The Link Builder’s Guide to Email Outreach

by NEIL PATEL on DECEMBER 7, 2012

One of the least sexy ways to build links is through email outreach. 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.
• Your 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 it goes:

Finding links

The easiest way to find sites that will potentially link to you is to do backlink checks on your competition. You can do so easily through Open Site Explorer.

In addition to backlink 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, 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 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. Search for 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 addresses

Now that you have a list of sites that you want to reach out to, you need to get contact information of the actual people running those websites. You can do this manually, or you can just use Mechanical Turk or oDesk.

For pennies on the dollar, you can get 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 set up your tracking. You don’t need much to accomplish 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 the tools, the one I find most useful is Yesware as 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 lower case 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 person’s name and the website name in the email so it doesn’t come off as spammy.

Here are different email templates you can use, depending on the type of outreach you want to do.

Broken link email template

You want to send this email as an independent 3rd party, and not a website owner.

Subject: there’s something wrong with your site 

[insert their first name], I was browsing your website and noticed you have a broken link.  You can find it on [insert webpage with broken link], and it’s the [insert anchor text of the broken link] link.

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 the links.

I know you are busy and probably get millions of emails a day, but I hope 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 out this email as yourself.

Subject: [insert first name of website owner], i think i’m in love with you

I hope 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. What I mean is I’m in love with your website [insert their website name].

You probably get tons of people everyday who are in love with [insert website name], so I won’t bore you with my reasons. Instead, I thought I could show you some appreciation by giving you some feedback on how you can improve your website.

1. Insert suggestion #1
2. 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 out this email 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 it goes:

I’m launching [insert your website URL] on [insert date], and I wanted to see if you wanted to cover it. Here are 2 reasons your readers would love it if you covered it:

1. Insert benefit #1
2. 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 set up a time to chat when you’re free.

Cheers,
[insert your name]

Oh… I think I 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”…, any feedback would be great.

Guest posting

You want to send out this email 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] is 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.  How about I write it for you? Don’t worry, I’m a great blogger and have had my posts featured on[insert previous guest post URL #1] and [insert previous guest post URL #2].

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 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 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:

1. Insert reason #1
2. 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

Don’t Blog Unless You Use These 11 Tools

Tool #1: Buzzsumo

Coming up with topics to write about isn’t easy. Luckily, Buzzsumo helps with the task.

All you have to do is head over to their homepage and type in a keyword related to your industry. For this example, let’s use the phrase “content marketing.”

Once you click on the “go” button, you’ll see a results’ table that looks like this:

Buzzsumo crawls the web for blog posts and indexes them all… kind of like Google. It then sorts the results by social shares and shows the posts with the highest share count at the top.

You will see what type of content has done well in the past. You can then come up with article ideas based on the list.

For example, I found that one of the most shared titles was “An Internet Marketing Education in 16 Ebooks and 20 Emails. No Charge.”

I then came up with my own variation called “Get Your MBA in Internet Marketing with These 12 Guides and 2 Courses.” People enjoyed the post, and it did fairly well. It received 285 Facebook shares and 455 tweets. That’s not too shabby for an article that took me only 30 minutes to write.

Tool #2: Quick Sprout

Did you know there is a content marketing tool on Quick Sprout? Best of all, it’s free.

To start, simply enter your URL or your competitor’s URL here. You’ll see a report that looks like this:

When you click on the “social media tab,” you’ll see a table that looks like this:

This table shows all the pages on any given domain and sorts them by social shares. This is useful because if you want to see what blog posts are working well for your competition, just put in their URLs into the tool. The table will show you their popular posts.

By analyzing your competition with the Quick Sprout tool, you’ll gain insights into what is working for your competitors and the type of content you should be producing on your blog.

Tool #3: Open Site Explorer

Do you want more search traffic? Of course, you do.

Open Site Explorer is a useful tool because it sorts all the URLs within a domain by backlinks. And as you know, the more backlinks a website has, the more search traffic it will typically receive.

This will help you get a good understanding of the blog posts on your site that are bringing you more backlinks. You should be writing more posts like those.

The tool also shows you the-most-linked-to posts on your competitors’ blogs. See what is working for them, and try to replicate that on your blog.

When doing this, make sure you don’t copy your competitor. The goal is to one up them and create a better blog post. This way, you can email all the people that link to your competitor and ask them to also link to your post.

And if you need email templates when reaching out to the sites that link to your competitor, check out this blog post.

Tool #4: Emails

Do you know what the best traffic source for Quick Sprout, Smart Passive Income, I Will Teach You to Be Rich, and Social Triggers is?

It’s email!

