Just got this new study which discusses link building outreach with some very interesting take-aways. I liked this because it aligned with much advice I give my clients on internal link building activity.
The key takeaways from this study are:
- Social-based Link Building has yet to be largely adopted and therefore continues to be an opportunity for link builders that are ahead of the curve.
- A large portion of the web is not worth link building efforts because they do not pass intense algorithmic or manual review. Choose your prospects wisely based on the metrics available to you through tools like Open Site Explorer and actually visiting the site.
- Female Link Builders get better response rates, but male link builders get slightly better close rates. SEO teams should invest more resources in quality training for both genders.
- Longer emails perform result in more link activations than shorter emails. Keep your outreach contextual and specific to the prospect.
- A logo is a trust signal to invest in. Phone numbers and profiles are not.
- Friday, Saturday, and Sunday prove to be the best days to send initial outreach emails. Use Boomerang to schedule.
- The late night hours are the best times to send initial outreach emails. Use Boomerang to schedule.
- Using someone’s name is far more effective than not. Use Rapportive so you can find out who the person is on the other end of that email address.
- Using a generic salutation is more effective than addressing the website if you don’t have a name, but again a specific salutation significantly trumps both.
- Be persistent to close links. The majority of closed links happen after the 2nd email.
- However if you continue on beyond the 4th your chances increase tremendously. Use Boomerang to schedule follow ups.
