One of the least sexiest ways to building links is email out reach. It sucks because it’s time consuming and boring… but it works. It actually works really well.
For every 100 emails you send out, at least 5 of them should be linking back to you. If you can’t get 5 of them to link back, it means you are doing one of the following things wrong:
- You are emailing non-relevant sites.
- You are emailing your competitors.
- There is little to no substance to your website.
- You email copy isn’t compelling enough.
If you’re interested in giving it a shot, I’ve made the whole process easy for you. From finding sites that will potentially link to you, to the templates you should test out… I’ve laid it all out. So here goes…
Finding links
The easiest way to find sites that will potentially link out to you is to do backlink checks on your competition. You can easily do so through Open Site Explorer.
In addition to back link checks, you can do some quick Google searches to find sites that you can reach out to. For example if you are looking to get links from sites that talk about all things “Vegas” related, you may want to run this search command on Google:
intitle:”las vegas” inurl:”links”
Once you run that command, you’ll get a listing page that looks something like this:
And it doesn’t stop there… another way you can find sites to get links from is through broken link checkers. Find sites that tend to link to content similar to yours and find out if they have any broken links on their website. You can do this through tools like Broken Link Check.
Getting names and email address
Now that you have a list of sites that you want to reach out to, you need to get their contact information. You can do this manually, or you can just use Mechanical Turk or oDesk.
For pennies on the dollar you can pay people to give you the name and email address of the webmaster that manages the site. As well as the website name and a few links to popular pages on that website.
Don’t forget about the basics
Before you start your email outreach program, you need to setup your tracking. You don’t need much to do this… I typically use an Excel spread sheet to keep track of everything, Gmail to send out my email, and Yesware to track my email open rates.
Out of all of the tools, the one I find the most useful is Yesware is it tells me which email templates and subject lines are read the most. This helps me fine tune my email outreach templates so I can maximize my open rates.
Now that you got the basics down, it’s time for you to start sending out emails.
Email templates
If you don’t know what to write to webmasters or if you aren’t creative, don’t worry about it. If you use the email templates below, you should be fine.
When using the email templates that I wrote below, you need to keep a few things in mind:
- Keep the subject lines in lowercase letters – I do this because I want the email to seem casual as if a friend was sending you an email.
- Be creative – plain boring emails tend to be considered spam in many cases.
- Personalize – you have to include the persons name, and website name in the email so it doesn’t come off as spammy.
Here are different email templates you can use based on type of outreach you are trying to do.
Broken link email template
You want to send this email out as an independent 3rd party. Not a website owner.
Subject: there’s something wrong with your site
[insert their first name], I was browsing your website and I noticed you have a broken link.Â
As an avid reader of [insert their site name] I love reading anything you write about, such as [insert article on their website] and anything you link out to. Sadly I couldn’t find the article you were trying to link to, but I did happen to find another good webpage on the same topic… [insert url to webpage that you are building links to]. You should check it out and if you like it, you probably want to switch out the links.
I know you are busy and probably get millions of emails a day, but hopefully this one was helpful. I just wanted to help you out for once as [insert their site name] has changed my life.
Cheers,
[random persons name]
Basic link request template
You want to send this email out as yourself.
Subject: [insert first name of website owner], i think i’m in love with you
Hopefully I didn’t freak you out by my subject line, but I’m really in love with you. Don’t worry, it’s not in a creepy way, mostly I’m in love with your website [insert their website name].
You probably get tons of people everyday whom are in love with [insert website name], so I won’t bore you with my reasons. Instead I thought I could show some appreciate by giving you some feedback on how you can improve your website.
- Insert suggestion #1
- Insert suggestion #2
And if you are wondering how you can repay your biggest fan, feel free to link to my website [insert URL].
Ah… just kidding, you’ve already done enough for me by making [insert their website name] so awesome!
Cheers,
[insert your name]PS: If you do happen to link to my website, [insert URL], it will seriously make my year! Maybe even decade!
PR pitch
You want to send this email out as yourself.
Subject: don’t you hate it when people pitch you story ideas [insert their first name]…
Well, I too have a PR pitch for you, but before you hit the spam button and move onto the next email, just give me 37 seconds or else you’ll regret this for life!
So here goes…
I’m launching [insert your website URL] on [insert date] and I wanted to see if you want to cover it. Here are 2 reasons you’re readers would love if you covered it:
- Insert benefit #1
- Insert benefit #2
I could keep on going with reasons on why you should blog about us, but I won’t bore you with the details. If you’re interested, let me know and we can setup a time to chat when you’re free.
