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Crush Your Backlink Outreach With These Tactics And Templates

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The perfect website isn’t built overnight—but if it were, no one would find it. To ensure it’s discoverable, you’d need to optimize the website for search engines, and conducting outreach for backlinks will play a significant role in your optimization efforts.

It’s not aesthetics that cause a website to rank, or the name behind it, or the platform it was built on. In some ways, it’s not even shoveling money into the Google machine. Websites are given visibility due to reputational networks, and backlinks are a quick and effective way to earn visibility for your site.

And, aside from organic search visibility, backlink outreach will garner more traffic for your site directly as well. 

“How?” the reader asks.

“Stay tuned,” the article implores.

A backlink is a link from another website to yours. When reputable and quality websites with a high domain authority link to your site, search engines like Google and Bing consider your site more trustworthy. The backlinks to your site, generally speaking, are considered trust signals.

Dictionary time: “Trust signals,” broadly defined, are the evidence points that inspire confidence in your brand online. … Virtually every trust signal is a ranking factor in determining your site’s search position. – Trustsignals.com

Backlink outreach is the process of reaching out to other website owners, content creators, or other marketers with the goal of scoring a link from them.

Link building through outreach can be beneficial to your website’s ranking as it appears on search engine results pages. If your website gets a backlink from quality websites related to what your site is offering, Google and other search engines are more likely to give your content more visibility.

A link outreach attempt can be sending an email asking to write a guest post for their blog in return for a backlink or letting them know that a resource on your website could provide their readers more insight.

Depending on the size of your company or the department you work in, backlink outreach can be done in-house. For example, maybe your SEO team dedicates a certain amount of hours each week to cold emailing other businesses with various outreach attempts. You could also choose to outsource outreach if your budget allows for it.

Backlink outreach doesn’t just refer to one technique or strategy. There are a number of ways you can get reputable websites to link back to yours and build your authority in the eyes of search engines. Here are a few of the most common types of backlink outreach marketers employ.

Broken link building outreach

This approach involves scanning a website in your niche with a high domain authority for broken links. In other words, you’ll be looking for links from their site that no longer work.

The fastest way to pinpoint broken links is through an SEO tool like Ahrefs or Semrush—essential online SEO software for marketers. Essentially, you’re looking for outgoing links that return 404 pages or simply don’t lead to where they’re meant to anymore.

Look for opportunities where the website could benefit from linking to your website instead—whether to existing content or relevant content you will create before reaching out.

Once you’ve identified an opportunity that makes sense for your business and website, email it to the site owner. Let them know that the link on their page or post no longer works and that you have relevant, quality content they can link to instead.

3-way link exchange outreach

Because Google frowns upon link swapping—linking to a website in exchange for a link back to yours—marketers have devised the three-way link exchange outreach strategy.

In essence, the method involves bringing a third party into the mix for a 3-way exchange. This way, each party benefits from a backlink to their website, but there’s no direct back-and-forth exchange between any two sites.

Social platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn include several link building groups you can join. Reaching out to others in these groups could help you find a suitable site to link to and an ideal backlink for your site’s SEO.

Unlinked mentions outreach

Has another website mentioned your brand or product in a blog post or on a page? If so, this creates an opportunity for you to request a backlink. The trick is to find those pages that mention your business but do not link to your website.

Ahrefs and Semrush to the rescue! Again, these two tools are integral to any solid SEO strategy, and investing in either one of them will help you and your team tremendously.

Use either Ahrefs or Semrush to identify pages that mention your brand, and use the tool’s filter to drill down to those sites that haven’t linked back to your website.

Create a list and visit the web pages you’ve identified to verify that no link exists. Then look for the contact details for the site owner so you can reach out to them.

Send the site owner a friendly email pointing out that they’ve mentioned your brand on that specific web page and asking if they’d be willing to include a link back to your website.

Skyscraper technique outreach

The skyscraper backlink outreach technique is very much a content-based approach.

