Example Link Prospecting & Outreach Emails for SEO

Updates Jan 2012

Having researched link prospecting emails for a recent presentation I thought now would be a great time to catalogue some of the SEO link prospecting emails I’ve received. These emails typical cover paid link placement and guest blogging and im’s sure you’ll agree this makes a great resource for people who are looking to improve their blogger outreach emails.

Its worth noting that I personally don’t use any of the following. They’re just there for your information.

Paid Link Outreach Emails

One that Rand liked in 2005

Hi, {name} here from the {client name} and I wanted to drop you line and just compliment your site. Nice layout, good info, good resources. I was looking around at a few different sites for realty information and I definitely thought your’s was one of the best.

That being said, I also noticed you guys have some great content related to {topic}. I currently work for a company that {details of service}, target url}. We are a nationally recognized, reliable source for {topic} on the web and I was wondering if you’d be interested in us paying to advertise via text links on your site. I realize that there are sometimes set rates/fees involved in such placement of text links so feel free to name your price.

If not, thanks for the time and keep up the good work!

Thanks,
{name}

Interesting to see that rand liked a paid link post in 2005! My, how the industry has changed ;)

Hi {name},

I work for {Agency Name}; a UK based Digital Marketing Consultancy.

We represent clients interested in social media marketing on smaller sites with little or no existing advertising and we’re currently looking for advertising partners.

We pay a fixed upfront annual fee which we will agree on with you. Once the ad is in place, payment is made within approximately 48 hours.

Would you be interested in placing a small text-based ad on {yourdomain.com}?

Kind regards,
{name}
(email}

note, this company didn’t do any research into who I was!

Bribery & Product Placement

Hi!

My name is {name} and I work at {company name}, a rapidly-growing customized apparel company. I wanted to offer you a couple free custom shirts for your blog. We can print anything you want on these t-shirts – your blog logo, a memorable quote, or a picture of a cat. You could use these t-shirts for promotion, reader giveaways, or anything else.

A bit about us: We’re a startup company located in {town, city}. We strive to provide the best quality product at the lowest price, and to make sure the ordering process is fun and easy. A few people in our office suggested I check out your blog, and I thought it was really well done and perfect for this opportunity. We rely on word of mouth and social media to market ourselves, so in exchange for the shirts, we’d love if we could have our shirts reviewed on your blog.

If you’re interested, you can reach me on the phone or just respond to this email. I appreciate your consideration and hope to be working with you soon!

Thanks,

{name}

Link Exchange

Subject: Link Submission

{target name},

My name is {name}, and I am contacting you regarding your Birding site at {target url}.

I’m working with {client}.com to announce and link a new section on their site called {title} {client} is located at {webaddress}, and the new {topic} section is located at {target url}.

Per the link request instructions on your site, I would like to request a link to our {topic} section in your Links to {title} section at {their url}.

Please let me know if the above provides you with the information you need to review and consider our new section for linking. I can be reached via email at {email address} or, if you’d like to talk about this by phone, my direct number is {phone number}.

I have also subscribed to your e-newsletter and look forward to receiving it.

Best wishes,

{name}, for {company}.com

Dear {target name},

I’ve greatly enjoyed looking through your {topic} website, especially the {target feature} feature. I have a website on a related subject and I think it might be of interest to your readers. It’s {article title} on {target url}. This page provides a detailed{topic}, including {sub topic a}, {sub topic b}, and even a section on {sub topic c}. The page is located at {target url}.

I thought a good place on your site to link from would be on your “links” page, here: {links page url}.

Here is a description that you can use if you like:

{title}
{description}

I hope you find this link appropriate and useful. We at {client name} would certainly appreciate a link from your site. Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Sincerely,
{name}

Button Bait

Hi {name},

My name is {your name} and I’m getting in touch with you regarding your {category} site/blog {site name}. I’m currently working with {client} to announce their new resource {article name}, and thought this might be of interest to you and your readers, as it provides an easy and intuitive way to {Insert Benefit Here}. You can review the article at {Insert URL}. If you find the resource to be of value to you and your readers, I’d appreciate it if you could add it to your {links page url} or announce it to your readers at your own discretion. Alternatively, you can utilize the customized badge or link code provided below:

{Insert Badge or Anchor Text Optimized HTML Code}

As someone has an interest in {Category}, I’ve signed up to your site’s {newsletter/rss} and look forward to learning more about your business. Please let me know if the above provides you with the information you need to review and consider our new section for linking. I’m available Monday to Friday 9am-5pm EST, and can be contacted via telephone at my direct line {number} and also by my direct email {name@domain.com}.

