How to Do Link Building Outreach in 7 Easy Steps

Email still works, and link building outreach is still the best way to find new link building opportunities, build strong relationships with their partners, and do much more.

But, not every email will help them reach this goal. Your messages should be compelling and inviting enough to make your link building partners consider the offer.

We agree this isn’t a piece of cake. People’s inboxes are bombarded with messages. Just imagine that 40% of email users have at least 50 unread messages in their inboxes.

This doesn’t have to be the case for your emails. So, you should reach out to the right people with the right offer.

But how do you do it? Don’t worry; this is exactly why we’re here: to provide you with actionable steps on building successful link building outreach campaigns.

What is Link Building Outreach?

Link building outreach is the process of reaching out to other websites and asking them to link to your website.

It is the first and most important step you should take in your link building campaign. The purpose of professional link building is to establish a strong backlink profile for your website.

How We Do Link Building Outreach: Step By Step

Now, let’s explore our tactics you can follow too to create winning outreach campaigns and build relevant backlinks for your website.

Step 1: Collect raw data

Start from a blank space. Collect a list of domains you can filter later to find the right websites for potential link building collaboration. This initial list forms the foundation for link prospecting, ensuring you’re targeting relevant and high-quality websites. 

How to do this? Well, we have two techniques that we want to share with you. First and foremost, there is Ahrefs.

Let’s imagine you need to earn backlinks for a business that provides email marketing services. Start using the Content Explorer feature and add your keyword email marketing in this format: 

inurl:https inurl:/blog “email marketing”.

We call this raw data, but you still have to use some filters. We suggest these ones:

• DR 50-85, Traffic 1000+, because this way you can find authoritative websites.
• Word count 500+ to find websites that have blog posts.
• Choose the date and language (we chose the last 12 months and English).
• One page per domain filter to get only one page per domain and get unique backlinks.
• Highlight unlinked mentions filter to find content that mentions your target keyword or brand but does not include a backlink to your website. 

Only live links filter to find content that contains live, active links.

After setting all filters, you can export data into Google Spreadsheets or other preferred formats. In fact, using Google Sheets for SEO will make managing your data much easier.

Next, we suggest using LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which is another important tool that can help you find the right link building prospects. It provides even richer data because you can get access to not only company websites but also employees’ LinkedIn pages.

You should apply several filters when collecting data from Sales Navigator, too. For example, we chose companies with employee sizes of 11-50 and 51-200. 

We suggest choosing the industry Technology, Information, and Media in this case because we want to find backlinks for an email marketing company.

Your last step should be exporting data to use later. 

Ok, there is no doubt that you need as much data as possible. But most importantly, you need clean data. For that, you need to filter the collected data. You can implement Airtable alternatives to structure and use your collected data successfully.

Step 2: Filter collected data

Let’s start understanding why we need to filter data, anyway?

The reason is simple: we provide only SaaS backlinks for our clients. So, to find them during the link building outreach process, we need to separate SaaS websites from content-only websites. These are types of websites that have one goal: to provide backlinks to another website and artificially boost search engine rankings.

At SayNine, we’ve created two bots that we use as internal tools for finding SaaS websites. We’ve “trained” them by giving several words typical of SaaS or content-only websites. SaaS websites usually have product and service pages, so if a website’s home page includes these words (product, tool, software, platform, solution), we can consider targeting them.

On the other hand, content-only websites, instead of service or product pages, have articles on general topics and cover almost every subject. Those articles typically are categorized as News, Technology, Business, Beauty,  and Sport. So, these are clear signs that tell this website is not a SaaS.

In the second step, we separate websites from the industries we would like to get backlinks from.

Now, we have a list of SaaS websites. But there is an unsolved problem. There are people behind all these websites, so how do we find them?

Step 3: Find Potential Link Building Partners

Ok, now we need to find people whom you can reach out to with your link building collaboration offer. The first step is to collect potential partners’ LinkedIn pages. When we collected data from Sales Navigator earlier, the LinkedIn pages were already part of the results, so we didn’t need to do anything extra. 

However, when we work with Ahrefs data, LinkedIn profiles are not included by default. That’s why, in this case, we use our internal bots to find and match each contact with their LinkedIn page.

