types of outreach. Email is by far the most popular, and we'll talk more about that in a moment.
But when email fails, there are alternate routes you can take to make contact and start some relationship-building.
Blog Commenting
Commenting on blog posts is a dying art, but available, it's a great way to get noticed. Bloggers and content creators routinely monitor their comments sections, creating an opportunity for you to engage with them to make them aware of your name and brand.
Blog commenting is particularly useful in addition to your email outreach. If you pique someone's interest with a blog comment, they may be more likely to respond to your emails.
Social Media
Social media can be a very effective form of outreach. Like blog commenting, it allows you to bypass your target's cluttered inbox and neutrally introduce yourself. Making the first contact through social media, primarily X, Instagram, or TikTok, will allow your target to check your profile and familiarize themselves with your product or website.
Again, this is a good addition to email outreach, as it is a simple way to make contact and introduce yourself before you reach out to your target via email.
Snail Mail
It may sound old-fashioned and counterintuitive, but snail mail shouldn't be dismissed when trying to contact an important contact. Remember, emails can end up in a spam folder or be ignored. Traditional mail will definitely get your prospect's attention. Better yet, do something to stand out, such as put a message in a bottle. Yes, a real glass bottle.
Whatever alternative outreach method you use, remember to be polite, respectful, and knowledgeable about your topic. You are, in essence, wooing a contact. You don't need to be a suck-up (which can often backfire), but you want to make a good impression. Most importantly, you need to provide value to your new prospect!
Outreach via Email
As email is the most popular and effective form of outreach, we should deal with it separately. It's important to go into this process with your eyes wide open. You must accept that you will be sending out hundreds of emails and are only to get replies from a small fraction, maybe 5%.
Remember when I said outreach for link building was challenging? This is why. It takes time and patience, and do not let yourself get discouraged. So, with that in mind, let's look at some basic steps in an email outreach campaign.
Finding Prospects
Knowing who to contact can be difficult. Certainly, you can take a scatter-shot approach and contact each blogger with all your favorite posts. It's not a terrible approach, but it lacks focus and is unlikely to bring the results you desire.
One way to find potential link sites is to run a backlink check on the sites belonging to your major competitors. You can use SEMRush for this. You can find potential link sites in your niche industry by looking at your competitor's link profile.
You can also use SEMRush for broken link building on sites in your niche. This is a great tactic, as you are offering something of value and helping to provide an easy fix for the target site. Make sure to have a replacement link for your prospect; sometimes, they will update the link almost immediatly to fix the error on their site.
Getting Your Prospect's Contact Info
Usually, your target's contact information will be posted on the website or is a quick find by diving through LinkedIn, Zoominfo, or another channel. You could also jump over to Whois on Godaddy and enter the website address, and you might be able to see the domain registrant's email address.
Tracking Your Outreach Campaign
Before you start sending out emails, you need to have a way of tracking your successes and failures. This is important for many reasons. First, you need to know who you have and have not yet contacted. This is easy enough to accomplish with a simple Excel spreadsheet.
You will also want to keep a record of which emails were successful. Buzzstream is the standard for this process, and I highly recommend it. Maintaining a good record is invaluable and will help you fine-tune your outreach campaign as it progresses.
Making Contact!
Finally, with your outreach plans, it's time to make contact. First, it is important to understand that this will be an ongoing process, and to achieve maximum results, you will want to work on your outreach campaign regularly. Whether every day, once a week or once a month. Set a schedule, and keep to it. Many people rely on templates for an email outreach campaign, which brings us nicely to our next topic.
Email Outreach Templates
Because email outreach, by its very nature, is labor-intensive, many SEOs like to use templates to make it easier to craft their contact emails. Your email template should include these basic features:
- Details of what you are offering to the link target
- Your unique proposal
- A call to action
- VALUE to the prospect
However, it is essential to remember that your template should not be set in stone. You will want to send a more personal and carefully crafted email to your more important prospects. An email template should be reserved for your second-string prospects, and even these should be tweaked to make them more personal.
An introductory link request email should address the webmaster personally, illustrate some knowledge of the site in question, and clearly articulate what you offer to benefit the webmaster and the website.
Simply asking for a backlink will not work. Explain that you recognize their authority in your niche industry, enjoy their content, and have similar content they and their clients might find interesting and valuable.
Be sure to include links to other websites that have already linked to your content. If you have constructive suggestions for their website, state them clearly and fairly. Explain that a link would be welcome, but you understand that, being a premier site, they probably get link requests all the time.
Invite them to peruse your site, and ask them to comment or critique it as they see fit. Tell them that if they like what they see, a link would be a welcome vote of confidence from someone you respect in the industry.
So, a basic email outreach template might look like this:
Subject: You'll enjoy this new way to [your proposition]
Hello, [prospect's first name]
[Include your proposal and value, your website's URL and links to other websites that have linked to your content.]
Thank the blogger or prospect [using their name] for taking the time to read your email.
Include your email address so they can contact you directly.
Thanks!
[Signature, including your full name, company, and your website]
When crafting your template, keep these 5 quick email tips in mind:
- No yelling - Your subject line should be inviting and not in caps. You don't want to seem like you are shouting at your link prospect.
- Use your creativity - You are trying to impress your link target with your website's content, but if your email is clumsy or boring, they are unlikely to check out your site. Take some time to craft an engaging email. Don't be afraid of a bit of humor. That helps to take the curse off of a link request.
- Make it personal - Always use the webmaster's name and the name of their website in the subject and body of your email. Otherwise, your email will look like all other spam in their inbox.
- Use a company domain email address - Do NOT attempt outreach from a Gmail account.
- Have a good attitude - Be happy and grateful for the opportunity to reach them.
With your outreach template complete, it is time to move forward with your email campaign. Outreach for link building is a long and never-ending process. But that doesn't mean that it can't be fun or rewarding.
In Summary
Outreach is as varied as the people involved, and these essentials are only a rough guide meant to get you started. For an advanced version, check out this fantastic link building guide from Respona. Their guide goes beyond outreach and touches on the many tactics of link building, even gray and black-hat techniques. It's awesome.
If one underlying principle can be applied to outreach for link building, it is to let your personality shine through. Be polite and respectful, but leverage your personality to make a great impression.
An engaging email, blog comment, or forum post is the first step to building a lasting relationship that will pay dividends to both parties. And that's the type of relationship all webmasters are trying to forge.