Best wishes,
{name}

More from SEOMoz (Jan 2012)

Strange how this popped up on SEOMoz shortly after i posted my original. Guess they must have checked their referrers (see link above) and copied the idea… or maybe great minds think alike lol.

Broken Link, link building

Hello NAME, I was browsing through your site/links as a NICHE SPECIFIC DESCRIPTION myself, and they’re great. ONE/TWO SENTENCES TAILORED TO

SAID WEBSITE.

I’m contacting you specifically because I was looking through your links and I noticed a few broken ones – specifically to BROKEN LINK1, BROKENLINK2.

Other than that you’ve got a great list!

I have two more suggestions for sites that were extremely helpful to me as a NICHE SPECIFIC DESCRIPTION might make good additions to your list – GREATRESOURCE and MYWEBSITE. GREATRESOURCE is a comprehenshive and entertaining resource and MYWEBSITE has some great tips for NICHESPECIFIC DETAIL. Just a thought.

Anyways, just wanted to let you know and say thanks – have a great new year!

Regards,

EMAIL NAME

Guest Posting

Hey NAME,

I saw that you’re the THEIR POSITION over at THEIR COMPANY and I wanted to get in touch. I’ve seen guest contributions before on the TOPIC blog and wanted to know if you were open to any more guest contributions. I am looking to write about something related to NICHE and thought that the topics I had in mind may go well on the TOPIC blog.

I was thinking about the following subjects:

• IDEA 1
• IDEA 2
• IDEA 3

What do you think about these? If you’re interested, I am happy to get something written up and sent over to you – or if you have another topic you’d like to see covered, I am more than happy to write on that.

Thanks,

NAME

PR

Hi ,

Don’t know if you remember me, but I’ve commented on a number of your blog posts and we’ve written a couple of posts on the (YOUR COMPANY) blog that continued discussions you’d started (I think the TOPIC post was the most recent one). I wanted to reach out to you about YOUR COMPANY, the PR/SEO startup I co-founded.

We’re now preparing to launch (DATE) and I wanted to see if we could setup a time to brief you on it. QUICK BACKGROUND ABOUT YOUR COMPANY. WHY YOUR

COMPANY IS GREAT.

Here’s the gist. You can:

• SELLING POINT 1
• SELLING POINT 2
• SELLING POINT 3

Launch is happening DATE. We’d love to find some time to show the thing to you. Are you comfortable with an embargo until TIME a.m. ET on DAY, DATE (i.e. late Monday night PT)? If so, here are some suggested times…pick your poison ;)

• TIME OPTION 1
• TIME OPTION 2
• TIME OPTION 3

Thanks in advance.

Regards, NAME

Push Content

Hi NAME,

ONE OR TWO SENTENCES ABOUT THE PURPOSE OF THE EMAIL AND WHY YOU CREATED THE CONTENT. ALSO, WHY THEY SHOULD CARE ABOUT THE CONTENT.
The guide can be found at LINK and I’d love if you could share this with your readers and help make them aware of THE POINT OF THE RESOURCE, and how they can help. If you need any further information please let me know.
NAME

Exchange for a link (but not a link exchange)

Hi {NAME},

My name is Allie and I work with [Client] online marketing team.

First, I have to thank you for repeatedly featuring [Client] on [your blog name]. The [client] team truly loves it when their customers share their favorite looks with others on their personal blogs.

Secondly, I wanted to see if you would be interested in linking to [Client] the next time you feature one of their products. I noticed that you often mention us in your “XYZ” posts and I want to propose an idea that I think we could both benefit from.

In exchange for linking to [Client], we’d like to post a Tweet about your blog sometime within the next week. As you may know, we have over x followers, so the opportunity for exposure is pretty grand. You’d also be helping our team out by sending your readers directly to our site when they see a product they like.

Let me know if you’re interested in this idea, and hopefully we can find some way to work together!

Thanks again for all your support and Happy New Year!

Incentivized Reviews for Ecommerce

Subject: Merrrrrrry Christmas! Wait, too early….?

Body:

Hi [Name],

My name is {yourname}, and I work with [client] web promotions team. I came across [blog name] and wanted to see if you were interested in working with us. Our site, [client] has over 48,000 custom [product] designs across 113 categories. We were inspired by [something about their site], and seeing as how you love the holidays just as much as we do we’d like to provide you with 5 free Christmas cards for a product review on [URL].

You can either design these cards yourself with your own photos and text or select one from our already pre-designed cards – regardless we’ll be crediting you with free shipping. Please let me know if you are interested in this idea or if you have any suggestions of how we can collaborate on something else. I look forward to hearing from you!

Take care,

{yourname}