Cheers,
[insert your name]
Oh… I think have 7 seconds left, so if you could just hit the reply button and let me know what you thought of my pitch that would be great. Even if it is “F off”… feedback would be great.
Guest posting
You want to send this email out as yourself.
Subject: you should blog about [insert your guest blog post topic]
[insert their first name], as an avid reader of [insert their site name] I would love to read about [insert guest blog post topic]… and I think your other readers would as well.
Your content on [insert existing post from their website #1, insert existing post from their website #2, and insert existing post from their website #3] are great, but I think you can tie it all together by blogging on [insert guest blog post topic].
I know you are probably busy and won’t blog on it so I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.
Let me know if you are interested, I already know your blogging style, plus I understand what your readers love… as I am one.
Look forward to hearing from you,
[insert your name]
Funny link request
You want to send this email out as yourself, but be careful with this template. It worked really well for me with the first few hundred emails I sent out, but after a while people started to mark my email as “spam”.
Subject: dude you have to check out this nude pic
You dirty boy, I can’t believe you opened this email. There’s no nude pics here… instead I’m using a software called Yesware to track if you opened my email… and you did!
But don’t worry [insert their first name], I am not going to blackmail you by posting it all over the web. Instead I just want to you to link back to me.
Or at least consider it.
My website is [insert your URL] and here is why I think your readers would want you to link to me:
- Insert reason #1
- Insert reason #2
Hopefully you link to me. And don’t worry, even if you don’t, your “dirty” secret is safe with me.
Cheers,
[insert your first name]
Conclusion
I know many of the email templates above are a bit edgy, but they work. I’ve been using them for years and I can typically get 6 to 7% of the website owners I email, to link back. Which is why I think you should be able to get at least 5% of the people you email, to link back to you.
I want you to go out there and try the process out… trust me it works. And if you really want to boost your response rate, email people from a women’s email handle and make sure you add a semi attractive picture, but not too attractive.
I tested that method out with a relocation company and I had a 11% success rate when emailing coast guard websites, which is a .gov link.
So, do you know of any other creative email templates that work for link building campaigns?
This amazing course will teach you, step by step, how to double if not triple your traffic over the next 30 days.
Thanks for the really useful example scripts!
The tip about broken link detection is excellent – a way to add value instead of just telling the owner “hey give me a link”
No problem, hope these tips work out for you.
I am a regular reader for last three weeks. I hear about most on most of the forums and links. Yes you are the expert with some excellent professional reviews. Your contents are really touchy. I really got some think every time i visit your blog. “Links Building is really an art”, I tried to understand every point of your article. In the mean while if i don’t get any of your portion i contact you.
Regards,
Umar
Great, thanks for reading QuickSprout!
Email templates!!
Your copy writing skills are too awesome neil.
No matter how busy, popular, or famous your target email reader is, you will always get more attention than other ways of digital communication. There tacticts work really great.
Thank you Darshan, I appreciate it.
Great info Neil, How long does it take you to write all this up?
I asked same question to Neil, and he told that normally it takes anything between 4 – 7/8 hours depending on the length and detailing it requires.
(No need to thank me Neil, it’s my pleasure
)
Lol well thank you anyways. I have been writing for so long it actually take me less time now.
It takes me around 2hrs then I send it off to be edited before I post it.
So every post on this blog is worth $10k.
Not sure what you mean…
I love email templates!
I always worry if the language I use is going to be effective and it’s great to know that they’ve worked in the past.
So once again thank you.
Great, you should try out some of the one I provided above and let me know what happens.
This is a great no BS write-up…
people need to understand that just writing mails wont help….instead what works is:
“Writing emails to right people, for right purpose and in right words ”
the post explains it all…
Thank you Adnan, that is correct.
For my taste the templates you are giving are a little bit too direct, sometimes even ‘pushy’. But then, if you say you had success, then it must be working….
Since I do not consider myself being able to contact the potential links in this manner, I would use a ‘milder’ variation of your approach.My web page is about online education and I do not think it would be beneficial to reach my audience in this manner. Of course, you might disagree, with just reasons. Maybe I would need more time to process the ‘concept’ that you are describing above… and might use it later on, for different type of audience.
Regardless of the said, I find the tips useful and very much implemented in practice (I am a beginner yet).
Very best regards,
Aleksandra
The best way to figure out what works best for you is to try out different thing. Give these templates a try sometime, you may be right and they may not work in your field but you won’t know until you try.
Neil!
What can I say?
I think I am in “love” with you too
Ok, not in a creepy way but honestly with the amazing content that you are dishing out here.
Where have you been man?
You are the man!
The main man!!
ROFL, yep that is how you do it!
Neil,
Great article. Will companies like us in who are initial stages of building links.
