Link Building Outreach

Now you need to actually take the plunge and start telling people about your great content or campaign.

You should start with your high-level targets because they can not only get you good results if they respond well, but you can then use them as social proof later on when you outreach to smaller websites. If smaller websites see that an influencer has liked a piece of content and shared it, they are going to be much more open to you when you contact them.

Throughout all of this, be sure to remember one thing: you're contacting a real person.

There isn’t some machine behind the website you're contacting that chooses whether or not to reply to you. There’s a real person who, in reality, probably gets lots of outreach emails if they have a popular blog. They’re a real person and they deserve to have a bit of your time to make them realize you're not just another spammer or automated email program. We'll talk about a few specific ways you can do this later in the guide but, for now, remember that you’re contacting a real person. Ask yourself how you would talk to this person if you met them in real life. You'd have a real conversation with them, not the same conversation you've had with other people you met that day.

Also, there probably isn’t a single blogger who wakes up in the morning with the thought, "Hmm, who should I link to today?" They never planned to link to you — they have other stuff to work on, which likely takes priority over what you have to offer them. For this reason, you shouldn’t assume that a blogger owes you anything. It’s your job to tell them why you deserve their time, attention, and help.

If the idea of contacting a real person and telling them about your content makes you a bit nervous, then do a gut-check and be sure that your content is as shareable and valuable as you think it is. While overconfidence can be a mistake, you should feel confident enough in your idea to believe that real people will react well to it. If you walked up to someone in the street and showed them what you've been working on, would they react well? If not, you probably have more work to do before you start outreach.

Remember that the bloggers or journalists that you're contacting are probably very busy people, even more so if they run popular blogs with big followings or work for large news websites. Your message needs to be detailed enough to explain why they should care, while being short enough for them to read everything and not get bored or delete the message.

Here are some points to bear in mind for crafting your message:

• Tell them why they should care about you

• Tell them what action you'd like them to take

• Show that you're genuine and not a spammer

Let’s look at each one in more detail.

Tell them why they should care about you

If you're at this point with your link building campaign, you shouldn't be stuck on writing this. If you've been working on a piece of content, right at the start of its creation you should have determined the answer to the question, "Why would anyone care about this enough to link to it?" Remember our hooks from earlier:

• News

• Funny

• Controversial

• Data visualization

• Competition

• Ego-bait

• Long-form, detailed content

Does your content fit into any of these? If not, is there anything else unique about the content that may make someone care about it?

The blogger you're contacting is probably active in your industry and will know a lot about the subject matter of your content, so take a look through their recent blog posts and, if possible, relate these to the reason you think they should care.

If you’re going to do this, be authentic and genuine. We can all tell a mile off if someone isn’t being authentic!

Tell them what action you'd like them to take

Many outreach emails skirt around the subject of what the sender actually wants. Some may not dare to mention the words "link" or "SEO" in fear of the blogger flagging the email as spam. However, you do need to actually find a way of getting the blogger to take the action you'd like. Sometimes, the action may not JUST be about a simple link. It could be about a number of things, including:

• Sharing your content on social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn

• Embedding your content if it’s an infographic or widget

• Accepting a guest post from you, relating to your content, and linking back to it

• The blogger writing an opinion piece on your content and linking to it

These are just a few examples, but you can see pretty quickly that there are different levels of actions and the barriers to each one are different. For example, the blogger taking the time to write their own piece of editorial content about the topic and linking to your content is a big ask. In contrast, simply sharing on their social networks will probably take a few minutes, maximum.

You should take account of this when crafting your message and be aware that the more you're asking of a blogger, the more compelling and interesting your content must be.

The actions above are not mutually exclusive, either. You may experience great results if an influential blogger links to you AND shares a link with their social network. At the same time, you can also use a subtle tactic if you receive a slightly negative response. For example, if the first action you try to get the blogger to take is to write an editorial piece on their site and they say no, but they like what you've done, you could follow up and ask for a tweet instead. This is particularly useful if you're contacting an influential blogger who may not budge once they've said no, but who likely has a large social following with whom they wouldn't mind sharing the content.

