Simply put, backlinks are links from one website to another. They are generally used for supplemental information purposes and to support written content. As an important ranking factor on the search engine results pages (Google, Bing, etc.), you’ll want to gain as many high-quality, genuine links leading back to your website.
You can essentially think of a backlink as a vote of confidence for your website as a trusted source of information. In this voting system, some votes count more than others. As a backlink example, gaining a link from Forbes will count a lot more than a link from someone’s personal blog.
Assessing Backlink Quality
The type of backlink (followed vs. nofollow) also has a huge impact. A followed backlink directs search engines to pass that vote of confidence, a.k.a. link equity, on to your website. Whereas a nofollow backlink will not.
So, what are the other factors of high-quality backlinks?
- Topical relevance
- Domain authority
- Page authority
- Domain traffic
- Page traffic
- The number of outgoing links
- The number of incoming links
- Anchor text
- And more.
Asking for Backlinks and Email Outreach
We’ve covered some of the important things to know about backlinks, but now you’re probably wondering “how do I start with link building?” Does outreach and email still work? How do I approach asking for a link?
Make Sure Your Content is Valuable
First, you should focus on making sure you have valuable content. Nothing will stick if your content isn’t valuable for the end user. You should ask yourself questions like:
- Is my website or content worth linking to?
- Will people find additional value or information here?
- Is there anything engaging about my content vs. someone else?
Now that you have something you think is valuable, we’ll dive into emailing and outreach.
Identify Websites You Want a Backlink From
The next stage in link building will be to research and find websites where your content will be useful. The key here is to make sure your content is relevant to the website (or webpage) and that the website has a decent domain authority (25+). Some ways you can identify websites are:
- Content explorer tools (Ahrefs and SEMRush)
- Keyword explorer tools (Ahrefs, Moz, and SEMRush)
- General searches
- Using Google search operators
Asking For a Backlink & Outreach
Now comes the hard part – cold email outreach and asking for Backlinks. To prepare for this, we suggest creating some email templates to use for different situations. You can also craft multiple templates for the same situation to test against each other. This will help you understand what resonates best and gives you the best positive response rate.
From here, figure out who’ll you will need to contact from the target website. You can generally find this information on their contact page or in the footer of the website.
The core essentials of the email should include:
- Your name and affiliation with the client/company.
- The relevancy, usefulness, and relation to their content.
- How it could tie in and provide value to readers.
Here’s an example template similar to outreach emails we’ve used before to gain a highly relevant backlink for a client:
Hi [contact name],
As I was reviewing topics in searches related to [focus area], I stumbled upon your [website or piece of content] and I found the [specific section] incredibly useful.
I wanted to reach out because I recently posted a new piece that goes into further detail about [topic]. I thought, well this would fit perfectly and provide your readers with additional relevant information!
My article is called [title – include link], and in a few points, I talk about how [main ideas from the article to provide them more context]. Let me know your thoughts on including this link.
I look forward to hearing back from you and discussing further. Please let me know if there is any other information you’d like from my end. I’m always happy to help out!
Start Building Your Backlink Profile with Efferent Media
The team of SEO experts at Efferent Media can provide your business with a detailed backlink profile and develop a link building strategy that works for your niche. We also offer content writing services to provide additional relevant content to use for outreach. Book a meeting today to get started!