If you’re an SEO specialist, you understand how important backlinks are for your ranking. As a matter of fact, they might even be the single most important thing for getting a high place on SERPs. And if you combine them with the best outreach strategy out there, which is email, you should have something. But, things aren’t as easy as they seem. There’s a lot to say about how to use email to get backlinks without being spammy along the way.
You can’t just turn to lazy, mass-sent messages and hope for the best. These will get you nowhere. However, if you do your homework and learn how often you should send marketing emails, they can bring you plenty of backlinks. But, before we dive into teaching you how to do it, we feel that we need to put out a quick warning.
Email Link Building isn’t for the Lazy
Right from the top, we can tell you that doing everything by yourself won’t bring you the instant results that you might get from a link-building agency. An agency already has all the connections and relationships in place. So, it’s not a problem for them to get your link across a few pages.
On the other hand, when you do it on your own, you have to do all the work. So, before you decide to build links through email, consider these things:
- You probably won’t have a high-yielding return. Even if you devote three hours a week to your campaign, don’t expect more than three connections out of it.
- You’ll have to do your own research. If you want to get a link from a company, you have to know something about them. Not only you’ll provide them with a link to your content, but you’ll have to think of a way of how they can use it.
- Results won’t come overnight. The process of getting a link from the moment you send an email can take up to a few weeks.
That being said, there’s a silver lining to all of it. All the links you get this way will be high-quality, and they’ll seem a lot more natural to search engines. As you already know, some links are better than others, and if you can make all of your backlinks effective, your SEO score will go through the roof. So, let’s see how you can do it.
Choose Your Share-Worthy Content
Your email campaign can’t work if you don’t have something of value to offer a potential linker. So, the things you should aim to get the links for are your in-depth pillar pages, top-performing articles, helpful videos, infographics, and so on.
To start, look at the content you’re most proud of. Here, we mean things that you got the most feedback and traffic for. If your readers like it, all the chances are that theirs will too. Of course, confirm their popularity with a tool like SEMRush to ensure that you’re going with the right thing.
Decide If You’ll Go Broad or Get Specific
Once you know what content you want to link to, look at how it addresses the topics it’s about. You have to decide if you’d like to go with the articles that briefly explain the issue or with the ones that go more into the details. For different businesses and purposes, both of these can make sense.
If you want to learn how to use email to get backlinks without being spammy, you’ll have to spend some time thinking about this. You might even realize that you don’t have suitable content for it, and that’s fine. In that case, write something you would link to and keep creating more.
Find the Websites You Want to Get Links From
The next step is finding your targets. You can do that with a few Google searches. Open up an Excel sheet, and prepare it to write down all the information about the sites you want to reach. So, domain name, URL, contact person info and leave space for notes.
When it comes to searching for sites on Google, use related keywords and click on sites on pages one and two of the SERPs. Use as many variations of keywords as you can and see what you can come up with. If you’re good at writing emails, you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to generate leads for your business.
Maybe You’ll Have to Make Friends with Your Competitors
It’s only natural that not all competitors will be thrilled about the idea of promoting you on their website. However, supporting each other can bring both of you some benefits. So, if they give you a chance, try to explain it.
If your products or services complement one another, there’s no need for rivalry. Instead, you can drive sales for each other. And if you really get it off, collaboration could bring you a product that will fly off the shelves. It’s never a bad time to get creative.
Craft a Perfect Link Building Email Template
Even when you’re writing emails, human-to-human interaction is what you should be after. And if you want to decrease your email bounce rate and improve interactions, you need to personalize the message. Here are a few tips on how to do it.
- Adress someone particular. Find the person who wrote the article that you’ve been looking at, and email them directly. Of course, use their name in the message, and if you can’t find it, feel free to cross it from the list.
- Mention something you’ve learned from the article. Saying that you like the paper they wrote isn’t enough. You want the author to feel like they helped you, so give them an example. Make one up if you can’t think of anything.
- Offer your content, but don’t shove it in their face. If you have some content that they could use, don’t just throw it at them. Mention it in an email and ask if they would like to see it.
- Except to wait for a bit. Before you follow up, give your prospects at least a week. And when you do, only follow up once. If they don’t get back to you, they probably don’t want to talk to you. And if you continue trying, you’ll come off spammy.
Take Your Rankings Into Your Hands
You can’t forget about backlinks if you want to rank on the first page of Google. It’s not easy to achieve, but if you take your time and learn how to use email to get backlinks without being spammy, it’s more than possible. You don’t have to be pushy, and if you give it enough time, you can get results that SEO specialists will be jealous of.