That’s why we all have tons of email opt-ins all over our blogs. You can use tools like Bounce Exchange and OptinMonster to create your own opt-ins.

Once you have a list, you can then email your subscribers through a service provider such as GetResponse, MailChimp, or Aweber.

If your blog makes money, you can always use a solution like Maropost. They charge a lot more, but their deliverability is noticeably higher.

As a general rule of thumb, you want to notify your list of each blog post you release. But if you release more than three posts a week, you should consider a weekly blast to avoid flooding people’s inboxes and angering them.

Tool #5: Yoast SEO

If you are going to take the time to write a blog post, you’d better take the time to ensure your blog is optimized for search engines.

Luckily for you, SEO is pretty easy when you have a WordPress blog. All you have to do is install this plugin and follow the instructions in the video below.

The cool part about the Yoast SEO plugin is that it has everything you need. From allowing you to adjust your meta tags to creating an XML sitemap, the plugin does everything for you. It is great… and best of all, it is free.

Tool #6: W3 Total Cache

Did you know the faster your website loads, the more traffic you will receive? By improving the load time on Quick Sprout, I was able to increase my traffic from 121,311 to 244,923 visitors a month.

I achieved those results back in February 2013, and my traffic since then has continually risen as I’ve improved my load time.

You can improve your load time in a few ways. One of the main ways is to pick a good host. Using WP Engine or Rackspace is a great start.

Setting up a CDN can also help. If you aren’t familiar with CDN, it’s technology that replicates your website across multiple servers across the world. That way, when someone from India comes to visit your website, they are pulling it from a server in India versus the US.

Both Rackspace and WP Engine offer CDN solutions with a click of a button, which is great.

But in addition to picking the right host, you need to ensure your website is optimized. A messy website will decrease your load times.

By using W3 Total Cache, you can optimize your blog’s code with a few clicks of a button. Just make sure you follow these instructions or the ones in the video below… and don’t worry—you don’t have to be technical to use it.

Tool #7: Google Analytics

Yes, you already know about Google Analytics, but have you directly increased your search traffic because of it?

Chances are you haven’t.

So how do you use Google Analytics to increase your search traffic? There are three specific reports you need to use. Based on those reports, you can increase your click-through rates and rankings with a few small tweaks.

Just follow the steps in this blog post.

Tool #8: Crazy Egg

Have you wondered how many people actually read your blog posts? With Quick Sprout, it used to be 40%…until I started using Crazy Egg.

With a few simple Crazy Egg tests, I was able to see how many of you scrolled down and actually read each blog post. With a bit of testing, I was able to increase the number of people who read each post by 62.5%.

How? I followed the 6 principles in this post.

Tool #9: Hello Bar

It doesn’t matter what kind of a blog you have, there is a goal you are trying to achieve. And it doesn’t have to be a financial transaction either…

From getting people to give you their email addresses to gaining more social media followers or bringing more awareness to your brand or a specific message… the possibilities are endless.

Through the use of Hello Bar, you can achieve all of the above goals plus more. How so? Well, Hello Bar places a fully customizable bar at the top of your website.

Sign up for a free account, pick your goals, and Hellobar will help you achieve them.

My favorite part about the tool is that it has A/B testing built in. So you can test different goals and see which one is yielding the best results.

Tool #10: Qualaroo

Do you want to avoid writer’s block? Qualaroo is a great tool to help you generate ideas.

It creates an unobtrusive box that allows you to ask your readers a question. You can ask, for example,

“What else would you like me to blog about?”

Your readers will tell you their opinions. The cool part about Qualaroo is that it will analyze all the responses and show you the commonalities in them. It will tell you which topic is in demand so you can blog about it.

Tool #11: Simply Measured

Simply Measured has a handful of tools, and my favorite ones are their free tools.

You can put in your social media handle in one of them, and the tool will tell you the best times for you to send a tweet or share a post on Facebook.

Their reports will break down data such as:

• The words and phrases your users want to see in social media posts.
• The time of day they use these social media platforms. This way you know when to post.
• The top users that follow you and the times when they log in.

The reason you want to use these tools is because you don’t want to tweet at 8 a.m. when all of your followers are on Twitter at 4 p.m.

Conclusion

5 Steps to Land Your Dream Clients: The 10-10-10 Strategy

Chris Johnson wrote this on Jun 18

When I started Simplifilm, I made a conscious decision to work with the best people in the world. A decision that continues to this day. And I did it.

I’ve worked with amazing people, people I picked years in advance. And some even more incredible people I never imagined. (Such as Will.I.Am, Arianna Huffington and Scarlet Johannsen—all in the same project.)