Now, we need to find people – our potential link building partners. Again, our internally used bots help us. Here are the steps we take:

• We enter the company’s LinkedIn pages to find people who work there. 
• Then we filter to find job positions that we need, like SEO manager, marketing manager, digital strategist, and link builder. 
• Finally, the bot provides information about people working in the specific company with the job titles we’ve searched for.

Now, we have a list of prospects to reach out to for link exchanges.

Step 4: Guess and Validate Emails

Now, you make sure we’re reaching out to the right people. But how to do that? 

You have a person’s and a company’s name, so you can now create variations of potential email addresses by “guessing” them.

Three variables are used to create these variations: first name, last name, and company. If a potential link building partner’s name is John Smith and works for X company, the email address could be [email protected] or similar variations. There can be up to 34 such variations.

At this stage, it can be a good idea to use the Mailmeteor  Email Permutator tool, which helps you find anyone’s email address. It’s simple to use—just enter the person’s first name, last name, and company domain, and the tool will generate a list of possible email formats.

This tool is great for guessing a single email address, but for generating emails in bulk, we use our internal bot.

Now it’s time to validate all those guessed email addresses. Validating them helps reduce bounce rates, which means better deliverability and more successful link building outreach.

After creating all the versions, our bot that we use internally automatically validates them. In fact, there are many aspects you can automate, and by using link building automation, you can make the entire process much more efficient and effective.

There are two solutions that can help you validate email addresses. First, you can use the Email Verification tool from EasyDMARC, which is a popular email authentication platform. All you need is to do is add your list, and the tool will find invalid and deliverable email addresses.

You can also use Smart Chips, which are interactive elements in Google Sheets that provide rich, contextual information about people. When you type a guessed email address and apply a Smart Chip, it will highlight the name if it’s linked to a valid Google account.

Finally, after having existing email addresses in our hands, we are one step closer to a successful outreach campaign. 

To help you better understand how to identify potential link building partners and validate their contact information, check out this quick video walkthrough:

Step 5: Create Simple, But Unique Templates

Now, it’s time to create email templates that clearly convey our message, SaaS link exchange opportunities.

Next, we try to personalize our link building outreach campaigns as much as possible. For example, here we have found the best place for link insertion on a potential link building partner’s website, which makes the offer clearer for them as well.

To make your templates even more effective, consider using an AI Paraphraser tool to refine your content. This tool can help you restructure your email to make it more engaging and tailored to your audience. 

Ok, the last step should be creating follow-up templates that are unique and catchy. You need to show you are ready to discuss potential collaboration at any time if they change their mind.

Ok, the last step should be creating follow-up templates that are unique and catchy. You need to show you are ready to discuss potential collaboration any time if they change their mind.

In the next step, you can use a reliable link building solution like an outreach tool that simplifies the process by merging the tags you provide, personalizing each email by using the name in the subject line and outreach email signature, sending automated follow-ups, tracking the email sequence, and automatically updating the “status” in the spreadsheet.

Remember, the success of your outreach depends on your email content, and to make the content engaging and enhance the efforts, you can even turn to content creation agencies that provide email marketing services.

Finally, incorporating strategies like testimonial link building can further enhance your SEO outreach efforts by leveraging positive feedback from satisfied clients.

Step 6: Schedule Your Campaigns: The Mailmeteor Way

You have great templates, so it’s time to schedule them. Luckily, there is Mailmetor-a trusted and popular email marketing platform that can help you optimize your campaigns. 

All you need is to activate the Mailmeteor extension in Google Sheets. Then, on the sheet, add contact information such as: link building partners’ names, email addresses, and more. Add your templates and choose the frequency at which you want your messages sent.

Now wait and see how new link building opportunities are opening for you.

Step 7: Track Your Email Campaigns

Up to this point, you did a great job, but are your outreach campaigns bringing real results and are you on the right track? That is what you need to know. 

