Blog - Page 91 of 92 - Gravity Search Marketing

Sample Link Building Campaign Letter

April 8, 2006
by Gradiva Couzin

So you want to start a link building campaign? You need a good link request letter, one that’s friendly and professional, and that won’t be offensive or annoying to site owners or webmasters.

Inbound links to your website are one of the most important factors in search engine ranking algorithms today. In our book Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day, we tell the story of how one of our link requests got into the hands of a vengeful blogger, and how his attempt to humiliate us fell flat because we wrote a “bulletproof” link letter.

Here’s a sample link building letter that you can adapt to your own needs:

Dear Ms. Alphabeth, [always use the person’s real name if you have it],

I’ve greatly enjoyed looking through your pet plankton website, especially the “Plankton of the Month” photos. I have a website on a related subject and I think it might be of interest to your readers. It’s “Care and Feeding of Pet Plankton” on ZappyCo.com. This page provides a detailed plankton care plan, including homemade algae snacks, tank maintenance, and even a section on how to set up a trust fund for your plankton. The page is located at http://www.zappyco.com/planktonics [use the exact URL that you want the site to link to].

I thought a good place on your site to link from would be on your “links” page, here: http://www.planktonlove.com/links [use the exact URL that you hope the site will link from].

Here is a description that you can use if you like:

ZappyCo’s Plankton Care and Feeding Tips
Recipes, tank cleaning instructions, and tips for keeping plankton pets happy.

I hope you find this link appropriate and useful. We at ZappyCo would certainly appreciate a link from your site. Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Sincerely,
Harlan Zappy
Web Marketing Manager, ZappyCo
[Use your full name, title, and if possible, use an email address from the site requesting the link.]

What’s good about this letter? For starters:

It doesn’t employ hard-selling techniques.
It’s personal and specific. It doesn’t require any guessing or composing should the recipient want to provide a link.
It doesn’t promise a link exchange. If the link is appropriate and your site has high-quality content, you shouldn’t need a link exchange.

In Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day we give additional pointers on writing a bulletproof link letter and making your site more “linkable.” We also walk you through the steps of starting and maintaining a long-term successful link building campaign. Follow these pointers and you’ll be sure to bring in those red-hot inbound links that your website needs and deserves!

ask the experts

Does SEO Matter?

March 30, 2006
by Gradiva Couzin

mouse in maze We’ve been putting a lot of time and energy into writing Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day, and sometimes when the candles are burning low, we find ourselves asking a rather daunting question: Does SEO actually matter? Really matter? Does it have any bearing on anything more important than who makes a little bit more money here or there?

It’s easy to see how important search technology is to our society today. And clearly, the more information we have available at our fingertips, the greater need we have for good filtering (i.e., searching) capabilities. And the form of SEO that we preach is “ethical” in that it partners with the search engines, helping them find the right information and make the best choices in search.

So, yes, it does matter. Real lives can be affected by search results – believe it or not. For example, not long ago a friend of ours went googling for objective medical information about a fertility procedure, but found all the results were from websites with a religious agenda. She was so taken aback that she gave up on using the internet to learn more. A friend of ours lamented at a party that he shares a full first and last name with a registered sex offender – who outranks him on search engines. Another friend suffers because the top ranked listing for her name shows a picture of her holding a cigarette – not something she wants her very traditional family in Korea to see.

This is a time in history when many people’s view of the world comes from the top search results at the top search engines. Search results can redefine words, influence medical decisions, or virtually snuff a person, place, or business out of existence. They are often the first stop for researchers and members of the media. And how many people in the future will choose a child’s name without first searching for the name in a search engine?

It’s easy to see how important search technology is to our society today. And clearly, the more information we have available at our fingertips, the greater need we have for good filtering (ie, searching) capabilities. And the form of SEO that we preach is “ethical” in that it partners with the search engines, helping them find the right information and make the best choices in search.

Sample Link Building Campaign Letter

So you want to start a link building campaign? You need a good link request letter, one that’s friendly and professional, and that won’t be offensive or annoying to site owners or webmasters.

Does SEO Matter?

Get An Effective SEO Strategy