Improve Any Link Building Strategy With One Small Change

Link building outreach is not just blasting out emails. There’s also a conversation that happens when someone emails you back with a skeptical question. The following are tactics to use for overcoming skeptical responses.

In my opinion it’s always a positive sign when someone responds to an email, even if they’re skeptical. I consider nearly all email responses to be indicators that a link is waiting to happen. This is why a good strategy that anticipates common questions will help you convert skeptical responses into links.

Many responses tend to be questions. What they are asking, between the lines, is for you to help them overcome their suspicions. Anytime you receive a skeptical response, try to view it as them asking you, “Help me understand that you are legitimate and represent a legitimate website that we should be linking to.”

The question is asked between the lines. The answer should similarly be addressed between the lines. Ninety nine percent of the time, a between-the-lines question should not be answered directly. The perfect way to answer those questions, the perfect way to address an underlying concern, is to answer it in the same way you received it, between the lines.

Common  and weird questions that I used to get were like:

• Who are you?
• Who do you work for?
• How did get my email address?

Before I discuss how I address those questions, I want to mention something important that I do not do. I do not try to actively convert the respondent in the first response. In my response to their response to my outreach, I never ask them to link to the site.

The question of linking is already hanging in the air and is the object of their email to you- there is no need to bring that up. If in your response you ask them again to link to your site it will tilt them back to being suspicious of you, raising the odds of losing the link.

In trout fishing, the successful angler crouches so that the trout does not see you. The successful angler may even wear clothing that helps them blend into the background. The best anglers imitate the crane, a fish-eating bird that stands perfectly still, imperceptibly inching closer to its prey. This is done to avoid being noticed. Your response should imitate the crane or the camouflaged angler. You should put yourself into the mindset of anything but a marketer asking for a link.

Your response must not be to immediately ask for a link because that in my opinion will just lose the link. So don’t do it just yet.

Tribal Affinity

One approach that I used to use successful is what I called the Tribal Affinity approach. For a construction/home/real estate related campaign, I used to approach it with the mindset of a homeowner. I wouldn’t say that I’m a homeowner (even though I was), I would just think in terms of what would I say as a homeowner contacting a company to suggest a real estate or home repair type a link. In the broken link or suggest a link strategy, I would say that the three links I am suggesting for their links page have been useful to me.

Be A Mirror

A tribal affinity response that was useful to me is to mirror the person I’m outreaching to, to assume the mindset of the person I am responding to. So for example, if they are a toy collector then your mindset can also be a toy collector. If the outreach target is a club member then your outreach mindset can be an enthusiast of whatever the club is about. I never claim membership in any particular organization, club or association. I limit my affinity to mirroring the same shared mindset as the person I’m outreaching to.

Assume The Mindset

Another approach is to assume the mindset of someone who happened upon the links page with a broken link or missing a good quality link. When you get into the mindset the text of your email will be more natural.

Thus, when someone responds by challenging me by asking how I found their site or who am I working for my response is to just stick to my mindset of a homeowner and respond accordingly.

And really, what’s going on is that they’re not really asking how you found their site. What they’re really asking, between the lines, is if you’re a marketer of some kind. You can go ahead and say yes, you are. Or you can respond between the lines and say that you’re just a homeowner. Up to you.

There are many variations to this approach. The important points are:

• Responses that challenge you are not necessarily hostile but are often link conversions waiting to happen.
• Never respond to a response by asking for a link.
• Put yourself into the right mindset. Thinking like a marketer will usually lead to a conversion dampening response.
• Put yourself into the mindset that mirrors the person you outreach to.

Get into the mindset that gives you a plausible reason for finding their site and the best words for asking for a link will write themselves.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Luis Molinero