Last updated - June 7, 2022
As a marketer, business owner, or eCommerce entrepreneur, you are aware of SEO’s impact in the long term perspective. You want people to come to your website and make a pleasant customer journey. When your pages rank higher, your chances to make it possible are bigger.
Yet, how to do it right? In terms of SEO, link building via outreach seems to be an essential technique that can bring results in the long run.
Read on why backlink outreach is effective, how to manage one, and what link building techniques can suit you.
Backlink Outreach: Does it work?
Before all, let’s start with the basics. Backlink outreach is the approach that webmasters and SEO specialists use to get a quality link to the website of their choice. How can it help? There are enough benefits, among the most obvious are:
- Improving Google ranking – Links to your domain are crucial as Google considers them when ranking and offering the search results to the user. That way, the SEO link from relevant websites with a good reputation is likely to set a ground for your SEO game.
- Enhancing trust – If a reputable website (a donor) mentions you in their article and places a relevant URL, you will get more trust in people’s eyes and Google systems. For instance, an expert cites your website among the best products. What does it bring? Trust and recognition both regarding audience and algorithms.
- Supporting search engine reputation management – To get more customers, your product should be visible. The link outreach allows you to be more noticeable, especially if you agree with experts to make joint publications, guides, or product reviews. For example, a single post on a platform like Content Institute can bring you more visibility and authority. It adds to brand recognition, especially if you manage to post links of yours on multiple websites.
- Attracting new leads – As your website is crucial to your sales funnel, while prospects’ significant decisions take place there, you should promote it. The SEO link on a popular and credible platform with high traffic that leads to your page can boost sales. How? Imagine your product was mentioned in the listing on a credible website or even distributed as a newsletter. That way, a well-written article can show your value and direct new leads to your websites.,
Here is an example of how GetProspect benefited from the writer’s opinion on the best products in the article by Business Insider. The insertion of the product brought new visitors to the brand’s website resulting in a conversion boost right after publication:
As a result, the link outreach offers specific SEO opportunities. Also, it can bring benefits in the form of higher visibility, increased trust, and better brand recognition, leading to more visits or even sales in the end.
How to Do Link Building for a Website
Yes, backlink outreach can be beneficial to your business. However, it is so only if you do the proper research and target the quality websites that reflect your goal and audience. Organic link building, when people mention you without any outreach, is an ideal scenario that only works when your product is revolutionary or nothing alike or when you have gained enough recognition.
Until you get there, you need to know how to use link outreach and consider vital steps:
Determine a goal
Building the ground for any activity on website promotion starts from the goal. What are the objectives of the link outreach strategy? Is it solely a backlink story or not?
That’s why you need to determine your purpose and possible effects. Then, plan your outreach campaign based on that. You can only target writers who post on quality websites with good traffic. At the same time, you can have different campaigns for brand links to improve trust and get link juice for your main page.
Be clear in what you want to achieve, start with simple goals, and then modify your plan based on the results. If you are going to add to certain sales funnel stages, pick the pages you want the links to direct to. Notably, the effective SEO link should reflect your preferences on anchors, link path, and placement in the text. In this case, you would need tons of research and the ability to organize everything mutually for the linker and you.
Find the link domain worth of efforts
When you have a clear goal, it is time to find the appropriate domains to maximize your SEO strategy. How to do it? Well, there are two things that matter the most:
- Domain Authority – When researching the domain, look for quality ones. They bring authority and utility that Google defines as most important for the user. Thus, try to find the ones that have a good rating. You can use Ahrefs, Semrush, or Similarweb web tools for it and see the ones with at least 60 points. Besides, try to ignore those websites that link to gaming or adult websites. They can be penalized and harm your domain as well.
- Domain relevance – Another significant aspect is the relevance of the targeted website. In particular, it is best for your link building strategy to get links from the websites in your niche. One of the indicators may be that the website ranks by keywords from a similar parent category to yours.
Remember about anchors and dofollow tags
Among other things that you should consider, like the placement of the link, the important things are the anchor and tags the link has. The anchor is a text with the SEO link the author is to insert. Your goal is to add the one that suits your targeted keyword, the ranking of which you are trying to improve. At the same time, it is okay to include the brand anchor with the name of a website for land pages.
Also, do not forget about dofollow tags. If you want Googlebot to follow the link leading to your page, ask the webmasters to post links with the “dofollow” tag. Of course, Googlebot sees the nofollow tags as well. Yet, the links with these tags would have less effect on your domain. That’s why SEO specialists recommend having 60% of dofollow and 40% of nofollow links when implementing the strategy, even though these figures vary depending on the niche.
Interestingly, to check the policy and practice of the targeted website on the attributes, you can right-click the links in their articles and pick “Inspect.” In the highlighted area of a popped up window, you will see the “rel” attribute and be able to check what rules they apply.
Notably, the attributes are not as crucial if your goal is not about getting link juice.
Find linker’s email and contact them
When you find a website that suits your goal and has enough authority, you need to contact a webmasters, editor or site owner. To do so, you can google their address, find them on social media, or click the “Contact us” button on their website.
In particular, to search someone’s address on the Internet, you can use Google operators (like site: or “word “). Here is how you can look for working email addresses of the Verge editors, for instance:
Once you do these manual outreach link building actions and have a pool of emails, you can resort to specific software, such as email address verifier, to check whether emails are valid. Such tools help you improve the chances that your letters will arrive in the correct email inbox. Notably, the particular software has a database and email finder that can help you find the prospect’s contact information, saving you time and effort.
Send them a pitch
When you have collected emails, it is time to create a fine pitch. You have several options in this regard. The first one is to create a message for a massive outreach campaign, yet, remember that editors, webmasters, and domain owners get hundreds of emails, and if you use a simple template, it can just be ignored.
Thus, you have a second option: write a personalized email or message on social media. It is likely to be opened if you design an appealing subject line and sounding body part.
One of the outreach tips is to complement the recipient regarding their article, work, or website. It can break the ice and set the mood for cooperation. It will show that you did research and are interested.
Be clear and offer value
Besides, when you do link outreach, it is vital to be clear and offer value. Why? It saves time for both you and your recipient. Therefore, structure your letter, write clearly and state your motives. Moreover, among all outreach tips, one piece of advice matters the most – you should provide value to the owner or writer you are writing to.
It means that you can offer them data, insights, or solutions, depending on your resources and agenda on backlinks for this domain. Influencers work in a similar way, yet in link building, it is not about the money but content or utility for the audience.
Link Building Techniques to Keep in Mind
SEO specialists apply link outreach with different link building techniques. However, the most common is guest blogging and content collaboration. Why? They are to bring mutual benefit and set relationships in the center.
Strategic effect of guest blogging
Guest blogging is one of the most widely used link building techniques. The principle is straightforward. The donors need quality content or expert opinion to educate their audience, while the brands can give it. And yes, it is not an easy process, but you are likely to get great results. In most link-building cases, they will not come in a month. You probably need 3-6 months to bear the first fruits.
However, guest blogging is usually free and benefits both parties. Besides, if the article is good enough and is supported by other platforms on the Internet, it can rank high, while your page will get more link juice and even some traffic. The traffic can bring conversion as well, as the pic in the first section indicates.
Collaborating with experts to get niche relevant backlinks
At the same time, an excellent option, out of other link building techniques, is the collaboration between two business platforms. For instance, they can create an extensive guide or hold a digital event with significant infights.
Why can it be effective? Firstly, despite higher traffic numbers, the business pages offer more authority today than some no-name websites. Secondly, collaborating with experts allows you to be visible to the niche decision-makers. If they like your materials, they will link to you and get niche relevant backlinks.