None of this was accidental. It was—and is—predicable. I call it my 10–10–10 strategy, and here’s how it works.

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Note from Chase: This is a post from Chris Johnson, one of the most inspiring business builders I know. What he gets into in this post is what I call his strategy for bringing “intention” to the sales cycle. You’ve probably heard me rant on the podcast about the amazing interview he has in Fizzle. When Chris talks, I listen. Enjoy!

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Step 1: Write down 10 people, 10 projects and 10 companies you want to work with. I have people at all levels on my list. “Salesforce.Com” is there, and so is “Clicky,” a Portland company.

Who are 10 people you’d like to work with? Maybe they wrote a book you loved, did an interview you’ve heard, gave a TED talk, are a leader in a company you admire, etc. Currently on my “10 People” list I have both Guy Kawasaki and Jon Stewart listed as people I would really like to work with.

Chris keeps his 10-10-10 board in picture form in his office.

What about companies? You want to work with people leading their field and at the center of their culture. They generally attract a high caliber of person. On my list this year was Hachette Book Group — the big publisher we haven’t worked with yet.

For your purposes, you might divide each list into 2–3 “chunks” that are based on your level currently. For example, I have people in 3 classes: realistic, reaches, and Oprah-class. A realistic get on my list is Nancy Duarte—I don’t yet know her, but eventually our paths will cross. A reach get would be Guy Kawasaki. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon is my Oprah-class get.

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Step 2: Learn all about them. This is a grind, but look:

Studying people you deeply admire has huge side benefits. Learn who they follow on Twitter and who they connect with. Learn what they are interested in. Learn what they need.

On my list right now is Apple. In order to work with Apple (and I’ve been close), I have to learn which products have the most opportunity. There’s no way I’ll be doing the new iPhone video, but there are other products and services they offer that I can have a crack at.

We have to live in the tension between opportunity (what winning this client would do for our business) and possibility (how likely it is that we could win this client). Making a video for Oprah would be a big opportunity, but it’s less likely than landing a deal through a friend of a friend.

When we learn about these people, companies and projects we can discover back roads into working with some of those dream clients.

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Step 3: Connect from the outside in.

When we study our people and companies, we will learn a ton about them. Things like who their vendors are, who they hang out with at conferences, who they pay attention to and admire. This is a whole new list of people to target as clients because you’re that much likelier to be recommended to your 10-10-10 people.

It’s an indirect route to your targets, but it is faster sometimes. Meeting a friend of the VIP and adding value could get you referred (with or without an ask) much faster than other cold tactics. Therefore, start adopting people into your network and adding value to them.

The natural outcome of adding immense value to a network is being embedded deeper within and getting referrals.

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Step 4: Make your business good enough for them.

10–10–10 will change your business. Why? Because you’ll have secret mentoring from all these people you studied. Think about the caliber of people your targets work with. Do you make things at that level? Are you easy to work with like the Apple Store? Do you know my name like my Starbucks does? Is your proposal good enough to impress Nancy Duarte (another person on my list)?

Being realistic, it’s possible to win with some ‘ghetto’ materials, but the real job is to win with amazing stuff. So, what is the next step to bring your quality up to the level of your targets?

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Step 5: Get a real win.

CAUTION: A lot of service businesses make the mistake of subsidizing rich people in hopes of a retweet. Don’t be that guy!

Here’s how I keep score on my 10–10–10 list. I get either a full price sale or a full price referral from one of the people on my list. So, when we work with someone, and get a result, it’s a win.

A discounted deal to work with someone is NOT a win. The goal of working with elite people is the ability to do great work at premium prices.

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Riches On Your Path To OZ

Now, let’s talk about something else important. Dorothy was off to see the Wizard. But, along the way she got to work with the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion. That’s 3 sales she made on her quest to sell Oz on going to Kansas.

The people you meet aren’t “first tier” people. They may not be the brainiest, heartiest or courageous… yet. But they’re the people Dorothy spent time with, grew with, overcame her fears with and were more important and more memorable than OZ was. The people my company will meet on our way to doing a Super Bowl ad are more important, more lasting and of greater consequence than the ad itself.

You can always tell if a strategy is going to be effective if it has many different ways to win, and 10–10–10 is that strategy where you have many wins to get.

Why Finding Your Niche Is Just Plain Bad Advice

Jeff Goins wrote this on Jun 24

Ask a group of pro bloggers for one tip on how to build a powerful online audience that you can then monetize into a full-time business, and they will likely all say the same thing: find your niche.

The idea is simple: it’s a big world out there with a lot of products and services that you probably don’t have the time or resources to compete with.