Thank you
Chris
Let me know if it doesn’t work well for you guys. It should though… it works for all the companies I tested it on.
All the templates above are superb Neil,
I’ve used something similar before when i guest posted on one blog and it really worked well.
Thanks for this useful info.
Thank you Theodore, glad to hear similar ones have worked for you.
I always glue to my screen when I receive any email from you Neil. It is always superb and practical.
Thanks Ola, I appreciate it.
Hey Neil,
I just wanted to reach out and tell you what an incredible job you do in writing these posts. I have learned more from your site than almost any other site across the internet – for one reason – they are always actionable.
I have to be very picky about whose info I read and follow because frankly, like all entrepreneurs, I don’t have any time to waste. Thank you for taking the time to teach what you probably spend countless hours, energy and money to learn.
Thank you Shrad,
I know how hard it can be to start off with little to nothing. Trying to find information and ways to grow successfully without breaking the bank. That is why I do this because I want to helps those who are struggling like I did.
I really appreciate your kind words. All the best to you.
When i started my e-mail marketing efforts, i did not have the right tools to make them attractive.
But now they are stunning and my business i getting much better.
Thanks to you!
Regards
Peder
Awesome, glad to hear it Peder.
Love your detailed examples, Neil.
My challenge will be to find enough websites that write on my topic, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.
I’ll give it a go though.
Thanks Johannes,
Best of luck!
lol your funny link request made me crack up “You dirty boy”. Well definitely try that one out:) Great email templates Neil.
LOL. Yea the funny ones work well sometimes.
Thanks again Neil. I like the Funny link request. : ) That should probably work. : )
It has for me, you should try it out.
I like it. I thought this was dead a while back and haven’t tried this since 09…granted I didn’t have your copy to do it. I still do the broken link route and that does work, but a lot of time the research is tedious.
Neil you are great man. The only RSS feed to hit my inbox, the rest are in feed.ly, keep kicking arse.
Thank you Brett,
I agree that it can be tedious but it is worth it.
I really like the examples you gave. Even though they are templates they sound really friendly and authentic. And I’m going to look into yesware, I’ve never heard of it.
I know you’re a busy guy but you should work on v2.0 of your course!
-Amir
Thanks Amir,
I am already working on it! It should be out in February.
Hey Neil, your stuff is amazing and these templates are another great example or your generosity and your talent. Thank you so much! I will make some time this week to send by first batch of 100 emails to see how many responses I get.
Thank you Steven,
It would be great if you come back and let me know how it goes.
I don’t know if I agree with this so wholeheartedly. We all get spam – tons of it – and I’m not sure I want our company to be loaded into this category, or worse, blocked.
Although the scripts of the templates are cute and catchy, and I fully expect they produce the results that you say they do, I feel they may be more appropriate to your type of industry than to mine – carpet cleaning. I’m just not sure I want to go down that road just yet.
However, I have a repository of all sorts of items which I revisit from time to time, and I’ll add this to it. One never knows…..
You should give it a try on your carpet cleaning site, you will be shocked by what works. I have done it on boring industries like power supply and it works well.
Once again another resourceful article, you are always given practical tips away for free. And that is why we keep coming. Thank Neil.
No problem, always happy to help.
Hey Neil, excellent post, seriously your funny templates are awesome and i think that guest blogging is one of the best thing for linkbuilding,
thank you
Saif
Thanks, glad you like it.
Thank You Neil Patel for sharing excellent tips. I got great oppotunity to improve my SEO quality. I really appreciate your effort and contribution. I did not aware on this topic before.
Good, glad to hear it.
Something different and unique approach.
It makes sense. Lets implement and find out.
Thanks Neil.
Yah, sometimes it is the unique approches that work the best.
Awesome email templates, with those used, you can definitely expect a link back.
Yep, they should work.
This is great – Thanks!
I’m glad I stumbled on to this article. I’m trying to build my real estate site, here in Philadelphia. I didn’t think it would be this hard in a local market.
I just can’t seem to get the site to budge!
Real estate can be a difficult market, hope these tactics help.
Best of luck.
I love these link request email copies. It’s simply great. Thanks.
Yep, they are pretty useful.
Hey Neil, don’t you think the last email template will balckmail a webmaster ?
Anyway it was amazing informative article and now I’m saving these templates to tryout the technique to get some targeted and worthy link backs.
It could, wich is why I mentioned your emails could go into the spam folder.
Neil… thanks for the post..tools you shared for email marketing is awesome…
Thanks Sasha, anytime.
Hey Neil,
That is pretty effective isn’t it. You’re putting yourself out there a bit but, the rewards can be great. Good stuff.
