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Gaining links to websites isn’t easy and is getting more difficult every day as more and more website owners are inundated with link requests – which are mostly automated.
However, it doesn’t mean you should give up altogether, but means you need to be much more targeted about who you approach and how you ask them. What’s important is to give other website owners a good reason to link to you and your efforts should be a little more successful.
Before you begin though, make sure your site is worthy of being linked to! If you’ve not updated it for a while, or still have areas under construction, then make sure you deal with these things first as you don’t want to put people off from linking to you because of a shoddy website.
You’ll then need to do some research into the type of sites you’d like links from, and possibly wouldn’t mind linking back to (after all, most other businesses you approach will probably want the link reciprocated). If you’re a physiotherapist, the type of sites who may want to link or partner with you are alternative therapists (perhaps a reflexologist or acupuncturist), personal trainers, local gyms or sports clubs etc. Not only would you like them to link back to your site, but these businesses could be potential sources of leads.
Then prepare some short descriptions of your site to send over to the website within your email, you need to make it easy for them to put your link up, so don’t expect them to think of a description for you, it probably won’t be what you’d like anyway.
When approaching the website, try and get the website owners name if possible and make the email a little more personal. Things you might like to include are a bit about your site and what services or products you provide. That you very much like their site and have perhaps already included it on your site (e.g on your links page). You then need to include the description of your site you’ve prepared and your website url.
Give them a good reason as to why they should link to you, perhaps that you could be a good source of leads for each other. Finally end the email and let them know that it isn’t an automated request and they won’t be added to any email lists.
You may never get a response from your email, but that’s just part of link building, so don’t take it personally. Whatever you do though, record who you’ve emailed and when, so that you remember who you’ve approached, and may want to repeat the email a few weeks later. As long as you emphasise what’s in it for them, you should get a much better response than many of the automated requests out there.
For more ideas on link building, you can read a post I wrote last year: Link Building Ideas
