Sending an email to webmasters asking for a link to your web site is also an option to gain more incoming links. But sending an email with text such as the following will not get you a link from my site.
- Hello,
- I have found your web site really informative and I think that my web site http://www.example.com could also be of benefit to your visitors.
- Please consider placing a link on your web site and send me the page with that link and I will link back to you.
- With kind regards,
- Webmaster of http://www.example.com
So, what is wrong with such a request. You don't use the name of the webmaster or company involved. You don't show that you really visited the site and read some articles. You don't talk about the topics and benefits that visitors might find on your site. You request a link back before you consider placing the site link on your site (a dead give away of non-relevance, otherwise you would have linked to the site already).
You ask for a confirmation of the placed link, which tells me that you don't check the site and you don't have your analytics in order. You don't give out real contact information. Emails such as this look like they may have been sent out by a "link building company" that will spam all webmasters of sites that might be remotely considered "on topic" to your site.
So, don't buy into those services unless you are sure that they know how to do it right. Also include a so called "anti-spam" option in your contract with them to make sure they don't spam, otherwise your carefully built reputation may be shattered to bits.
A better request could have been, for example:
- Dear Mr Boulden,
- I really liked reading your web site and particularly your page on xeriscaping. We have a web site on which we write about the elements used in xeriscaping that might be of value to your readers.
- It contains information about structure and placement of those elements and some reviews of pro and cons of the materials used. You can read it athttp://www. cblandscapegardening.com/garden-design/xeriscaping.html.
- I hope you would consider linking to it from your pagehttp://www.the-landscape-design-site.com/xeriscaping.html
- Maybe you could use this description and code:
- Xeriscape garden elements
- Materials and elements to use an xeriscape garden
- I hope you find the information on our site of value and would consider a link from your site as a privilege.
- Please contact me if you have any questions.
- With kind regards,
- Herbert-Jan van Dinther
- Director of Crazy Beez Landscape Gardeners
http://www.cblandscapegardening.com
Email:<[email protected]>
As you learned in our mail example, there are some things that you can do to get a conversation going with another webmaster within your niche to get a link.
- Use the real name or company name:
It is much better if you use a real name or company name in your email, it shows that your are really interested in the content of his/her web site and you took the time to get the information.
In most of the web sites you can look for a contact page and see if it's stated there. Otherwise, check if you can find the information on http://www.whois.net/, where you fill in the domain name and voila and you get the information. (In some cases you don't get it because of privacy settings from the hosting/domain provider.)
- Show that you really visited the site:
This is key to your success and you have to read some of the articles. There must be some articles that you like, otherwise you wouldn't even contact the webmaster to get a link on that site. In your mail you can quote some of those articles, link to them, and give some good quality comment on those articles (short please! You don't want to over do it).
- Tell the site owner about the topics of your articles and benefits to their the visitors:
Showing that there are real articles on your site, related to the topic of the site you want the link from, will create curiosity from the other party to check out your web site. Your web site content needs to be "link worthy" for them to host the link on their pages.
At this point you should include the URL of your web site and you should do this by sending a link such as "Target Keyword and Domain" so that they can easily copy the link into their site and you have some control over the keywords used in the link to your site. This means, you have to provide them with a predefined HTML code that is ready to copy and paste, to make it easy for them to create the link to your site. For example, the HTML code would look like:
<a href=" http://www.cblandscapegardening.com/">Landscape Gardeners Los Banos </a>If you don't, you will probably end up with http://www.example.com, which is not as good as a link with the keywords in it.
- Put up a link first:
When you send a request to get a link to your web site, make sure you have a link to the other site on your web site. Also, make sure you clicked on that link to go to their site.
It will show up in their statistics and they might even have checked out your site before you send the request.
- Close your mail by giving out real contact information:
Putting the real contact information in the request mail gives you credibility and shows that you are really looking for a conversation with the other party.
If they have a question for you, they can easily contact you.
- Getting the link:
You send out the mails to the webmasters and you are awaiting a stream of relevant incoming links.
Don't be disappointed if it doesn't work right away. If it is a popular web site, emails for link requests will be coming in all the time, so it might take some time for the webmaster to get to your request. Some people are very picky when it comes to linking out to other web sites (I am), because they really want them to fit into the interest of the targeted audience of their web site.
If you don't get any response, try again in a couple of months and after that next year. Don't start spamming to get your link, it's a sure way of not getting it. The success rate of such link requests are really dependent on the kind of niche you are working in. If it is a high competition niche, you have to work harder and still you cannot expect a high success rate.