Link outreach is the process of contacting different websites to inquire for a backlink to your website.

For example, here’s an outreach email we sent arsenic portion of a breached nexus gathering campaign:

In this guide, you’ll larn however to get started with nexus outreach and however to get amended results. 

How to bash nexus outreach

Link outreach is simply a four-step process:

1. Find prospects

No substance however astonishing your email is, you won’t get responses if it’s not applicable to the idiosyncratic you’re contacting. This makes uncovering the close idiosyncratic to interaction arsenic arsenic important arsenic crafting a great email.

Who to scope retired to depends connected your link gathering strategy. Here’s a array summarizing who you should find for the pursuing nexus gathering tactics:

As a speedy example, here’s however you would find sites apt to judge your guest posts:

1. Go to Content Explorer
2. Enter a related taxable and alteration the dropdown to “In title”
3. Filter for English results
4. Filter for results with 500+ words
5. Go to the “Websites” tab

This shows you the websites getting the astir hunt postulation to contented astir your people topic.

From here, you’d privation to look astatine the Authors file to prioritize sites with aggregate authors, arsenic this suggests that they whitethorn judge guest posts.

If you privation to larn however to find prospects for antithetic nexus gathering tactics, I urge speechmaking the assets below.

2. Find their interaction details

Once you’ve curated a database of radical to scope retired to, you’ll request to find their interaction information.

Typically, this is their email address. The easiest mode to find this is to usage an email lookup instrumentality similar Hunter.io. All you request to bash is participate the archetypal name, past name, and domain of your people prospect. Hunter volition find their email for you:

To forestall tearing your hairsbreadth from searching for hundreds of emails one-by-one, astir email lookup tools let you to upload a CSV database of names and domains. Hunter besides has a Google Sheets add-on to marque this adjacent easier.

3. Send a personalized pitch

Knowing who to scope retired to is fractional the conflict won. The adjacent ‘battle’ to triumph is really getting the idiosyncratic to care.

Think astir it. For idiosyncratic to nexus to you, the pursuing things request to happen:

• They indispensable work your email
• They indispensable beryllium convinced to cheque retired your content
• They indispensable unfastened the people leafage and implicit each administrative tasks (log successful to their CMS, find the link, etc.)
• They indispensable nexus to you oregon swap out links

That’s a batch of steps. Most radical don’t attraction capable to bash this. That’s wherefore there’s much to nexus outreach than conscionable penning the cleanable email (I’ll screen this successful the adjacent section).

For now, let’s look astatine however to trade an astonishing email. To bash that, you request to reply 3 questions:

1. Why should they unfastened your email? — The taxable enactment needs to seizure attraction successful a busy inbox.
2. Why should they work your email? — The assemblage needs to beryllium abbreviated and hook the scholar in.
3. Why should they nexus to you? — Your transportation needs to beryllium compelling: What’s successful it for them and wherefore is your contented link-worthy?

For example, here’s however we wrote our outreach email based connected the 3 questions:

Here’s different outreach email we wrote, this clip for a run gathering links to our content selling statistic post:

4. Follow up, once

People are engaged and their inboxes are crowded. They mightiness person missed your email oregon work it and forgot.

Solve this by sending a abbreviated polite follow-up.

One is bully enough. There’s nary request to spam the different idiosyncratic with countless follow-up emails hoping for a antithetic outcome. If they’re not interested, they’re not interested.

Link outreach tips

In theory, nexus outreach is simply uncovering the close idiosyncratic and asking them for a link. But determination is much to it than that. I’ll research immoderate further tips to assistance amended your outreach.

Don’t over-personalize

Some SEOs curse by the sniper attack to nexus outreach. That is: Each email is 100% customized to the idiosyncratic you are targeting.

But our acquisition taught america that over-personalization isn’t better. We ran link-building campaigns that sent hyper-personalized emails and got nary results.

It makes logical sense: Most radical just don’t bash favors for strangers. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen—it does—but seldom volition your amazing, hyper-personalized transportation alteration someone’s mind.

