Page 47 - The Dark Side of Back Link Building

THE DARK SIDE OF LINK BUILDING 47

How Do You Do Cold Outreach?

You have to earn links. You have to earn people’s time and attention, too.

The simple answer is that to do outreach properly, you just have to put the effort
in. You’re emailing people, remember, so treat them with respect by putting time,
research, and value into your outreach.

Step one is making sure that you have link-worthy content ready. If you’re pitching to

write something, make it a topic you can prove your expertise in.

Picking your outreach targets is the next step to approaching this strategy with

respect and executing it successfully.

Evaluate your content and decide which target audiences will respond best to it.
Then look for websites that serve those types of audiences. Segment your audiences,
choose your prospects within your segments, and then craft your outreach.

If you want to do this at scale, you can absolutely use templates. Just remember
to craft unique templates for each audience segment. That way, you don’t have to

personalize every single email, but you’ve researched to ensure that your template is
relevant to the people you’re emailing.

For relationships that you think will be particularly important, consider dropping the
templates and crafting unique outreach emails.

Relationship-building is a key component to success in any business. And many
relationships begin cold, especially online. But, if you get this stage right, you can

cultivate a network of professional relationships that you can reach out to
in the future.

You should also consider not beginning your outreach by asking for links. Focus on
creating relationships that you can leverage later. Try providing them with something

of value first! This is known as pre-outreach.