Summary: When requesting links from high value sites, put effort into your presentation, spell out the value, offer something valuable – and consider building relationships first.
So you’re engaged on a link building campaign and looking to get links from some quality sites. How do you go about approaching them? First read our guidance on requesting a link which gives a sample email template you can adapt for your own link requests.
For maximum success with link requests, you need to be a little creative. Authoritative sites get hundreds upon hundreds of these requests every day, so how is yours going to stand out? Here are our top tips…
Put some effort into presentation
Presentation is generally ignored in emails for links – after all, it’s a personal email and people don’t expect to see images in that email. However, where the link request is really important to you, consider how you could add in imagery to support your request. In particular you need to consider what would appeal to the person that you’re sending the request to. Don’t include so much imagery that it looks like a commercial sales email, as it’ll quickly be closed and dropped into spam before they get to your request.
Spell out the value
‘Please can I have a link?’
‘Why?’
‘Because I need to boost my page rank and increase my traffic’
‘….I care?’
Indeed, why should the site owner care about helping you? Don’t count on them having any altruistic desire to help your site rank better and drive business your way. Site owners care about their sites, not yours. And (this is particularly true for trusted, authoritative domains) they care about their visitors. So if they’re going to link to you, you need to spell out exactly why their visitors need your content.
Offer them something of value for free
…and we mean something that they want. A good example is an absolutely killer article, which they can publish on their site, which you promise to keep unique (i.e. you won’t publish it elsewhere). All you ask for is a link attributing the source. This is known as content syndication – you can do it on article sites like Ezines without having to ask nicely as that’s what they are for, but authoritative sites are often open to the same deal (and the links will be far more valuable).
Get inside their mind
Right now, you’re dealing with someone who doesn’t know you, who’s undoubtedly extremely busy, and has 101 better things to do which you’re keeping them away from. So you need to earn a little respect in their eyes.
Ways to do this include becoming a genuine contributor and recognised authority in your field – a good way of doing this, if they have a forum, is to share your knowledge in that forum without trying to plug your site (there’s no harm in signing off your email with your real name and also your forum name so you are recognisable as a contributor). If you’re offering to write articles on a regular basis, link to some you have contributed elsewhere on the web so they can see the quality. Ensure they are aware of your efforts to further knowledge in your field of expertise, so you’re not just another site trying to make money.
Don’t underestimate the importance of networking either – personal contacts are far easier to approach for favours. Network through conferences, social media, forums, friends – don’t immediately ask for anything, just give give give. After the relationship has become well established and developed, then you’re in a strong position to make a small request. Whilst the work involved seems high, it may give you links from extremely high rankings sites and so the effort is worth far more than the effort to gain a few, lower value links.
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1 Response to “Requesting links for SEO – top tips”
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Make sure you enter the * required information where indicated. Responses are moderated so please no link dropping, no keywords or domains as names; do not spam, and do not advertise!
said at 11:33 am on October 11th, 2010
Nice post about an issue which is not frequently adressed.