Getting links - the actual final approach to do so
-
Hi All,
So once you use OSE Tool to point you in the right direction of sites that might be able to give you links, what are the best practices for then reaching out to the website? I get that you need to give value in your request for a link and offer something of value – but what else to think about??
Ie Call them, email them, email who? Follow up with phone call??? Do you just use the standard contact form on their website? Presumably you need to track all this, just do it in a spreadsheet?
What do you say in the email? Do you offer them a link (if you can?)
I guess it’s a thing that sounds easy enough – go get a link – but I would imagine that people who have done this enough with some success can maybe share some of the things that particularly worked or did not work…
At the moment it just seems a daunting / time consuming task - even thinking of getting an intern to help do all this – pros and cons to that as well???
Thanks for your time!
-
Read Paddys blog about this - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-build-links-without-fancy-tools
I commented with an example of the email I send http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-build-links-without-fancy-tools#jtc138789
I just keep it as simple and honest as possible
-
The task can be time consuming and many companies will get an intern or such like to do what I call the "donkey work" once the target sites have been identified.
For scalability email is usually better than phoning however some people may prefer the personal touch. Recent link building I have been involved with was contacting suppliers to the company I was working for and asking them to include a link to the site as the more visible the site and the more sales then the better it was for the supplier.
Another link building exercise for a different company involved contacting all business clients and asking them to host the link on pages they had set up to help their staff as the companyI was working on behalf provided client benefits that the company were offering to their staff.
With both these examples it was easy to explain in a sentence or two the benefits of the link building rather than just a speculative "please link to us" request. If you can work out what the relationship between the two sites or companies is then it may be easier to request and receive links.
I would track all this in a spreadsheet so you know who has responded positively or negatively and you can chase up those that say they will add a link if they haven't done so and also you can make sure you don't pester people who have already refused.
Hope this helps.
-
You need to identify what your angle will be are you after a guest post or a paid link or a banner etc
Then you need to separate your sites into high and low value targets - The low value targets just shoot over a generic pitch or offer with a subject and heading for that site. Email or use form on site -Start by saying you like their blog etc
For the high value ones call if you can. Create a blog post for them to post as a guest post and send it over to them to use with some info about you etc. Or start commenting on the blog to gain a relationship then contact and ask for a way to work together.
-
I guess one thing that certainly helps is to take your time: Linkbuilding is all about creating relationships and so don't use a bulk mail tool to approach the people you want to give you a link. Remember that there's always people behind a website and try to be as polite as you would be in the offline world, if you were asking somebody for a favor.
It often helps to take your time and to do some research on WHO is operating this website. Personalize your e-mail and if you make them an offer, offer them something that you think fits their needs 100%. Don't offer them something that has nothing to do with their topics or target audience.
Yes linkbuilding is time consuming. But very rewarding in the same way. Think about your link partners as partners and not as websites giving you something. Establish a meaningful connection and get those links in no time
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Spammy links
Hi Guys, I have a case which seems to occur more often for our customers. The websites of our customers seem to receive tons of backlinks from websites all over the world (China, Russia, Ukrain, etc). It’s spam we never asked for, we didn’t buy any dodgy linkbuilding packages or anything. Do any of you guys have experience with this matter? We try to disavow the links but it takes too much time and we will never manage to disavow 100% of all links. Examples are www.keukensduitsland.nl and www.m2beveiliging.nl Hope anyone has experience and maybe even solutions for this matter. Thanks!
Link Building | | Happy-SEO1 -
When link building yourself where would you advise are the best places to add links?
Hi I am not having much success with SEO companies so am looking at link building and doing SEO myself. Where would you advise are the best places to add links? Also is it better to add links to specific pages or just to the home page? Thanks in advance
Link Building | | Briggzy0 -
Footer Links And Link Juice
I'm starting to learn about link juice and notice in GWMT > Traffic > Internal Links, that the list is in this order by the links counted on each page. Some are in the footer and some are in the header, with some being more important than others commercially i.e. /register /privacy /terms /search /sitemap /disclaimer /blog /register So I am wondering if I should add a 'no-follow' attribute to the footer links i.e. privacy, terms, disclaimer and leave the others as they are? Does this help retain link juice on each page where the links appear? Or am I missing the point all together? This is my website: http://goo.gl/CN0e5
Link Building | | Ubique0 -
Which Links to Disavow!
We just took over SEO for a new client who is being penalized for a bad link profile. They've asked Google to reconsider multiple times, and Google still claims that the links are bad. Because of this, and because I don't have direct access (logins, etc.) to what the former SEO did, I am considering using the disavow links tool. The most obvious links to disavow are a group of almost 1000 links that come from the same forum. However, when viewing the links on this forum they actually seem natural. People are reviewing the product (ipod cases), both negatively and positively. While this could have been an SEO tactic for link building, I don't want to disavow these links if they're not the problem, even though this domain is the source of almost all the low-quality links. Another site that has more than 200 links is Askives. Do any of you have experience with links from Askives, or removing these links? Thanks again!
Link Building | | newwhy0 -
Disavow links
I am working on an account that has had several seo companies
Link Building | | JasperSEO
over the past year so around every corner I discover something new. One the
things I have found are that majority of links to the site is coming from an
outside blog but digging deeper I found that the blog is actually on the same
server as clients. Should I disavow links from that blog or should I leave it
alone?0 -
Advetorial links
How do you scientifically value advertorial links. I have a site who is willing to buy advertorial in large online sites which will contain links. (I would prefer they invested in content on their own site). The DA on these sites is universally extremely strong. the PA of the examples I've seen is pretty low. The site has strong DA matching it's main competition and is performing pretty well in terms of ranking. Question: how do you value this kind of link in terms of the amount of £ the publications want to charge. Anybody have a formula or a logical process which would provide solid advice rather than don't infringe Google's T&C's which I've already mentioned to them. Any thoughts appreciated.
Link Building | | Shivvyt0 -
Why are none of my incoming links showing up in SEOmoz or Google? How do I get good legit incoming links?
There are hundreds of sites that are linking to my website, but nobody is showing it. Google wont display any when using link:eugenecomputergeeks.com, and in webmaster tools it only shows 46 incoming links. SEOmoz shows only 3 links. This just isn't so. Why is this? I DESPERATELY need valid incoming links from well ranked websites , and having lots of trouble getting them. Nobody in town with a well ranked site seems to want to do a link exchange, and I've already made the mistake of buying my way into directories, which didn't do anything good for my rankings. Thanks!
Link Building | | eugenecomputergeeks0 -
Free link on a Paid Link Blog
Hi there, I have been doing some outreaching, and managed to have a blog post accepted on a authority blog. They included links to my website, and I was very pleased with the placement. However, having browsed through the site, I was worried to see that they openly admit they allow 'reviews' of websites, with backlinks included, for $50 per review. I am worried I might be penalised without actually doing anything wrong. I did not pay for my link, but the link has been placed on a site which openly admits they accept payment for links. Should I be worried? Should I ask them to take it down? To date I have been told countless times by bloggers I am outreaching that if I pay $10, $50, $100 etc I can write a blog post. I have never accepted because of the risk of penalization. Now, unwittingly, I am linked to from a paid link site with a blog post that would look like I have paid for it because of the placement and style of back link. What do you think? Thanks,
Link Building | | giveacar0