I’ll stop the world and link with you

Wondering why a link builder gives a link to someone? Contributor Julie Joyce takes us through a few failures and successes that can help you better understand why people link.

I’m sure you get a bazillion emails a day. I feel like I spend half my time weeding through them because I’m afraid I’ll miss something legitimate. I might open one out of every 30 emails that come from someone I don’t recognize.

The latest outreach email that really grabbed my attention had several things going for it:

First, it was very personalized but not over-the-top stalky. I’m a huge fan of the English character Alan Partridge, and Josh (the sender) knew that from Twitter. The subject was a famous line of Alan’s (“Smell my cheese!”), and the whole email was very funny and clever.

It was obvious that he knew how to get my attention, but he did it with something other than a cash offer or a “Please please please!! Please do this!!!” rant.

See below:

kerboo

The reason for the link? It’s useful and relevant.

In an interview I did many years ago, I mentioned Evernote. I have probably linked to Evernote almost as many times as I’ve linked to actual link and SEO tools — because it is amazing. It’s something I have used for years and depend on to organize my life, personally and professionally.

evernotemention

The reason for the link? It’s useful and relevant.

Notice a pattern here?

I won’t be stupid enough to tell you that you can’t get links with boring/redundant/useless/irrelevant content. However, it’s definitely easier when you have something worth linking to, no matter how you’re going about getting the links!