Luckily, with Mailmeteor you can not only optimize your link building outreach campaigns but also monitor how they are working. You can get insights on the following metrics: 

• Open rate – the percentage of people who have opened your email.
• Click-through rate – the percentage of people who clicked on the links in your message.
• Response rate – the percentage of people who have responded to your outreach email.
• Unsubscribe rate– the percentage of email recipients who’ve unsubscribed to not receive your emails anymore.
• Bounce rate- the percentage of emails that “bounced” back and didn’t reach link building partners inboxes because of several deliverability issues.

You can later download this data as Google Sheets to continue analysis and track link building outreach results directly from a spreadsheet.

Pro tip: We manually add the Interested and Not interested columns to track the percentage of people who aren’t interested in our offer and ones who become link  building partners and are ready for new link building collaboration. 

To ensure we continue receiving more of this good news, we regularly track what’s working well and what’s not. While we focus on techniques that have proven effective, we don’t like to stay in the ‘comfort zone.’

We recommend you do the same: always experiment with new techniques, such as trying different subject lines, changing your offer, and refining your approach until you can confidently say that your email outreach campaigns are powerful and bring real results.

Create Link Building Outreach Emails That Stand Out։ Tips from SayNine

There is always room for improvement and this is about your link building outreach emails as well. So, let’s uncover more techniques to secure new backlinks for you.

Create a Good Subject Line

The subject line gets you the clicks. It can take a lot of effort to create grabbing and winning cold email subject lines. 

So here are tips for writing a good subject line:

• Keep the length between 36-50 characters
• Avoid spam-triggering words (e.g. #1, best price, urgent,  100% free, etc.)
• Ask questions to make your campaign more engaging

In this example, you can see the subject line is “Your backlink is ready”, which clearly conveys what’s message is about and how the recipient can benefit from potential collaboration.

Personalize Messages

Your email should be focused on the recipient, not on you. So you need to personalize your message starting from a simple, yet important tactic – including a potential link building partner’s name in the subject line. 

Another important aspect is making sure your message is about how your offer can bring actual value to potential link budding prospects.

In addition to this, you can also use an outreach email signature to add a professional touch and provide essential contact information. Make sure to also learn how to change email signatures in outreach in case you need to update your details or branding elements such as your logo.

Keep Your Emails Clear and Concise

Your potential partners are busy building marketing campaigns and completing other important tasks, and probably don’t have time to read the long emails.

But your goal is to get a response, so make your message as clear as possible. Be concise in telling what you want from the collaboration and, most importantly, what you provide. Convey your message in just a few short sentences.

The ideal link building outreach email length is between 77 and 100 words. Use simple language and make your message readable. 

Do you have an interesting link building collaboration offer? Provide all the important details. Provide all the important details and highlight how it brings mutual value to encourage a positive response. Especially when it comes to strategies like affiliate marketing, where communication is key, mastering the art of clear pitching is important.

Do you want to contribute to a guest post with backlinks? Suggest a fit title idea in your guest post outreach to increase the chance of a partnership.

Bonus tip: Consider adding a clear and strong call to action (CTA) and using QR codes in your emails to make it even easier for recipients to engage or respond instantly.

Follow Up At Some Intervals

Maybe you created a good link building outreach campaign, but your message gets lost in the recipient’s mailbox. A follow-up is to ensure people received your email.

A follow-up is a must, yet, but there is the right balance not being too pushy. Give them time to think and reply to you. A week is an ideal wait time after your initial email to send the first follow-up message. 

Say, your initial email offered a link building opportunity; your follow-up can be a guest post proposal or another special service offer.

If the follow-up doesn’t get a reply either, check on them again to confirm they are uninterested. After the second follow-up, wait a little; no response? Say goodbye with a last email. 

It is important to let them know you won’t contact them anymore. Give it a last chance.

Include visuals

Visuals make your messages more attractive and eye-catching. The variety of visuals, illustrations, photos, gifs, charts, and graphics, let you experiment with the email and make it serve different purposes. Even by using a simple photo editor, you can experiment with different visuals.

For a successful link building outreach campaign, statistics are your best friends. Many professionals rely on analytics dashboards to gather and interpret these crucial statistics. Strengthen what you suggest with proofs of previous collaborations. Add the metrics of a website from Ahrefs before and after the link building process was completed with your other partners.