Another follow-up to this scenario could be that you offer to write a guest post for them.

This is a good solution if they like the content but don’t have enough time to write about it. Typically, you'll want to save this kind of follow-up for very strong websites because it does require extra time and resources from you in order to make it happen. You also need to see some evidence of the blogger being open to someone else writing content on their blog, otherwise, this may be a complete non-starter.

Show that you're genuine and not a spammer

This is all about personalizing your message so that the blogger doesn't immediately reach for the spam or delete button. Remember that popular bloggers will receive many outreach emails, so it’s worth taking the time to make yours a little different and customized to them. There are many ways to do this without adding too much time to your process or compromising on quality.

Here are a few of these ways:

• Use their name

• Use a good subject line

• Mention something specific about their work

• Use a proper email signature

• Use a genuine email address

• Use your location (if relevant)

Let's take a look at these in more detail.

Use their name

Sounds simple and straightforward enough, but too many people don’t take the time to do this despite it usually not taking that long. It can truly make a big difference and get you that extra bit of attention you need in order to get your key message across.

Here are a few tips for finding someone's name:

• Check their about page

• Check the author name under blog posts

• Click through to their social media accounts to see if their name is listed on there

If you absolutely can't find their name, using something like "Hi there" is fine but do avoid using things like "Hi Webmaster" or "Hi blogger" as these have traditionally been used by mass email spammers and you want to avoid being associated with that!

Use a good subject line

Before they have even opened your email, the blogger will see the subject line. If they don't like what they see here, then chances are you’ll be deleted straight away and they won't even bother opening the email. This is the worst that can happen because you don't even get a chance to speak to them or get feedback at all.

There is something else important to remember here: A bad subject line may also trigger spam filters and result in your email being flagged as spam. At this point, you're relying on the blogger actually checking their spam folder (many won't) and seeing your email as genuine. Either way, this isn't a good place to be.

Here are some tips for writing a good subject line:

• Keep it short and to the point

• Mention the name of the website if you can

• Avoid overuse of capital letters

• Mention something specific about their site (like the name)

• Avoid things like "link exchange" or "link request"

Mention something specific about their work

This is really important if you want to show that you haven't sent the same templated email out to loads of bloggers. Mentioning something specific about the blogger you're contacting or their blog can really help show that you've taken the time to do your research before sending the email. This also gives you a great opportunity to introduce your own content and the concept of why the blogger should care about it.

Before looking at some examples of how to do this, remember a key point from earlier: be genuine and authentic with your approach. Otherwise, the blogger will spot it and you’ve probably burned a relationship.

Let's look at a few ways you can mention something specific:

• Look at the topics of their recent blog posts

• Look at their recent tweets/retweets

• Look at the comments they've made on blog posts

• Look at their “about” page for personal interests

• Look at their bio on their Twitter page

All of these can give you valuable information about the blogger, which you can then bring into your email naturally. Here is an example of how this may actually look in an email:

This didn't take very long to write and was the result of looking at a handful of recent blog post titles written by the blogger we’re contacting. It would be pretty difficult (probably impossible) for a piece of email spam software to spin something this unique and specific to the blogger, so it is likely to pass the spam test.

Use a proper email signature

This is a small tip and takes no time at all. You should insert a proper email signature on the bottom of all your outreach emails which includes things such as:

• Your full name

• Your job title

• The URL of the website you represent

• Your phone number

• Your social media accounts (if work related)

So, you may end up with something that looks like this:

This is another signal to the blogger that you're a genuine person. They can go and check out your website, your social activity, or even give you a call. Again, spammers would not do this.

Use a genuine email address

There is some debate on this one. Some SEOs strongly believe that you should always use an email address from the client you're representing rather than your regular one for your SEO company. So if you are going outreach for Zappos, you should use [email protected] rather than [email protected].

This argument tends to stem from the fact that SEOs can have a bad reputation, e.g. if the blogger sees that you're emailing them from an SEO company email address, it can instantly turn them off.