Yep, you have be willing to put yourself out there to get what you want.
Hi Neil! This is a great post! I’ve tried backlink checks thru Open Site Explorer and it really is a big help. Yesware sounds good. I’ll look up on that one now! Thanks for the tips!
Thank you April, appreciate your sharing what has worked for you.
Thanks Neil for sharing, but if i shoot the mail then by contacting the site owner will it then become email spam?
Let Me know about your thoughts,
Thanks
Shouvik
In general it shouldn’t cause you to go into the spam folder if you are writing custom emails.
As always a great post & good examples of email template
Thanks, appreciate it.
Hi Neil,
Kem cho? this read was very helpful to me, seeing that i don’t quite understand all this computer lingo (being a housewife for 10 yrs does that to u) this seem like a good idea, but I know I’ll have to put huge amount of time and effort….I just hope this will work.
thanks
It will work, it’s worth the effort.
Its great and amazing content you have return, recently i use to think is there any alternative for link building? by this article i was very happy to learn this thanks a lot neil!
Thank you Anderson, happy to hear this post was helpful.
There are some mistakes in the post. I clicked the link odesk, but i can not get the result as you described. and the same mistakes more than 3. You get so many traffic to these sites, But i think you should give us the right link to right place, no cheating the dear vistors. thank you very much
I think you have got it wrong, I am just linking out to places that you should be checking out.
Thanks ! for the tips & a list of DoFollow blogs . I will ensure that I bookmark your blog and may come back sometime soon.
Happy to do so, hope these tips work well for you.
Nice Email Templates Neil!! This is really that you provide us such a useful templates. I had tried before this idea of mailing to webmasters but it didn’t work as I was expecting. But now I am thinking to use your ideas and tips. And I am sure , it will really helpful.
Also you have given new point of view to link building.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, definitely come back and share how it goes.
These are fantastic and just such a good find while coming though the Quick Sprout site.
I am wondering, have you ever been able to integrate yesware into a mail merge? As with finding a lot of information from prospects, filtering them into a batching sheet and then sending them all out at once, still allows for personalization but also higher efficiency.
Really would love to hear from someone of such caliber and just to keep it in good taste…. click reply for a nude pic….
I haven’t tried that yet… I also don’t use mail merge.
LOL, I clicked “reply”.
These templates are sick Neil! Love the “edge”.
Whenever I am outreaching via email, I usually tailor my messages a bit more, offering some specific SEO help for their site in exchange for a link back. However if you’re getting these types of CTR and responses, I’ll have to give it a shot for sure. Cheers!
Thanks Josh,
That is definitely another great way to go about it, thanks for sharing what you do.
Neil, this is brilliant – probably one of the best guides I’ve seen in a while.
I’d be really interested to know what sort of conversion rates you’re getting with each of these individual templates though.
Thanks!
Very rarely do I see anything less than 5% and anything greater than 10%. It depends on the templates I use.
Hey Neil!
First thing i want to tell you that,Your copy writing skills are too awesome neil.
This post is really interesting on all of them.
Thanks Jessica,
I appreciate it!
Excellent Email templates. I will surely try these.
Thank you
Thanks John,
Let me know how they work out for you.
Hi Neil, this is a great post and excellent tips in the first part of the article, but honestly the email templates are very edgy for me. I operate various websites and we do get approached by linkbuilders, but if I got the ‘I’m in love’ or the ‘blackmail’ template, I would delete it in two seconds because they are way too freaky for my taste. I understand they work for you, so possibly it’s a difference of style and taste between the US and Europe (unless you tell me these work in all parts of the world, in which case I humbly shut up and start testing these myself with other webmasters
). Thanks in any case for sharing it with us!
i have never tried to get back links by asking for link requests. I surely need to try this out. Thanks for the useful tips.
Great post, very informative and well written. This is really relevant to the issues today.Thanks so much for sharing.
Thanks for this awesome info. I just started trying to set up a blog and I’m learning still. You explained a mountain of information in a simplistic manner unlike other people. Good work!
To get quick google Indexing- one should have Unique content posting with maintaining more link Backs and Directory links of high page rank
i like this and you write very nice blog about the link bulding and write more about this pls
I love using the email outreach/broken link tactic. In the past, it’s actually helped me develop a few new connections in the SEO community that I continue to keep up with. Cheers!
Hey! I know this is kinda off topic but I’d figured I’d ask.
Would you be interested in trading links or maybe guest writing a blog article or vice-versa?
My website covers a lot of the same topics as yours and I
think we could greatly benefit from each other.
If you might be interested feel free to shoot me an e-mail.