After all, link building experts would like good humor and appreciate a well-chosen visual effect. Most of the people you will reach out to will appreciate creativity, so don’t stick to a dull email, include visual effects to maximize your answer rates. Plus, use free templates to help you craft visually appealing and engaging emails without much effort.

Avoid spam filters

Any SEO link building specialist’s main concern when doing link building outreach is avoiding the spam folder.  

The must-have components for a non-spammy email are:

• Sender’s exact information
• A valid “Unsubscribe” button
• An email signature
• Avoiding ALL CAPS, exclamation marks, and link overloading
• No use of spam trigger words, such as  “free”, “win”, “limited time offer”, “Click here”.

It can be the case when you don’t have time, expertise, or resources to manage this and other link building tasks, so you can think about outsourcing to other companies.

To outsource link building means when going through the hiring process, you consider external individuals or agencies to handle various aspects of your link building: identifying potential link opportunities, conducting outreach, guest posting, broken link building, and other strategies for building links for your website. 

And hey, we offer link building services. If you’re serious about growing your business, we’d love to help. Let’s make backlinks one less thing on your to-do list!

Now, we suggest you explore some of the link building outreach templates that our team uses. Maybe they can give you some ideas on creating your own messages.

Link Building Email Template Examples

Template #1

Subject line: [Name], A-B-C link exchange opportunity 

Hey [Name],

Interested in a long-term A-B-C link exchange partnership?

I’m here with SaaS websites where you can have backlinks.

[Domain example 1]

[Domain example 2]

[Domain example 3]

Should I send over a placement suggestion?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this. 

Kindest regards,

[Your Name]

1st follow-up message

Hey [Name],

Let me remind you that my suggestion is at NO CHARGE.

Feel free to drop by, and let’s start an amazing collaboration.

Kindest regards,

[Your Name]

2nd follow-up message

Hey!  

If link exchanges are not your cup of tea, I would be happy to contribute to your blog with a unique article.

Here are some examples of articles that we wrote:

[Article example 1]

[Article example 2]

If you have any questions, just let me know—I’m here to help! 

Excited to begin whenever you’re ready.

Kindest regards,

[Your name]

Template #2

Hey,  [Name],

How about SaaS link exchanges?

We have some SaaS websites for link insertions:

[Domain example 1]

[Domain example 2]

Send me your requests if interested.

In return, I would like to have a link on your website for one of my projects

P.S. It’s free of charge, and your link will be live in 24 hours.

Best,

[Your name]

1st follow-up message

Hey, [Name]

I got some other link opportunities as well.

What about these websites:

[Domain example 1]

[Domain example 2]

We can take care of your placements if you’re short on time!

Just send me your keyword and website.

Best,

[Your name]

2nd follow-up message

Hey, [Name]

I guess this is my last follow-up.

Get back to me when you change your mind.

Template #3

[Name], Your backlink is almost live

Hey  [Name],

Let’s start your ranking journey together.

Here’s the plan⬇️

We add your link:

In this article:

 [Article example] 

With the anchor text:

In return, I’d appreciate having a link on one of your website’s blog articles.

Feel free to drop me an email if you have any questions 

Kindest regards,

[Your name]

Template #4

[Name], SaaS backlinks calling!

Hey [Name]

Ready to take your rankings to the next level?

A simple A-B-C exchange with SaaS websites can work wonders for both of us.

Here’s the plan⬇️

You add my link:

Here:  [Article example] 

With this anchor text: [Anchor text example] 

In return, I can help you to rank your target pages by having links from my SaaS websites. 

Send me an email if interested

Thanks in advance,

Best,

[Your Name]

Follow up message

Hey [Name],

I have a few more domains that could work well for your link placements:

How about these websites:

[Domain example 1]

[Domain example 2]

[Domain example 3]

If you’re short on time, we’re happy to manage the placements for you! 

Looking forward to your reply!

The Key Takeaways

Successful link building campaigns start from effective and well thought-out outreach.

We gave you a step-by-step guide to finding the right prospects from writing perfect templates. By following these tactics, there is a good chance that you get a positive reply from link building outreach.

However, if you need guidance on how to build winning backlink campaigns, don’t hesitate to contact us. We’re always happy to chat and even happier to help.

FAQ about link building outreach