The first step is to find an article relevant to your business and brand, often on a competitor’s website, that has attracted several high-quality backlinks. Then, you write an updated version that is better than the original and provides your audience with more value.

Finally, approach the owners of all the high-domain websites that linked to the original piece and convince them to link to your new, better piece of content instead.

Guest post backlink outreach

Guest posting is a tried and true outreach strategy for backlinks when done right. This involves writing a fresh blog post specifically for a high-domain website and linking back to your site, ensuring the information provided in the post is relevant to that site’s audience.

Once again, you’ll be leaning on a tool like Ahrefs to help you identify potential websites to write for. The trick is to find websites with multiple authors, as there’s a good chance they allow outsiders to write guest posts for their site.

You’ll need to reach out to the website owner and agree on a topic that aligns with their content strategy. Once agreed upon, you can go ahead and write a quality piece that offers the site’s audience loads of useful information.

Avoid writing a salesy piece about your brand or product. The purpose of the post is to provide value to the website’s audience and then include an author bio at the end (or beginning) of the post with a link back to your website.

Ready to try your hand at sending an outreach email? Keep these tactics in mind for the best possible chance of getting a response and, better yet, a backlink.

1. Understand your niche

Before you start looking for link-building opportunities, make sure you have a solid understanding of your content, your audience, and what others in your industry read and link to.

A good place to start is competitor and industry association blogs and websites. You should also keep an eye on what others in your niche share on social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook.

Consider industry trends, who your direct competitors are, and what your target audience prefers. Use keyword research tools to keep your finger on the pulse of trending topics and searches.

All this information will give you a better idea of the content you should create for your website and the content and websites you should target for backlinks.

2. Don’t waste their time

Think about the person on the receiving end of your email. Unless you see that their bio lists their title as “link builder” or “backlink coordinator”, they’re probably pretty busy. Also, you’re not the only person sending cold emails on a Tuesday afternoon, so they probably have at least ten emails in their inbox, just like yours.

Don’t make the reader of your outreach attempt play 21 questions over the course of a long and drawn-out email chain to figure out you’re interested in a backlink. If you want the reader to say yes, give them as much information as possible upfront… without rambling. 

Be straightforward and purpose the article or piece of content for which you want a backlink with relevant anchor text so the reader knows exactly what you’re asking and can work to find a match for the link you’ve included.

Because when you think about it, simply asking for someone to link to a piece of content still leaves a lot of work on your recipient’s end. They still need to find a good spot for it that contextually matches your content and then edit the website to add your link in.

A message like “I think [this piece of content] would be a great match in [this section of this article] and can be linked to with [this anchor text]” saves your recipient a ton of time because, at that point, it becomes a simple matter of yes or no, rather than where they can fit your link, and how, and why.

3. Actually read their blog

Marketers open their inbox every morning and see the words “I love your content so much…can you link my article” about 30 times a day. This sort of email will not lend itself to a backlink, and you’ve wasted their time and your time.

 

If you’re really invested in developing outreach skills, you need to take the time to read competing content and the blogs of businesses you’d like to partner with.

If you’ve found a place where a marketer can link your piece of content, let them know where. Does that article have a particularly well-done infographic? Let the reader know you think so. Or maybe it has an eye-opening statistic. Whatever the case may be, let the reader know you took the time to read their content and why your resource can be a great addition to it.

Otherwise, your “I love your content” line will only make them roll their eyes.

4. Get personal

Believe me when I say that the reader of your backlink outreach can smell a templated email from a mile away. I mean emails that look like:

“Hello,

I just finished reading your blog. Wow! So informative. I’d really like to partner with your company as I try to rank my content. Can you link my blog?”

Nothing will find itself in the trash folder sooner. 

Instead, see if you can find out a little about the person you’re emailing (in a non-creepy way). For example, I received an outreach attempt last week from someone who told me they thought my dog, Zeke, was adorable. This means that person spent 30 seconds on my Twitter profile and saw I post multiple pictures of Zeke a week. It also means they made an effort to make a connection.

