How to approach a top-ranking site for backlinks

Posted by Rainer on November 26th, 2007 at 11:30am

A Google search does always bring up ten sites on the first search result page - that’s for sure. Most webmasters try to be among these first ten. But what if you can’t make it immediately. From time to time, you’ll notice that one of the high ranking pages refers to a competitor. I was asked how to approach that site owner to get a link to your own site. Here is the truth about how you may succeed in that.

I assume the site in question is a quality site. If it would sell links, then it would be obvious how to approach it… Besides, I wouldn’t approach it at all, because that would cause problems with Google. They are hunting down sites selling/buying links and demote them in search results. So… don’t do that ;).

Assumed it is a quality site, you need to provide very good reason to link to you. In my experience (being a software publisher), quality site pages ranking high in the search engines are typically reviews or articles. Most of them link to your competitor because they either

• review its site or product
• found the site or product useful and link to it as a service for their readers

In the first case, you are most probably out of luck. You may get them to review your site, too. But it is unlikely that you get them to update that other review page. Contacting them make still sense, because you never know if the new review (your ones!) will gain higher priority and jump above your competitor’s one.

The second case is much better, especially if the link to your competitor is in a list of links (e.g. “See also” resources). But even if it isn’t, you may convince the site owner that adding a link to your page may be useful for him.

And now we are at the real question - how to convince them? The most important point is that you look from their point of view. Study the page and site in-depth before you approach him. Ask yourself a number of questions:

• what is the site’s main theme?
• what is its reader base (Professionals? Folks looking for fun? …)
• what is the writing style of the site
• how frequent is it updated? (is it still alive???)
• are there any guidelines for link requests?
• is there any way to build reputation before you ask to be added (e.g. by good forum posts)?

This list is not conclusive. Try to find out as much about the site as possible. If you think it isn’t worth the time doing this, it’s probably not worth writing a link request, too.

A very important thing is if the site looks alive or not. Many high-ranking pages are quite old. The problem is that with an unmaintained site you may not have any chance at being linked at all - no matter how hard and well you try. No matter how bad you think you need a link from a specific page - you can waste a lot of time by trying to optimize for a page that will never receive an update. If I see such a dead site, I think more than twice about trying to get links from it. Most often, I decide to let it go, because there are more promising targets. In the few cases I tried it, I almost never succeeded. So you have been warned…

Then, after you know the site. Think about “How can my site provide a useful service to it?”. It probably pays to write a page specifically for that site. Try to match its audience and writing style. This is not only important for the link request but also for keeping readers in case it is granted. Try to provide supplemental information, not a duplicate about what is already on the site.

Look at your competitors site, too. Think “What made this page so appealing that it was linked?” Also ask yourself “What is my competitor missing? Which additional information I can offer?“. Again, these questions (or, more precisely, the answers ;)) should go into your custom-created page.

Now go ahead and create your page. Make sure it has unique content an is very appealing to the webmaster you ask for a link. Then, create a great letter to send to him. You probably have only one shot, so everything must be perfect on first try.

When the webmaster responds, you’ve probably won your case. Even if he doesn’t like updating the page (e.g. because it is too old, no longer relevant in his POV, or …) you may have a chance to get something out of it. First of all, you might try to lightly persuade him. For example, the “is no longer relevant” issue can sometimes be resolved by mentioning that it is a high-ranking page and thus it is relevant - you get the idea. But do not try to hard. It’s a bad idea to make the webmaster upset. In most cases, once you have a good contact, you can get him to link to your site from some other page, maybe even a new one he creates. Do not risk this by arguing too much.

As you can see, trying to get links on high-ranking sites usually requires a lot of effort and is not even guaranteed to succeed. However, if you have a great and relevant site it can be very rewarding. You do not only receive a higher ranking, you can sometimes receive many more visitors via that link. Plus, you build your reputation. So it is always worth a try!

EDIT:

I just found a perfect example of how NOT to ask for a link. I am sure you will enjoy reading that one ;).

Under linkbuilding