Let’s talk link request for a second; you found the perfect opportunity on a site that is EXACTLY relevant to a piece of content you wrote, as if the stars had aligned perfectly to bring your content and their page together. You hunt through the website to find that golden ticket of an email address to contact the site owner. Now what?
There are two key purposes that a proper link request serves:
- When written properly, it informs the person you are contacting that you have, without a doubt, took the time to look through his or her site. You have hand-selected their page to reach out to because of relevancy instead of the ol’ “Spray and Pray” method.
- A proper link request will also make it as easy as possible for that person to make a decision whether or not to link to your content or not.
An email inbox to a webmaster or owner of a site can be busy. They will go through hundreds of emails and make quick second decisions whether an email is worth opening, a good opportunity or just spam. You need to make your email stand out like a sore thumb, but in a good way. Here are 4 quick tips to a proper link request.
1. Follow any stated directions given on the site you are trying to reach out to.
- An editor in charge of evaluating and selecting links may ask you to follow specific directions when reaching out to their page. An example of this would be to title the subject line as “Request for Editorial Consideration.” A simple request can easily be missed because someone has not taken the time to carefully examine the site. This allows for easy filtration of who has looked at the site and who hasn’t. Don’t get caught slipping through the cracks.
2. Use names, site owners and yours.
- Beginning an email with “Dear Webmaster” or “Site Owner” will get you deleted before they even read your next sentence. Address this person by name immediately in your email. It a pretty simple process that goes along with looking for an email, looking for the name of the person you are emailing. Aside from using the website owner’s name, also include your own. It’s just good common courtesy, and also tells that person your human too. A good line like “Hello Mr. Scott, my name is Vince Vuong and…” goes a long way.
3. Connect the bridges of URLs.
- Use wording such as, “I really enjoyed the following content you had on your site below [URL].” Knowing their name, site and specific URL let them know you obviously have seen their site and genuinely want to reach out to them. Also specify the exact URL on your site that you think the link would fit well.
4. Use a valid email address and response to any request made to that address.
- Leaving a valid email with a call to action also backs the authenticity of the outreach instead of another spam. An example of such is “If you would like to contact me about this request, here is my personal email address to reach me at [email address].
These are quick tips to a proper link requesting, what are some of yours?