However, it can be a very good way to check that what you’re doing is good quality. You can ask yourself this question:

"Am I okay with outreaching to this blogger about this content, using the [company] name?"

If the answer is no, then should you really be doing outreach in the first place?

Ultimately, you should test whatever works best for you. If given the choice, probably use a client email address, but if one was not available, don’t let that stop you from doing outreach using your regular email address.

One thing that we would advise caution against is using free email address providers such as Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo. Unfortunately, spammers also take advantage of these free services, making this another signal that you're not a genuine person.

Use your location (if relevant)

The opportunities to use this tip may be few and far between, but if you have the opportunity, it can really help you look more genuine and sow the seeds of a good relationship.

The idea is that if you're contacting a blogger who happens to reside in the same city as your client, mention it in your email. This really allows you to work the local angle and say something along the lines of:

You can take things a step further and even meet up with local bloggers for lunch or a coffee. There is no better way to show that you're a real and genuine person than buying someone a coffee (and a cupcake!). If you find that there are quite a few local bloggers in your area, then organizing a local meet-up could also be a great way of building genuine relationships and getting them on board with your brand.

Check out Debbie Chew's Whiteboard Friday on Top Tips for Non-Spammy Link Building

SEOs have probably built just as many links as a result of following up with people as they have with their first email. People are busy — popular bloggers will get loads of emails, and in a world where we can check email on the move, your email may get buried pretty quickly and forgotten.

For this reason alone, it’s worth making sure that you follow up on all outreach if you don't get a reply the first time. The added benefit here is that you also reinforce the fact that you're a genuine person and not some automated piece of software that is hitting several websites at once.

In order to follow up properly, you need to keep your outreach as organized as possible and record the replies that you get. The last thing you want is to follow up with someone who has already linked to you!

There are a few ways to stay organized with your outreach ranging from very simple Excel spreadsheets to fully integrated customer relationship management (CRM) systems. Let's look at some of these options.

An Excel spreadsheet or Google Sheet

When you're first starting out with link building, a simple spreadsheet will work just fine. Even at the intermediate level, it can still do the job, but it can become a bit big and cumbersome if you're working on multiple campaigns at the same time.

A simple spreadsheet can start off looking like this:

It really can be that simple. You can add extra columns for any specific data or metrics that you care about, but this will certainly do the job for you.

However, after you've been using this for a while, it may become a little difficult to work with. For example, what happens when you run a second campaign and you want to connect with your contacts again? It is possible to do with an advanced enough Excel system, but it can get a little messy.

Specialist tools for outreach management

At this point, you may need to invest in a more robust, focused system for managing your outreach. There are a few options here such as BuzzStream, which is probably one of the most popular for this kind of task.

Boomerang is a free plugin for Gmail with a nice little feature that we can use for following up with outreach targets. When sending an email, you can tell Boomerang to send the email back to you if you don't get a reply within a set period of time. It looks something like this:

In this case, if the person you’re emailing doesn't reply within two days, Boomerang will send the email back to you. At this point you can quickly follow up with them, and the great thing is that you can be sure that you’re not emailing the wrong people who may have already replied.

Combine this with canned responses (outlined below) and you have a quick and effective way of following up with all your link targets.

In terms of exactly how to follow up with people, our advice is to keep the email short and to the point. You've already emailed them once and outlined all the details they need, so you don't need to repeat it all over again. If you reply to the same email you sent, then most email programs will actually include the original email, anyway, so the person can scroll down and find it very easily if they want to.

In terms of what to say, something as simple as this can do the job:

(Here you can include the original email so they can refer to it if they can't remember it.)

It's nice and short, says what you need it to, and is polite.

Try to follow up with someone once. If you still don’t get a reply, move on and don’t contact them any more for that particular campaign. If you follow up any more, you're running the risk of annoying them and actually damaging your chances of building a relationship with them.

At some point, you're probably going to get negative replies to your outreach. This is normal and something that you shouldn't worry about. In fact, it can be a great opportunity to engage with a blogger and get further feedback from them. In this section, there are a few principles to bear in mind when dealing with negative replies.