So, don’t walk each your clip tweaking your email conscionable to eke retired infinitesimal gains.

Avoid communal templates

My archetypal absorption seeing this email is to delete it:

Why? Because it’s a template I’ve seen galore times successful my inbox. And truthful person galore others.

Another reason: Not lone did helium notation a station I wrote six years ago, it was a impermanent post, i.e., I bash not person power implicit the site. This shows wherefore uncovering the close prospects is important. He adjacent got my name wrong.

Templates do work, but atrocious ones don’t. You can’t expect to copy-paste 1 from a blog station and anticipation to execute success.

A amended attack is to usage the scoped shotgun approach: usage a template but with dynamic variables.

You tin bash this with tools similar Pitchbox and Buzzstream.

This tin assistance execute a decent level of personalization truthful your email isn’t spammy. But it doesn’t walk each your clip penning customized emails for each prospect.

Send tons of emails

When we polled 800+ radical connected X and LinkedIn astir their nexus outreach results, the mean conversion complaint was only 1-5%.

This is wherefore you request to nonstop much emails. If you tally the numbers, it just makes sense:

• 100 outreach emails with a 1% occurrence complaint = 1 link
• 1,000 outreach emails with a 1% occurrence complaint = 10 links

I’m not saying to spam everyone. But if you privation much high-quality links, you request to scope retired to much high-quality prospects.

Build a brand

A fewer years ago, we published a link gathering lawsuit study:

• 515 outreach emails
• 17.55% reply rate
• 5.75% conversion rate

Pretty bully results! Except the apical comments were astir however we lone succeeded due to the fact that of our brand:

It’s true; we admit it. But I deliberation the takeaway present isn’t that we should repetition the experimentation with an chartless website. The takeaway is that much SEOs should beryllium focused connected gathering a brand.

We’re each humans—we trust connected heuristics to marque judgments. In this case, it’s branding. If your marque is recognizable, it solves the “stranger” problem—people cognize you, similar you, and are much apt to link.

The question then: How bash you physique a brand?

I’d similar to punctuation our Chief Marketing Officer Tim Soulo here:

What is simply a beardown marque if not a accordant output of high-quality enactment that radical enjoy? Ahrefs’ contented squad has been publishing top-notch contented for rather a fewer years connected our blog and YouTube channel. Slowly but surely, we were capable to scope tens of millions of radical and instill the thought that “Ahrefs’ contented = prime content”—which present intelligibly works to our advantage.

Ahrefs was erstwhile unknown, too. So, don’t beryllium disheartened if nary 1 is consenting to nexus to you today. Rome wasn’t built successful a day.

Trust the process and make unthinkable content. Show it to people. You’ll physique your marque and estimation that way.

Build relationships with radical successful your industry

Outreach starts earlier you adjacent inquire for a link.

Think astir it: People don’t bash favors for strangers but they volition for friends. If you privation to physique and support relationships successful the industry, mode earlier you commencement immoderate nexus outreach campaigns.

Don’t conscionable trust connected emails either. Direct messages (DMs) connected LinkedIn and X, telephone calls—they each work. For example, Patrick Stox, our Product Advisor, utilized to person a database of contacts helium regularly reached retired to. He’d hop connected calls and adjacent nonstop effect baskets.

Create systems and automations

In its astir cardinal form, nexus outreach is truly astir uncovering much radical and sending much emails.

Doing this good is each astir gathering systems and automations.

We person a fewer videos connected however to physique a squad and a link-building system, truthful I urge that you cheque them out.

Final thoughts

Good nexus outreach is indistinguishable from bully concern development.

In concern development, your chances of occurrence volition summation if you:

• Pitch the close partners
• Have a beardown brand
• Have anterior relationships with them
• Pitch the close collaboration ideas

The aforesaid goes for nexus outreach. Follow the principles supra and you volition spot much occurrence for your nexus outreach campaigns.

Any questions oregon comments? Let maine cognize connected Twitter X.