Link building outreach has a reputation problem. Most of the emails editors receive are generic, flattering and obviously automated, so most of them are deleted unread. That is good news if you are willing to do the opposite. The work that gets replies is not secret; it is simply slower than sending a template to a scraped list, which is why so few people do it.
The five steps of link building outreach
Joshua Hardwick’s guide to blogger outreach at Ahrefs breaks the process into five steps. They hold up well, and the order matters: each step makes the next one easier.
| Step | What it involves | Common mistake |
|---|---|---|
| Find prospects | Sites with a real reason to link to your page | Scraping every site in the niche |
| Segment them | Split by authority; Ahrefs uses “Big Fish” and “Small Fish” | One email for everyone |
| Find contact details | The person who edits the page, not a generic inbox | Writing to info@ addresses |
| Craft the pitch | Curiosity subject line, genuine personalisation | Fake flattery, no stated reason |
| Scale | Merge fields that hold real, researched detail | Generic templates sent in bulk |
Prospects and segments decide the result
The received wisdom treats outreach as a writing problem. It is mostly a targeting problem. A prospect who has no reason to link will not be persuaded by a better subject line, and a prospect with an obvious reason needs very little persuading. Spend most of your time on the list.
Good prospects come from the tactic you are running. If you are reclaiming a mention, the prospect is the writer who mentioned you. If you are replacing a dead link, it is every page pointing at the dead URL. If you are pitching a resource, it is pages that already link to similar resources. Our hub on how to get backlinks maps each tactic to where its prospects come from.
Then segment. Ahrefs splits prospects by Domain Rating into “Big Fish” and “Small Fish”. The point is not the threshold; it is that the two groups deserve different effort. A handful of high-authority targets justify a hand-written email each. A longer tail of smaller sites can share a structure, as long as the detail in each email is real.
Find the person, not the inbox
Generic contact addresses are where pitches go to die. Look for the author of the page, the editor of the section, or the person who maintains a resource list. Their name is usually on the page itself, and an author page or social profile often lists a way to reach them. An email finder can confirm the format of an address when you have a name but no address.
On small sites this is often the owner, which helps. On larger ones the author may have left, and the person who can actually change the page is someone else. A minute spent checking who edits the page now saves a pitch sent to someone who cannot act on it.
Record the contact alongside the page and the segment in the same sheet. When a reply comes back weeks later, or a follow-up is due, you want the context in one row rather than scattered across your inbox. It also stops two people on a team pitching the same editor in the same week, which is the quickest way to look like a mass campaign.
Write the pitch around a specific reason
Ahrefs defines personalisation precisely: “Personalization is tailoring the conversation for every recipient.” That is not the same as opening with their first name and a line about how much you love their blog. Fake flattery reads as fake because it is generic. The personal part of a good pitch is the reason you are writing to this person about this page.
Subject lines should make the recipient want to open the email without promising something the body does not deliver. Curiosity works; clickbait does not. Keep the body short enough to read on a phone, and make the request clear enough that saying yes takes a minute. Here is the shape of a pitch that does that:
Subject: The broken link in your keyword research section
Hi Sam, your guide to starting a food blog links to a keyword tutorial in the research section, but that page now returns an error. We published a walkthrough of the same process last month, with screenshots from the current version of the tools. If it is useful as a replacement, here it is. Either way, thought you would want to know about the dead link.
It names the page, names the problem, offers a fix, and does not depend on the link to be worth reading. That last point matters most. An email that helps even when the answer is no is the kind people reply to.
Follow up once, then stop
Ahrefs notes that many replies come from follow-ups, so send one. Keep it brief, reply in the same thread, and add something if you can rather than simply asking whether they saw your email. Ahrefs is just as clear about the other side: more than one follow-up damages the relationship. Two unanswered emails is an answer.
Ahrefs does not publish a response rate for its method, and you should be wary of anyone who quotes a universal one. Backlinko reported 17 links from 160 emails on one skyscraper campaign, but that is one campaign in one niche. Your own numbers, from your own first batch, are the only benchmark that matters.
Scaling without becoming a template
Scale with merge fields that hold researched detail: the page name, the specific broken link, the section your resource fits. Those fields take time to fill, which is the point. A template that needs no research produces emails that show it.
The same principles apply to journalist requests, where speed and specificity matter even more. Our guide to HARO alternatives covers where those requests appear now. For guest post pitches, start from a vetted list; our post on guest post targets with real traffic shows how to build one.
Track every send: who you contacted, which segment, which angle, whether they replied and whether a link followed. After the first batch, the pattern usually shows where the problem is. Opens with no replies point at the body. No opens point at the subject line or the list. Replies without links point at the page you are pitching.
The limitation is that reply rates are noisy at small volumes. A batch of twenty emails can swing widely on luck alone, so judge an angle on a few batches rather than one, and change one thing at a time. Otherwise you will never know which change made the difference.
Frequently asked questions
What is link building outreach?
Contacting the people who run relevant sites to ask for a link, with a specific reason why linking to your page would help their readers.
How many follow-ups should I send?
One. Ahrefs notes many replies come from a follow-up, but more than one damages the relationship.
Should I use a backlink outreach email template?
Use a structure, not a template. Merge fields should hold researched detail about each page, not generic flattery.
What response rate should I expect?
There is no reliable universal figure. Measure your own first batch and judge each angle over several batches.
The takeaway Spend your time on the list and the reason, not the wording. Find the right person, say exactly why your page helps theirs, and follow up once.