And while I personally wasn’t able to help them in their backlink attempt, I forwarded their email to my coworker who can. I knew this person wasn’t using a template on me, and I could tell they actually read the blog they were referencing. And that is what made it stand out from the other seven I had in my inbox.

Reminder: Don’t get too personal. If you’re not getting a response, don’t make your next move adding that person on LinkedIn and sending them more outreach there. That’s spammy.

5. Find ways to build a relationship

Try to think of your backlink outreach efforts as more than just a request and agreement to include a link. A successful link-building campaign should focus on building long-term relationships with the websites that link back to yours.

Developing and continuing to strengthen your relationship with the site owners and other key stakeholders could lead to continued link-building and backlink opportunities. You may even benefit from a partnership or other possibilities that could help your business grow.

6. Don’t send too many follow-ups

One email is great, and one follow-up email is fine. But anything more than that, and you run the risk of coming off as needy, annoying, spammy, and unprofessional.

If you’ve followed up on someone you haven’t heard back from and it’s still radio silence—that’s your answer, and it’s a no. Sending them another email that says, “Hey! Just bumping this to the top of your inbox,” is not a strategy that will land you links. The reader isn’t going to respond with “Wow, thanks! Unsure how I missed this,” and then give you a backlink.

The more professional you remain, the better, and a constant barrage of follow-ups will not get you to your backlink goal. The only place it’s going to get you is sent to the Spam folder.

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Ready to send your first backlink email? I know I said you shouldn’t use a template, and I stand by that.

But, at the very least, check out these examples to get inspired and have a better idea of what to say!

The “relevant article” example

Hi [Name]!

My name is [your name], and I’m the [job title] at [company]. This morning I had a chance to read your article [link/anchor text]. I particularly enjoyed the overall structure as I found it easy to read, and the infographic really helped me understand such a complicated topic. 

I’ve noticed from following your blog that you often write about [topic]. We recently published a piece with a current statistic that I think would be a great addition to your article. Feel free to check it out here and let me know if you think it would be a good value add.

Thanks!

PS. Would definitely share your article on social media if you decided to include our resource!

The “benefit to our readers” example

Hey [Name], I wanted to let you know that I’m a huge fan of your blog. {More stuff about why I like their blog.}

I work on the blog over at [company] and I’m always on the lookout for articles that are relevant to our readers. Our demographic is mostly {this specific segment}, and I think that it would make sense to link to [our piece] from [your article], probably with anchor text like {relevant anchor text}.

After all, sharing similar, relevant content with our readers is our top priority. If you think there’s a better thematic match for a content swap like this, please let me know.

And, of course, please let me know which pieces you’re trying to score links for, and I’ll find a spot for them on our blog.

The “preemptive strike” example

Hello [Name], I’m the [job title] at [company], and I just wanted to let you know I’m a huge fan of the [content] piece you wrote.

In fact, I thought it was so good that I linked to it from our blog [URL]. I think it’ll be a big hit with our readers. Keep up the great work!

Also, if you’d like, you can totally feel free to share my article [URL] that I wrote about [this topic]. I think your readers might enjoy it!

Ready, set, send

Remember that backlink outreach is a marathon, not a sprint. You may send out what feels like hundreds of emails and get very few responses. That’s okay!

Take the time to consider what isn’t working, how you can improve, or if there’s a way you can personalize your emails a bit more. It’s all about building relationships, and remember that people can sniff out lazy outreach a mile away.

Want an easy way to manage contacts and automate cold email outreach? With a great CRM system like Nutshell, you can organize, segment, group, and filter contacts to ensure you target the right website owners with suitable backlink outreach messaging.

Nutshell also gives you the tools to create personal email sequences to automate messaging and streamline your link building efforts. Create and save your outreach email templates to save you even more time. And access a detailed view of every interaction you’ve had with each website owner over time from within the contact’s record.

Not a Nutshell customer yet? Give our full suite of features a try free of charge when you sign up for a 14-day trial—no credit card required.

Want to kick the tires a bit?

No problem. To see if Nutshell is the right choice for your sales team, start a 14-day free trial today!

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