After all, you aren’t Apple or Coca Cola, right? So why not, instead, go for a smaller, more targeted audience. Makes sense, right?

The problem is it isn’t what people actually do. If you pay attention to those who succeed in online business, they aren’t following their own advice—not really.

Finding a niche for your potential business is just plain bad advice. Here’s why: people change, as do the niches they belong to.

In other words, if your business aspires to reach young, single moms looking to make a part-time living online, what happens when their kids grow up? Your market disappears.

But what if, instead, you didn’t do that? What if you attempted to reach a core audience but that was a little more flexible than a demographic group?

Why what people think matters more than where they’re from

In marketing, there are two ways to segment an audience:

1. Based on demographics (a person’s age, race, income, etc.)
2. Based on psychographics (their core ideas, passions, and beliefs)

The first is related more to the stage of life a potential customer is in, and the second is more about what they believe about the world. It’s their perspective.

Which one do think makes for a more powerful marketing message?

We all know people make financial decisions based on emotions. How they feel determines what they buy. So why not tap into that and build your audience around the things that matter more than anything?

The way the world has changed

Think long and hard about the last time you voted for someone in public office. Think about your favorite band or movie. Examine the motivation behind the products and services you buy—what really drives you to make decisions that you do?

Is it really based on party affiliation or genre? Is it really about what burrough you live in or what kind of region of the country you live in? Or is it something else?

Seth Godin writes in his book Tribes that we used to connect based on where we were from or what nation-state we belonged to. Even the color of our skin was a significant factor in who we associated with. Not so much anymore.

Now, the world has changed.

Technology has connected us in ways we never would have imagined. You might be friends with a hundred of people on Facebook you’ve never met and live halfway around the world. You might do business with a partner in France or outsource a project in San Francisco to a developer in the Philippines.

This is all normal now.

So why when we think of building an audience do we automatically think in terms of demographics, of finding a “niche”? Surely, we can do better.

The secret to assembling a small army of followers

Every time I open another class for my online course for writers, I get the same question:

“I’m 65 years old, retired, and finally have time to write that book I’ve always dreamed of. I’m not your usual, tech-savvy, twenty-something student. Is this for me?”

I usually laugh and reply, letting the person know my “usual student” is a 70 year-old woman in Greece. Or a 19-year old marketing consultant in North Carolina. Or a 30-something missionary in South Africa.

The truth is my tribe is eclectic. And so is yours, probably. But if I had focused solely on a certain age group or particular political view, I would’ve missed an opportunity to build the audience that has made my business possible.

So what do you do, if it’s not find a niche?

Choose a worldview.

Worldview — how a person views the world — is what makes her choose one restaurant over another. It’s what makes you justify spending three times the amount of money for one laptop over another. And it’s what makes us believe what a politician says onstage, or not.

And if you are going to carve out your own corner of the market and not only build a successful audience, but build a successful business, you’re going to have to figure out how to reach an audience that shares your worldview.

Here’s how…

How to build an audience around belief

1. Pick a fight with a commonly-held view that you disagree with. Maybe it’s global warming or the phrase “the customer is always right.” Whatever it is, don’t be controversial for the sake of creating controversy, but pick a stance that people will disagree with and stand strong.
2. Announce your view to the world. You can do this in a blog post, an online video, or even a manifesto you give away for free. Don’t charge for this; just share something powerful, something that will get people riled up, and let it spread.
3. Connect with other people who share that same view – and leverage their platforms to connect with a larger audience.

If you do this well, and if you do it enough, you will attract an audience. A quirky, eclectic one that has very little in common in terms of demographics but at the same time, feels like family.

Since this may be a new practice, here’s a formula you can follow to begin figuring out what it is you believe. Just fill in the blanks of this statement:

“Every [BLANK] can/should [BLANK]”

For example:

• Every Californian should go surfing
• Every parent should care about organic food
• Everybody can build a business if they do the work
• Every animal deserves to be treated humanely

These are statements that not everyone agrees with, which is an essential characteristic of a worldview. By definition, your worldview must not be something everyone would connect with. It must be somewhat divisive.

When you choose such a strong stance, of course you will attract critics. But you will also attract a dedicated base of followers. Your 1000 true fans. A tribe.

So what’re you waiting for?

Start sharing your worldview today, and see your tribe grow (I’d love to hear from you in the comments — tell me what you think your worldview is).

Why Finding Your Niche Is Just Plain Bad Advice

Why Finding Your Niche Is Just Plain Bad Advice: "So why when we think of building an audience do we automatically think in terms of demographics, of finding a “niche”? Surely, we can do better."



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