I look forward to hearing from you! Superb blog by the way!
I’m so,so trying out the last one on you.Watch out for headings lie “Hey Neil,Clare wants me to deliver some roses.How?”….Hehe
Very useful email templates here, these can really help people who aren’t used to creating their own and are looking for a great template for their emails
Excellent guide. I think that most of the link builders are making links using old methods like profile links and social bookmarks. They should find some new methods to build links.
thanks
Yes, you have to keep adapting.
I need to start building email database and try these email approach
Definitely, best of luck!
Great tips. I will try and use these tips for my site
Great, let me know how it works
Hey Neil,
Have just bookmarked this article and 2 others(a simple plan and don’t forget the marketing) – I will get back to you on how successful your templates have been for me(Fishing electronics).
I think one really important thing that you highlight with your email templates is to keep it casual and informal. Gone are the days of “Dear Sir/Madam” and “To Whom It May Concern” – you have to be tongue-in-cheek to get noticed, and the internet is all about getting noticed.
You really are “Kind of a Big Deal” –
Cheers
Shabbir, thanks! I would really like to hear how the templates worked for you so please follow up..
Hi guys,
Very informative and useful guide. Really well put Neil!!
I must say one of the ways I utilize link building is by adding backlinks to my site. This generates good and fast traffic. A cool site to try is http://www.backlinksources.com.
Hope this helps
Allen, thanks for the site.
Personally I wouldn’t trust a third party service to write and spin articles for me for linkbuilding purposes.
Proper spinning by hand and inserting images and videos in with it takes a long time.
Also if your website doesn’t already have at least 20-25 pages of unique content and its been up for a couple of months at least I wouldn’t recommend blasting a bunch of links to it.
What a material of un-ambiguity and preserveness of precious familiarity on the
topic of unexpected feelings.
awesomesauce. Really glad I found your blog. I actually just started an internship at a startup today. I was excited when I got my kissmetrics account. Looking forward to checking it out and learning more about how to use it over the next few weeks.
Abdul, great. Glad you enjoy the blog
Hi Neil! Email outreach sounds ineffective to me before because of it’s spammy nature. Thanks for enlightening me with those broken link detection techniques and excellent templates. Those creative subject lines will surely catch attention.
Gen, glad I could help. Let me know if you have any additional questions.
Nick, I’m super impressed that you reply to every single comment (just about). Talk about impressive way to build a community. ViperChill is the only other one I’ve seen effectively do that. Props!
My big question: When you say “You want to send this email out as yourself.”
Do you, or have you really sent out all these email campaigns as Neil Patel? And do you imply that you own/run/work with the company that you’re doing SEO for?
As a new SEO, I’m always trying to figure out how to represent a client when it’s really advantageous for the owner to be writing, and should be, but I’m the one doing it – like these emails, or managing a social media presence. Especially when it’s a single owner or small business.
As I write this, I’m sure this question has been posed and discussed a million times, but google isn’t getting me there. Do you have a quick answer, resources, links, discussions, you could point me towards?
I figure the above is enough to answer the question, and get me in the right direction, but situation I was perplexed about the issue:
On quicksprout.com/2013/04/22/if-i-had-to-start-my-seo-campaign-from-scratch-i-would/ the slideshare about how to start a facebook campaign, slide #13 says that one should appoint an ambassador to be the voice of the company/brand. It says “Tip: be careful if you use your own profile to do this; could be better to either create a new one for yourself (risky and against FB’s ToS) or get someone else to do it…”
So if I’m managing facebook pages for several companies (not yet, but potentially), do I login as the client (most wouldn’t be thrilled about this), as me, and get connected in the public’s eyes to multiple companies (probably not the best) or an alias profile?
THANKS!
Yes, I send them out as my name. But the key is not imply that I own or run a SEO company. If they ask, I am open about it… but I try not to talk about SEO.
The slide show wasn’t created by me… I myself just use my brand for all of them as Facebook lets you easily manage accounts from 1 user name.
Great post…so very very useful.
Thanks Neil!
Glad you found it helpful
Neil,
Great as always, actually came to check out your stuff after listening to your interview on SPI. I wanted to know what kind of people or jobs you look for on odesk to find good people to provide the names and emails for you? I’ve always done this on my own but it takes up so much of my time that if I could find someone who’s excellent at finding them, it would help take my outreach to a new level.
Gerard, you can literally find anyone to do anything on those sites.
Hi Neil, thanks very much for this great suggestions on how to get leads and links. Really awsome information bites you are sharing here. There are manny crappy wsos that cost some money and are not providing the info you gaive away here for free thanks so much.
Glad I could provide what you need. I think information should be free, most times.