Do’s and Don’ts of Link Outreach

For a business to succeed globally, it is important to have a strong online presence and for that effective SEO is necessary. The prime goal of any company or business appearing online is to get high traffic on its website, as it is important to generate leads, convert them into sales, and ensure good brand awareness. SEO is not just an acronym, rather it is much more than that. It includes many more important factors that work together to bring traffic on your website and help it gain high SERP ranking. 

One of the factors that SEO works upon is link outreach and it is an essential one as well. For bringing targeted traffic on your website, it is necessary to have genuine & quality links. Let us dive deep into what link outreach is. 

What is link outreach?

Link outreach is a method by which businesses aim to build relevant and high authority links. Often confused with link building, link outreach is one of the ways by which link-building is done. There are number of methods by which businesses can outreach. 

• Email outreach

It is one of the most popular and most widely used methods of link outreach that businesses adopt. It is done by directly mailing to targeted the segment and requesting them to link back to your website. Email outreach is also a strategy to generate leads, promote your products & services, and build a strong network. One of the key things while trying out this method is to create personalized messages. 

• Influencer outreach

Another method by which you can get backlinks is by finding and targeting bloggers and other relevant websites. You can offer them a well-researched and unique content and in return, you can request them to give a link back to your website or a specific webpage. 

• Social media outreach

Social media has become an important part of the digital marketing strategy of businesses and it has always delivered well. This is the reason why every business wants to be on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, & Twitter. Building a good relationship with the audience here will have a huge impact and it will show up in the long-run. Create engaging and attractive content for posting it on social media to get the attention you want. 

• PR outreach

Getting mentions in popular and trusted journals & blogs holds much more value than that of getting links in other ones. PR outreach strategy works towards building good relationships with quality journalists & bloggers and convincing them to mention your brand. Even if you managed to get one or two top quality links, it can do wonders for you. 

Adopting these four link outreach strategies will help bring genuine & quality traffic on your website and will create a strong network of links. Link outreach has also shown to speed up the process of getting links. 

Now, to ensure the effectiveness of link outreach, you must know what to do and what not to do. We will touch upon several factors that require attention during the outreach. 

Do’s of the link outreach

• Quality content

No one wants to post crap on their website and neither would you. So, the first and foremost thing that should be considered while doing outreach is to create unique, relevant, and well-researched content. You will only be able to get a backlink from a trusted and popular source when your content will add value to it. 

Another important point you must keep in mind while preparing the quality content is to avoid being promotional. No one will promote your brand on their website, thus the content you write must be non-branded & non-promotional and it should be informative. Try adding quality images, infographics, and videos for better results. 

• Quality links

Building links never mean that you outreach anyone willing to provide you a link. It is important to know that not all links work well and not all will provide you the authority you are looking on the search engine. While doing outreach, be it email, social media, or influencer, it is necessary to target authoritative and relevant websites. The reason behind this is, that getting backlinks from non-relevant sites will downgrade the reputation of your brand and it could become serious. 

• Use white hat strategies

For long-term results, following webmaster guidelines is the key and you must take them seriously. Focusing on white hat link building practices is always best and they will help you go far. There is no doubt that black hat practices are tempting and might reap quick & good results, but one should not forget that using black hat practices has a high chance of being penalized by Google as well. 

While on the other hand, there is no such risk with white hat strategies and that is the prime reason why they should be considered over black hat practices. 

• Give time

No magic can help you create relevant and quality links too quickly. Link building takes time and every business focusing on creating them must consider this. It is always advised to give proper time to build links of your website and that too quality ones. One must do proper research on which website will be the best for your brand to get a backlink from. Then create effective strategies to target them and convince them to give a backlink. 

Again, convincing might take a lot of time and you will be required to create top-quality content that holds value to your business as well to the one you’ve asked a link from. 

Don’ts of the link outreach

Building links take a lot of efforts and you must be aware of the fact that it has a low conversion rate. So, never fed up and keep targeting the right segment of the audience until you get success. But in the process of getting links, it is also important to know what could hold you back and what you should avoid doing. 

• Don’t link the only homepage

You might think that getting visitors on your homepage is enough to build the reputation you want. This might be the right thinking but only getting backlinks to your homepage has a drawback. If your product is being featured in a blog or any other content that linking homepage might be inappropriate. In such a case you have to link the specific page of your website to get much more attention. Thus, it is advised to get backlinks of different webpages of your website relevantly rather than only the homepage. 

A better conversion rate is also experienced with getting links to specific pages. 

• Don’t rely completely on automation

There is no doubt in saying that automation has helped a lot in targeting the right audience and reaping benefits. But if you have completely started to rely on tools and automated templates, then stop doing that. This might result in some silly yet serious issues like sending the wrong template in email, addressing the wrong person, issues with autofill, and much more. You might lose a good link due to any of these errors. 

• Don’t ever buy links

Whether it is from a single website or multiple ones, we will never recommend you to do that. Getting genuine links is always the best and you should always focus on that. If anyhow Google finds out that you have paid links, be ready to face heavy penalties, even your website could be banned. Thus, never think of buying even a single link if you wish to receive long-term results. 

• Don’t use generic greetings

While doing email outreach, starting with sir/madam has become old-school tactics and nowadays when people are too busy, the chances of being unnoticed using such greetings are high. Before sending emails to anyone while doing outreach, it is always a good idea to know the name of the person you are contacting. Using the name of the person whom you are contacting will increase the chances of getting your email opened.

• Don’t spin one content to get posted on different sites

You must consider this point closely and follow what is written. If you have a perception that changing a few sentences or words in an article that has already been published will make it unique then you are completely wrong. Content spinning will never make it a unique one, it will still remain duplicate. Doing this might also result in the removal of the original content that you have published at first. Search engine bots will see this as a grey hat or black hat practice and your site will lose ranking or you might also face a penalty. 

• Don’t flood content during email outreach

Emails are for being short & precise and you must know this. While doing email outreach, avoid providing detailed information as people will not read it if found too wordy. Be specific and relevant, and if someone shows interest, you can further provide the details upon asking. Just try to summarize the content by including a brief introduction, why you are contacting them, and how your link will add value to their site. 

• Don’t fake

Genuineness is the key to the whole SEO process and this should also be considered during link building. While including a link in content and posting it on someone’s website, you must make sure that it will provide benefits to the visitors and solve their purpose of getting there. Another point to consider is to add relevant links. For example, if your content is related to automobile a link should be related to that only. Avoid adding irrelevant links like apparel, footwear, or electronics on your post related to automobile. Doing this will not be a good idea. 

• Don’t leave your email open-ended

We all know that the key goal of email outreach is to get relevant and quality backlinks and your focus should be there only. But while writing an email consider not to leave it open-ended. There has to be a secondary call to action to ensure a better conversion rate. What we mean by saying the secondary call to action is to tell the reader to email back for any queries, give a call on the provided number, or visit the website for further details. 

• Don’t give up

It is something which applies to everything you do in your life, never ever give up. We must remind you again that link building is a tedious and time-consuming task. Thus, if you are not getting a response after sending two or three emails, this never means you won’t get any. Keep trying different strategies but don’t give up. You have to understand that one of the most important factors in link outreach is following up. 

Conclusion

To contact the target audience, it is necessary to pitch in the right manner and at the right time. Now, when we are talking about doing right, we must know what we should do and what we should not. Similar is the case with link outreach and you should know do’s and don’ts of this link building strategy. Considering these above-mentioned points will help you out in hitting the right spot while contacting sources for backlinks. All these strategic points will deliver long-term benefits and you’ll experience this after implementing them.