Are you trying to get backlinks via email outreach?
We know, it can be a real pain, with a low single-digit success rate.
We’ll share experience from sending out hundreds of outreach emails to get backlinks. We can distill it down to five lessons that will help you make your link building process that much easier.
1) People won’t read your quality content
“Would you stop what you’re doing to read a 5,000-word article written by a seemingly random person?”
It’s unlikely.
The real work is done in the pitch. Many find their outreach contacts by looking at who’s linked out to their competitors.
For those using something like the skycraper technique (i.e., taking good articles that rank well and making them even better), you must assure them that they will link to a quality resource.
You already know if they’re linking out to a competitor for a similar article, there’s some chance they’ll be willing to link out to yours.
2) Your brand and reputation are important
When your reputation is strong, you don’t need to persuade people that the article is good. They will trust the content by default.
Building a brand to the point where a lot of marketing is done by word-of-mouth is the ultimate marketing goal of any company.
3) To get more high-quality links, you’ll need more high-quality prospects
Look for posts that mention something that you have extensively covered in your article.
Obviously, before reaching out you will want to judge the reputation of the domain, the quality of the content, and so forth.
4) Incentives matter – a good piece of content and a strong brand aren’t enough
Trying to pay isn’t the best option here. Those that accept money in exchange for a backlink will probably link to anything as long as the amount is large enough.
This also creates a footprint that will sooner or later be picked up by Google. This often means a manual action, which penalizes your site and harms your business.
What works instead? Link exchange.
A legitimate exchange between two valuable resources is not flagged by Google. So if you’re pitched a high-quality resource, go for it…and reciprocate.
5) Avoid poorly written templates
A good outreach template won’t help you win over prospects that completely ignore you. But a bad email will disqualify you from getting at prospects who would have been open to collaborating.
Avoid using templates that follow the old common framework.
Instead, stand out by focusing on the answer to this question in your email: “What makes your piece of content unique and link-worthy?”