Always reply: don't ignore the email

It can be tempting to just ignore the email and move on, particularly if you've put your heart and soul into a piece of content that someone just doesn't like. But, ignoring the reply means that you're damaging your chances of ever building a good relationship with that person. They may not like the current work you've done, but what about the next piece you do? The last thing you want to do is alienate anyone so that they don't even bother looking at your future pieces of work.

Get as much information and feedback as possible

When replying to someone, try to get some feedback on why they're not interested in linking to you. If you're promoting a piece of content, ask them for their opinion on what would make the content better. Is there a better way of presenting the information? Are there extra facts or statistics that would have made it more valuable or effective?

Sometimes the problem may not be the content itself. Instead, the blogger just may not have time to write a blog post and link to you. In that case, you may want to offer the blogger some help with writing the post so that they don't need to spend time on it.

At the same time, you could ask the person for their opinion on what content is sorely needed in their industry. Do they see a demand for something, but do not have the time to create it themselves? There is great opportunity here if you look for it. For example, you may be able to come to an agreement in which you partner with the blogger to create a piece of content. You put the work into the content which they want to see created, and they use their contacts to help promote it. Together, you've created something valuable for the industry

Also, imagine you get a good idea for a piece of content from them. Then you go away and create it, email them again and show them. They are probably going to be much more receptive this time around! Even more so if you can somehow give them credit for the idea, perhaps a small mention or a link on the piece of content which would acknowledge them.

Even though you want to take the time to personalize your emails, there are a few good tools that you can use to speed up your process without compromising on quality.

Boomerang

We mentioned Boomerang earlier, saying how it can be a great tool for making sure you follow up with people using this nice little feature:

It also has another great feature that allows you to schedule when an email is sent. This is very handy if you're doing outreach across different time zones. A good example being if you're in Seattle and you're outreaching to UK-based bloggers, when you get into the office and start emailing at 9 a.m., it’s nearly the end of the working day in the UK. This may not be the ideal time to email someone.

So, Boomerang allows you to schedule when an email is sent. Once you've installed the app, a little button appears in Gmail:

From here you can schedule the email and make sure it reaches someone at the right time.

Canned responses

Canned responses is a Gmail Labs feature (read how to enable Labs here) and allows you to quickly insert pre-written templates into an email. This is super-handy for a number of reasons, one of which being that you don't need to worry about copying and pasting into your emails every time. Instead, you can just select the canned responses option and insert the relevant text:

This is extra-useful if you combine it with Boomerang and use it to follow up with people.

You can create a canned response that follows up with people you've already emailed. Using our example from earlier, it may look something like this:

Note that the bits highlighted in yellow are the parts that you personalize to the person you're contacting. You still need to personalize it, otherwise you're not likely to get a response.

There are a few common mistakes that can happen when you're link building. Mistakes happen — this is fine as long as you learn from them. Hopefully, this section will help you learn from other people's mistakes and avoid some of these pitfalls.

Using mass emailing software

There are many providers of software which allow you to email many people at once. This is a legitimate practice as long as people have opted into hearing from you and are expecting the email. Lots of companies do this all the time with their mailing lists. However, when it comes to link building, it’s generally a bad idea to use any kind of software like this.

Here are a few reasons:

• It’s much harder to personalize mass emails like this

• If you make a mistake, it isn't just one recipient that sees it — all of them do

• You can get yourself blacklisted if people start reporting you as spam

• You are possibly breaking the law if you're mass emailing people who have not opted into being emailed in this manner

Add to this the fact that you're jeopardizing not only your own reputation, but that of the website you're representing, ruining any chance of the website owner working with the email recipients in the future.

Not customizing your template

Earlier, you saw an email template that we could use for follow up:

Imagine sending this email to someone without editing the yellow bits? It is VERY unlikely to get a positive response! This is why in this particular example, we’ve highlighted the sections in yellow so that we’re less likely to forget about them.

If this does happen, the undo send feature of Gmail can sometimes rescue the situation if you're quick enough.