I'm about to send out a batch of link building e-mails to various companies within the industry i'm focusing on (Finance) Obviously the first steb to getting the link is actually having your e-mail opened and not just discarded as spam or junk. I'm toying with the following titles and was hoping to have your feedback - or ideas of even better ones: - Financial Information you’re currently showing on your website - Information your site provides - Your websites Financial content
If you're planning on sending out a form email (regardless of how well-written the subject line and content of the email are), you are pretty much wasting your time. IMO getting links is best done by: 1) Finding a site whose users you think will benefit from knowing about your site while not competing with the site in question (i.e. request links from complimentary business sites, not competitor sites). Great places to start if your site is a business site are other companies you do business with. 2) Spend time actually looking at their entire site. Make notes about things you like about it and possibly things that you noticed are wrong (like pages that are 404'ing or lack of canonical URLs, etc.) 3) Identify the pages on their site which would be most appropriate to link to your page (verify that the page is indexed already). If possible, even identify the exact sentences on those pages where they already have the words you want as link text that they could hyperlink pointing to your URL (for a contextual link). If not then at least identify the exact page(s) where you would like the link. 4) Contact the webmaster in person if local or on the phone if not. ONLY use email as a last resort. 5) Tell them you've been looking at their site. Mention specifics about the site... things that you liked... particular pages or quotes from pages... Tell them, "Oh. By the way such and such a link on this page is broken". The key is to show a genuine interest in their site and let them know you REALLY have been scowering their site. Tell them you think there would be a benefit to their users if they would consider linking to you. Tell them where you think the best place for the link would be... INCLUDE THE EXACT LINK TEXT YOU WANT! It's a LOT harder for people to say no in person or on the phone. ONLY use email as an absolute last resort. If you DO use email then include all of the info above to let them know you have spent time looking their site over. Don't use a form email that doesn't reference specific things about their site. If they have articles on their site and it's related to your site, offer to write an article or blog post for them in return for imbedding a link or two back to your site. Tell them they can launch the link in a new browser if they are worried about you stealing their visitors. IMO This is the absolute best type of link building. These types of links generally last MUCH longer, keep their punch over time (unlike blog commenting, forum sigs, article submissions, and other unnatural forms of link building), and are almost NEVER affected by anti-spam algorithm changes. I've said this 1000 times before. "Good" link builders are generally NOT technical in nature... They possess excellent sales and marketing skills as well as creative thinking skills to come up with ideas for related sites or industries that can be the source of links and the correct spin on how to sell it to them.
Canonical just bashed the nail in the wall with that (its so good it could be an ebook sold for 9.97 ) I get a lot of emails from "CARRY the content writer" "Bob the link builder" and "Sally the social bookmarking guru" but in the end they all end in the trash, granted i give them a quick read to see if the tempaltes have changed: Hi i have seen your site You will be intrested in this Enter stupid high price Enter payment b4 delievery date and no contact information and then thanking me for my time.... In fact once i replied to a person asking for a link exchnage with an opportunity to have their link in an ebook i was publishing in turn for a link within their site... i must have shocked them since i had no reply... oh well.... Oh btw the most opened title is: "Dont open this email" "Re: Link" "Re: Did you get this" "Did you get this" but i always open them.. curiosity... cat dog... u know
Thanks for the posts guys - very useful information. Even if you do a lot of research on the site, but can't call - you will still need to get your e-mail opened. What good title headings have you used in the past.
Canonical is honestly one of the best voices on D.P. IMO. I actually found myself telling another dpér to find you to get advice on a sitewide, well, canonical issue...lol....Truely great advice. Keep it up man. As for this topic, it might as well be closed because he just brought everyone to school...learn from him.
DING DING DING DING... We have a winner! Phone contact is really the ONLY way to get good links these days (with very rare exceptions, the secret of which I will keep). Also, be prepared to offer something in return, and not a reciprical link from a worthless page on a nowhere site.
I got a great one the other day that read - please read this or my wife will kill my dog? I had to click